Troubleshoot experiments

Running into issues with your experiments? This guide covers the most common problems, what causes them, and how to fix them.

Common issues and solutions

Experiment not visible after launch

If you've launched an experiment but can't see it on your website, follow these checks.

A/B testing checks

• You may have been assigned to the Control group, which shows the original page. To check, go to Customers and review the events tracked to your profile. You can also use the Chrome extension to see which events are being tracked live in the console.
• If you're in the control group, either adjust the A/B test settings or open the page in an incognito window. Incognito mode generates a new cookie each time, which may assign you to a different variant.

Settings checks

• Show on: Confirm the condition matches the page you're loading.
• Category: If the experiment is set to show only to customers with specific consent, your profile must have that consent.
• Audience: If you've defined audience conditions, confirm your profile meets them.
• JavaScript condition: If you've set a custom JavaScript condition, confirm the code behaves as expected and returns true. If the code doesn't return anything, the experiment never shows.

Experiment showed once but won't reload

• If Display in Settings is set to Once or Until interaction, the experiment won't show again after the first view. Change the setting or use incognito mode to see it again.
• If the experiment uses a specific schedule, check whether the schedule has ended.

Experiments editor won't start

• Your backend server may be stripping parameters from the URL. The editor relies on a URL parameter called exponea-editor-params to function. Make sure your server isn't removing this parameter when serving a webpage.
• Disable any ad-blocking extensions in your browser.

Visual changes not applied to the element

Visual changes in experiments are applied using CSS. Because CSS works with priorities, your changes may be overwritten by existing styles on your website.

Try the following:

• CSS priority conflict: Your experiment styles may be overridden by your website's existing CSS. Try writing a longer, more specific CSS selector for the element to give it higher priority.
• Background image or color not showing: If the element uses the picture element with multiple source elements, the new image may not display correctly. To fix this, edit the element's HTML, remove all source elements, and replace them with a single img element with the correct src pointing to your new image. This requires some technical knowledge.
• Overwritten by another experiment: Your changes may be overridden by another published experiment in your project. Check your active experiments for conflicts.
• Overwritten by JavaScript: JavaScript running on your webpage may be overwriting the changes. This can be difficult to identify and requires technical knowledge of your website.

More resources

For broader guidance on setting up and running experiments, see:

• Experiments: Feature overview, settings, and evaluation.
• Use the experiments editor: Editor interface, modification types, and selectors.