Firebase Analytics: Setting userID to null does not clear the userID

[zmeid]

[REQUIRED] Step 2: Describe your environment

• Android Studio version: Bumblebee 2021.1.1 Patch 2
• Firebase Component: firebase-analytics-ktx
• Component version: firebase-bom:29.0.3

[REQUIRED] Step 3: Describe the problem

It is stated in the docs that setting the userID to null should remove the userID. But, it does not remove the user ID when it is set to null.

Steps to reproduce:

• Enable firebase analytics debug view
• Set user id with that method: firebaseAnalytics.setUserId(userId)
• In Firebase debug view, verify that the user ID is reported.
• Set userID to null: firebaseAnalytics.setUserId(null)
• Expected: UserID is should be cleared from user properties.
• Result: UserID remains the same as the previous value. Setting it to null does not clear it.

That's a big privacy issue. As a workaround, when user chooses to opt out from identified analytics, we set the userID to String "null". So, userID gets updated to String "null".

Some other related threads:

• setUserId(null) not working invertase/react-native-firebase#1247
• 🔥 [🐛] setUserId(null) does not work invertase/react-native-firebase#4931
• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/53077408/android-firebase-analytics-not-able-to-set-null-to-userid-and-userproperty

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[argzdev]

Hi @zmeid, thanks for reporting. I was able to reproduce the same issue. That being said, I'll notify an engineer about this.

[argzdev]

Hi @zmeid, upon investigating, it looks like the issue isn't the setUserId not working. The user id is indeed removed, but the debugView isn't showing this, so this is a UI issue. There's a similar issue in firebase/firebase-ios-sdk#4856

[zmeid]

Hi @argzdev. Thanks for quick investigation!

Should we continue to watch that issue on firebase/firebase-ios-sdk#4856?

[argzdev]

Hi @zmeid, this is currently being tracked in b/149401786. Yes, please do continue to monitor that issue as well. I'll add replies back here once we get updates. Thanks!

[mikehardy]

This came up again (third time now...) in invertase/react-native-firebase#6583
Is there any ETA on a fix for internal issue b/149401786 @argzdev ? Thanks!

[argzdev]

Hi @mikehardy, I checked the internal bug and unfortunately there hasn't been any progress. Let me bump up the internal bug to get some updates.

[mikehardy]

I just implemented a new (actually working!) stale bot on react-native-firebase and it showed me this had gone stale over there, so I'm carrying the same "is this stale? is there something to do?" message over to here. Any news ? Thanks!