I’m running into a weird problem with my Google Analytics 4 setup. When I send custom events with my own event names, they show up perfectly in the debug view but completely disappear from the actual dashboard and reporting sections.
The standard GA4 events like page_view, session_start, and user_engagement work without any issues. However, my custom events just won’t appear in the reports even though I can confirm they’re being fired correctly through the debug interface.
I’m using Google Tag Manager for the implementation and have enabled debug mode through GTM. The strange part is that a few custom events do show some data but the numbers are extremely low compared to what I see in debug mode.
Another puzzling thing is that the iOS tracking works fine and shows all events properly, but the Android implementation seems to have this issue. Has anyone experienced something similar?
sounds like u might be experiencing a delay with the data processing. custom events can take some time, like 24-48 hours, to show up in your reports. also, double check that ur android setup has the same measurement id as ios to avoid mixups.
Had this exact problem last year with a client’s Android app. It’s usually the event parameter names - GA4’s way pickier about formatting on Android than iOS. Your custom parameters can’t have uppercase letters, spaces, or special characters (underscores are fine though). Also check if you’re filtering these events in your data stream settings or if there’s audience filters blocking them. Another thing - you might be hitting your daily event limit. When that happens, custom events get dropped but standard GA4 events keep working. Try making a basic test event with just a few parameters to see if it’s a setup issue or you’re just sending too much data.
Check your GTM container versions first. I’ve seen this tons of times - people test in preview mode but forget to actually publish. Your debug view shows events from the unpublished workspace while your live site still runs the old version.
Also check your event names. Android’s way pickier about reserved event names than iOS. Use a name that conflicts with GA4’s reserved events? Android silently drops them in production, but they’ll still show up in debug.
For the crazy different numbers - that’s sampling. GA4 samples mobile data way more aggressively, especially on Android. Debug view shows you everything unsampled, but your reports are sampled.
Last thing - any data filters in your GA4 property? Internal traffic filters or dev traffic exclusions might catch your Android events but miss iOS ones if they detect platforms differently.