No `traits` on any events after updating from version 1.5.0 to 2.2.2

[Wiingaard]

After updating from version 1.5.0 to version 2.2.2, traits no longer show up the the context.traits of any event.

When inspecting track events in the online debugger context.traits is an empty object on every event, even though identify has been called prior to the events.

• analytics-react-native version: 2.2.2
• Integrations versions: @segment/analytics-react-native-plugin-amplitude-session version 0.2.1
• React Native version: 0.65.2
• iOS or Android or both? Both

Steps to reproduce

In global scope I initialize the client like so:

import {createClient} from '@segment/analytics-react-native'
import {AmplitudeSessionPlugin} from '@segment/analytics-react-native-plugin-amplitude-session'
import config from './config'

const segmentKey = config.segmentId

const client = createClient({
    writeKey: segmentKey,
    trackAppLifecycleEvents: true,
    collectDeviceId: true,
    trackDeepLinks: true
})

client.add({plugin: new AmplitudeSessionPlugin()})

export default client

Once the users successfully signs in, I call identify like so:

import Analytics from 'src/lib/analytics'
...
Analytics.identify(userId, {firstName, lastName})

When the user performs some action, I track it events like so:

import Analytics from 'src/lib/analytics'
...
Analytics.track('Banner Clicked', {
    type: 'missing_details'
})

Behavior

When inspecting the online debugger I see the IDENTIFY log like so (cut down for privacy and brevity):

{
  "anonymousId": "kM_gljge4syZRiAqGiYSq",
  "context": {
    ...
    "traits": {}
  },
  ...
  "traits": {
    "firstName": "M*** A***",
    "lastName": "W***",
  },
  ...
  "type": "identify",
  "userId": "ca5ed865-0761-4181-ae7d-c26f2a12d4bd",
  ...
}

Notice: context.traits is empty but the "traits" property is set.

On a subsequent TRACK event, I still don't see context.traits:

{
  "anonymousId": "kM_gljge4syZRiAqGiYSq",
  "context": {
    ...
    "traits": {}
  },
  "event": "Banner Clicked",
  ...
  "properties": {
    "type": "missing_details"
  },
  ...
  "type": "track",
  "userId": "ca5ed865-0761-4181-ae7d-c26f2a12d4bd",
  ...
}

Why is context.traits empty even though I did the identify prior to the tracking call?

I experience this behavior both when running on Android and iOS.

Another comment is that this used to work before I updated the library from version 1.5.0 to version 2.2.2. When looking at tracking and identify events sent from app versions that are still running the old SDK version, I see that context.traits are filled as expected. I didn't change anything on the tracking or identify events during the update. All I did was following the migration guide which updated dependencies and moved the setup to global scope.

Any help would be much appreciated.. We're doing this update because of some notice that the android library linked to the version we're currently using is non-compliant with their User Data policy. Google is prompting us to update to version 4.10.1 or we'll not be able to submit new builds, so we're a bit in a hurry here..

[Wiingaard]

I'm able to reproduce this issue on a clean installed react native app. See source code here..

This clean app is running the latest react-native 0.69.0. So that doesn't seem to be the cause either..

Notice timestamps of track and identify. Identify happens first, yet still no traits on the tracking event.

[oscb]

Thanks the report! This is confirmed a bug in v2.
We'll start working on a fix due on the next release, should be going out on Monday at the latest.

[oscb]

This was released in: https://github.com/segmentio/analytics-react-native/releases/tag/%40segment%2Fanalytics-react-native-v2.3.1

[Wiingaard]

Thanks a lot for the quick response and fix, Oscar! 🙌

I've upgraded to version 2.3.1 and verified that the traits are now sent on tracking events. It seems however that they have now been added directly to the BaseEvent instead of to the context...

It seems that traits are now sent along as parameters on each tracking event. From the debugger I see:

curl https://api.segment.io/v1/screen \
  -d anonymousId=kM_gljge4syZRiAqGiYSq \
  -d messageId=3YFSDmTEhYUeoqLx5frVm \
  -d name=BannerClicked \
  -d originalTimestamp=2022-06-27T08:39:46.605Z \
  -d receivedAt=2022-06-27T08:39:55.805Z \
  -d sentAt=2022-06-27T08:39:53.507Z \
  -d "traits[firstName]=M*** A***" \
  -d traits[lastName]=W*** \
  -d userId=ca5ed865-0761-4181-ae7d-c26f2a12d4bd \
  -d writeKey=xxx

Whereas on events from the old SDK, they didn't seem to be sent as parameters, but rather magically be attached context.traits when inspecting the Raw output.

I attempted overwriting the applyRawEventData that you edited in the fix from #581 like so:

export const applyRawEventData = (
  event: SegmentEvent,
  userInfo: UserInfoState
): SegmentEvent => {
  return {
    ...event,
    anonymousId: userInfo.anonymousId,
    messageId: getUUID(),
    timestamp: new Date().toISOString(),
    integrations: event.integrations ?? {},
    context: {
      ...event.context,
      traits: userInfo.traits ?? {}
    },
    userId:
      isAliasEvent(event) || isIdentifyEvent(event)
        ? event.userId
        : userInfo.userId
  };
};

But that also doesn't make the traits appear in the context in the debugger.

This is a problem for us because we rely on exporting data to multiple destinations in a specific format. Such as exporting context_traits_first_name to BigQuery. This will become traits_first_name after the update I assume. We also can't simply change the integration, because this will not be backward compatible with the old app versions still running the old SDK.

[Wiingaard]

This issue got closed, so I've opened a new issue here about the discrepancy between the new and old library versions..