Error occurred while attempting to run 'postMessage' on the 'Window' object within GoogleTagManager

Question

Error occurred while attempting to run 'postMessage' on the 'Window' object within GoogleTagManager

Recently, I encountered an error stating "postMessage couldn't be cloned". This issue seems to be affecting most of the latest browsers such as Chrome 68, Firefox 61.0, IE11, and Edge.

Error message: Failed to execute 'postMessage' on 'Window':
function (a){if(qe.$a.hasOwnProperty(a))return qe.$a[a]}
could not be cloned.

The stack trace is as follows:

Error: Failed to execute 'postMessage' on 'Window':
function (a){if(qe.$a.hasOwnProperty(a))return qe.$a[a]}
could not be cloned.
at _reportEvent (eval at (:1:35637), :94:35)
at eval (eval at (:1:35637), :55:5)
at eval (eval at (:1:35637), :433:11)

Upon inspecting my page's source in DevTools, it appears that the code fragment originates from gtm.js:

https://i.stack.imgur.com/HU78B.png

I have Google Tag Manager tracking code implemented on my page. Why is this error occurring?

javascript error-handling google-tag-manager

Answer 1

Answer №1

It is a common occurrence when something cannot be copied using the structured clone algorithm. This algorithm is utilized by window.postMessage. If we refer to the documentation for window.postMessage, we see that the data being sent is serialized using the structured clone algorithm.

The structured clone algorithm copies complex JavaScript objects as defined in the HTML5 specification. It is used internally with Workers via postMessage() and IndexedDB for object storage. The algorithm creates a copy while keeping track of previously visited references to avoid infinite cycles.

Some things that cannot be duplicated include Error and Function objects, DOM nodes, and certain object parameters such as lastIndex in RegExp.

To prevent errors, it's recommended to use supported types listed above. For instances where unsupported types are used, like native or custom functions, a DataCloneError will occur as demonstrated in the examples provided.

If you encounter such issues in your code, ensure only supported types are included in your objects. Otherwise, contact the developers responsible for the code to address and correct any cloning errors.

In some browsers, overriding native methods may not be allowed due to security restrictions. However, there are workarounds available in certain browsers, like Chrome, by temporarily modifying the behavior of window.postMessage as illustrated in the workaround example above.

To implement this workaround, place the altered window.postMessage function script before the Google Tag Manager script on your HTML page. Alternatively, collaborate with Google Tag Manager developers to resolve the issue and await an updated script version.

Answer 2

It is a common occurrence when something cannot be copied using the structured clone algorithm. This algorithm is utilized by window.postMessage. If we refer to the documentation for window.postMessage, we see that the data being sent is serialized using the structured clone algorithm.

The structured clone algorithm copies complex JavaScript objects as defined in the HTML5 specification. It is used internally with Workers via postMessage() and IndexedDB for object storage. The algorithm creates a copy while keeping track of previously visited references to avoid infinite cycles.

Some things that cannot be duplicated include Error and Function objects, DOM nodes, and certain object parameters such as lastIndex in RegExp.

To prevent errors, it's recommended to use supported types listed above. For instances where unsupported types are used, like native or custom functions, a DataCloneError will occur as demonstrated in the examples provided.

If you encounter such issues in your code, ensure only supported types are included in your objects. Otherwise, contact the developers responsible for the code to address and correct any cloning errors.

In some browsers, overriding native methods may not be allowed due to security restrictions. However, there are workarounds available in certain browsers, like Chrome, by temporarily modifying the behavior of window.postMessage as illustrated in the workaround example above.

To implement this workaround, place the altered window.postMessage function script before the Google Tag Manager script on your HTML page. Alternatively, collaborate with Google Tag Manager developers to resolve the issue and await an updated script version.

Answer 3

Answer №2

These issues are a result of Facebook crawlers executing JavaScript code.

I have encountered this problem with the following IPs (all within Facebook's IP ranges) and user agents:

66.220.149.14 - Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:62.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/62.0
 31.13.115.2 - Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/61.0.3163.100 Safari/537.36
173.252.87.1 - Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/61.0.3163.100 Safari/537.36
69.171.251.11 - facebookexternalhit/1.1 (+http://www.facebook.com/externalhit_uatext.php)

For an updated list of Facebook crawler IPs, refer to this command from https://developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/webmasters/crawler/:

whois -h whois.radb.net -- '-i origin AS32934' | grep ^route

You should modify your error reporting system to exclude errors from these IP ranges.

This can be done on the client side in JavaScript by detecting the user's IP address during an error (see How to get client's IP address using JavaScript?).

