Troubleshooting and FAQs

Having trouble with surveys? Below are some tips for getting past some common issues

The most common solution is...

Update the PostHog snippet or JavaScript Web SDK

Surveys requires either the latest version of the PostHog snippet or version 1.81.3 or greater of posthog-js to be installed on your website.

We're always making improvements to the surveys feature, so you'll want to make sure that you're running the latest version.

To check the version that you're using, you can run the following in your browser console:

window.posthog.LIB_VERSION

Surveys still not showing up

If updating PostHog doesn't solve your problem, there are a few reasons why your survey might not be showing up:

1. Configuration is off

If you're not seeing any surveys, make sure that the disable_surveys SDK configuration isn't set to true.

You can read more about posthog-js configurations here.

Note: Surveys make use of feature flags internally when determining if a user should be presented with a survey. If your SDK configuration sets advanced_disable_feature_flags to true, this will also disable surveys for all users.

2. Surveys are disabled in your project or environment

Popover and feedback button surveys will not show up automatically if you have disabled surveys in your project or environment settings.

You can find this section by clicking "Settings" in the left sidebar.

3. Content security policy

When surveys are enabled, posthog-js will fetch a survey.js script from the PostHog server. It is not included in the default posthog-js installation to minimize the default bundle size.

Depending on your content security policy, this script may be blocked. If you have a default-src, script-src, script-src-elem, or connect-src directive in your CSP, you may need to ensure that PostHog domains are permitted (see CSP documentation).

If PostHog is being blocked by your content security policy, you should see an error message in your developer console with more details.

4. Proxies

If you're running behind a proxy, the /static/survey.js endpoint may be blocked. Read more about how to configure your proxy to allow this endpoint.

5. Ad or tracking blockers

Some ad or tracking blockers block PostHog from fetching posthog-js. If you're testing your app locally, you may need to disable any ad/tracking blockers that you're running in your browser.

In production, using a reverse proxy can help prevent this.

Survey response is not showing up on my [custom insight, webhook or action]

Since February 25, we changed the way that survey responses are captured. If you're not seeing them, it's might be because the $survey_response property is no longer captured.

To fix this, you need to now use the format event.properties['$survey_response_<question_id>'] to access the survey response.

For example, if your survey has a single question with the ID a3071551-d599-4eeb-9ffe-69e93dc647b6, you need to use event.properties['$survey_response_a3071551-d599-4eeb-9ffe-69e93dc647b6'] to access the response.

For custom insights or SQL usage, you can use built-in SQL function getSurveyResponse(question_index, question_id, is_multiple_choice).

• question_index is the 0-based position of the question in the survey. So the first question has an index of 0, the second has an index of 1, etc.
• question_id is the ID of the question. Optional - use if if not all responses are being shown with only the index. This takes precedence over question_index. If you use the question_id parameter, the value for question_index is ignored.
• is_multiple_choice is a boolean that is true if the question is a multiple choice question, and false otherwise. Optional, only needed for multiple choice questions. This is necessary because multiple choice questions are stored differently - as an array of strings instead of a single string.

Debugging surveys in console

Enable debugging to check the dev logs in your dev console.

You can call getActiveMatchingSurveys in your browser console to see which surveys are currently active for the user. If the method doesn't exist, it means that you're not running the latest version of posthog-js.

posthog.getActiveMatchingSurveys(surveys => console.log(surveys))

I set a survey activate based on an event, why does it show up to users who haven't sent that event?

Check your posthog-js version. If its lower than v1.143.0, please upgrade your installation of posthog-js to the latest to support event based surveys.

The event must be captured on the user's session by the posthog-js SDK.

Backend events aren't supported yet, upvote this issue if that would be useful for you.

I set a survey to be activated based on an action. Why does it shows up to users who haven't performed that action?

Check your posthog-js version. If its lower than v1.151.0, please upgrade your installation of posthog-js to the latest to support action based surveys.

Why am I getting a feature flags error on my survey?

If you're seeing: Update survey failed: Cohort with behavioral filters cannot be used in feature flags. or similar, it's because surveys are powered by feature flags for person property targeting.

Currently we do not support dynamic cohorts in flags, which is why you might see an error if setting a person property that contains a dynamic cohort in your survey. Upvote this issue if this would be useful for you.

Will I be double charged for feature flags if I use surveys?

No, you will not.