Handling Network Conflicts in Journeys when they try to access Private & Public URLs at once

Article Overview:

This article will cover how you can achieve the following:

• Resolve user-agent and HTTP proxy issues causing journey failures in Virtuoso.
• Implement best practices for network configurations to ensure smooth journey execution.

Problem Statement:

Journeys fail during Live Authoring or normal execution when navigating to specific (Private/Public) URLs, often due to user-agent filtering. Common issues include:

• "Status -1" errors during URL requests.
• Blank pages during navigation steps.
• Inconsistent journey behavior across execution modes (e.g., Virtuoso Browser vs. Cross-Browser).

Solution:

1. Workaround for User Agent Issue:

• Use a custom user-agent to bypass filtering:
  1. Start Live Authoring execution and pause the journey.
  2. Open the browser preview in advanced mode.
  3. Access the network console and override the user-agent using Chrome DevTools. Follow these steps.
• For consistent execution, consider whitelisting the Virtuoso browser user-agent with its suffix string.

2. Recommended Network Setup:

• • Separate QA and Production Environments:

    • Use the bridge for journeys targeting private QA environments.
    • Run journeys without the bridge for public URLs in production.

  • Handle Hybrid Journeys:

    • Treat journeys involving both private and public URLs as unique scenarios, Try to use different journey to handle private URL and another journey for public URL.
    • Use Flows to connect and manage these journeys effectively to work seamlessly.

Additional Notes:

• Altering the user-agent temporarily resolves the issue, but it’s not a sustainable solution.
• Ensure consistent network setups to prevent similar failures in the future.