Alternatively, you can handle this on the server side. Here is an example for ASP.NET MVC:

using System.Linq;
// Requires the IPAddressRange NuGet library:
// https://www.nuget.org/packages/IPAddressRange/
using NetTools;

public class FacebookClientDetector
{
    /// <summary>
    /// The range of CIDR addresses used by Facebook's crawlers.
    /// To generate, run
    ///     whois -h whois.radb.net -- '-i origin AS32934' | grep ^route
    /// https://developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/webmasters/crawler/
    /// </summary>
    static readonly string[] facebookIpRanges = new string[] {
        "204.15.20.0/22",
        "69.63.176.0/20",
        ...
        // Remaining IP ranges omitted for brevity
    };

    public static bool IsFacebookClient(string ip)
    {
        IPAddressRange parsedIp;
        if (!IPAddressRange.TryParse(ip, out parsedIp)) {
            return false;
        }

        return facebookIpRanges.Any(cidr => IPAddressRange.Parse(cidr).Contains(parsedIp));
    }
}

Answer 4

These issues are a result of Facebook crawlers executing JavaScript code.

I have encountered this problem with the following IPs (all within Facebook's IP ranges) and user agents:

66.220.149.14 - Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:62.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/62.0
 31.13.115.2 - Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/61.0.3163.100 Safari/537.36
173.252.87.1 - Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/61.0.3163.100 Safari/537.36
69.171.251.11 - facebookexternalhit/1.1 (+http://www.facebook.com/externalhit_uatext.php)

For an updated list of Facebook crawler IPs, refer to this command from https://developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/webmasters/crawler/:

whois -h whois.radb.net -- '-i origin AS32934' | grep ^route

You should modify your error reporting system to exclude errors from these IP ranges.

This can be done on the client side in JavaScript by detecting the user's IP address during an error (see How to get client's IP address using JavaScript?).

Alternatively, you can handle this on the server side. Here is an example for ASP.NET MVC:

using System.Linq;
// Requires the IPAddressRange NuGet library:
// https://www.nuget.org/packages/IPAddressRange/
using NetTools;

public class FacebookClientDetector
{
    /// <summary>
    /// The range of CIDR addresses used by Facebook's crawlers.
    /// To generate, run
    ///     whois -h whois.radb.net -- '-i origin AS32934' | grep ^route
    /// https://developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/webmasters/crawler/
    /// </summary>
    static readonly string[] facebookIpRanges = new string[] {
        "204.15.20.0/22",
        "69.63.176.0/20",
        ...
        // Remaining IP ranges omitted for brevity
    };

    public static bool IsFacebookClient(string ip)
    {
        IPAddressRange parsedIp;
        if (!IPAddressRange.TryParse(ip, out parsedIp)) {
            return false;
        }

        return facebookIpRanges.Any(cidr => IPAddressRange.Parse(cidr).Contains(parsedIp));
    }
}

Answer 5

Answer №3

If you find yourself feeling confused like I did while using service workers with the Workbox window, you may be experiencing a common issue. The Workbox package utilizes two sets of modules - one static set and another set nested within the main Workbox module. These internal modules call upon their static counterparts for functionality.

var payload = {key: "value"},

{ Workbox, messageSW } = await import('workbox-window'), // these are static modules that do not require a `this` context

wb = new Workbox('/service-worker.js'); // this creates a single instance that interacts with the underlying static modules

This means that instead of using

messageSW(wb.getSW(), payload);

Using

wb.messageSW(wb.getSW(), payload)

will result in an error, as it causes confusion between the cyclic service worker and the intended object literal payload. To resolve this issue, you should use:

wb.messageSW(payload);

Answer 6

If you find yourself feeling confused like I did while using service workers with the Workbox window, you may be experiencing a common issue. The Workbox package utilizes two sets of modules - one static set and another set nested within the main Workbox module. These internal modules call upon their static counterparts for functionality.

var payload = {key: "value"},

{ Workbox, messageSW } = await import('workbox-window'), // these are static modules that do not require a `this` context

wb = new Workbox('/service-worker.js'); // this creates a single instance that interacts with the underlying static modules

This means that instead of using

messageSW(wb.getSW(), payload);

Using

wb.messageSW(wb.getSW(), payload)

will result in an error, as it causes confusion between the cyclic service worker and the intended object literal payload. To resolve this issue, you should use:

wb.messageSW(payload);

Error occurred while attempting to run 'postMessage' on the 'Window' object within GoogleTagManager

Answer №1

Answer №2

Answer №3

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