Google Optimize: Unable to preview experience. Please make sure to enable cookies and restart the browser

Question

I can't preview my Google Optimize experience. Google optimize throws below error:

Answer 1

If you are using chrome then:

• Click the context menu in the browser toolbar to the right of the address bar.
• Choose Settings.
• Select/Search the "Security and Privacy" section.
• Choose "Cookies and Other Site Data" Ensure that "Allow all cookies" is selected.

Answer 2

This happens to me quite often too. The suggestion Google gives is wrong. Clearing cookies and restarting the browser does not fix it. Sometimes rebooting does, but that's a huge disruption.

What I found to work pretty reliably is to end the preview (dropdown), then click the EDIT button to go to the editor. Come back to the setup page, then try Debug again. Debugger should work again.

Answer 3

There can be multiple reasons.

Most obvious: enabled cookies like mentioned by others. should help

If it does not work even when cookies are enabled and you have restarted the browser then more chances are that the issue is in the Experience/Test that you are trying to preview. This can be due to:

1. A preview is already running in another tab. Turn off preview

2.You have set the experience to run on certain URL patterns and you are trying to preview on a page that does not qualify the criteria.

3. You have set some Audience rules which are not being met fully. For example: You have set the Audience Device type to mobile and you are trying to preview on a Desktop. Although Optimize will load the preview in a mobile mode but it will not be able to run the experience properly.

In my case the issue was due to wrong device type. I hope it helps.

Answer 4

It's also possible to get this "Unable to preview experience. Please make sure to enable cookies and restart the browser" error message if the content you're trying to modify doesn't exist when Optimize tries to modify it.

I had Optimize set to modify on page load, but the page I was working with was a form, where the text I wanted to modify didn't exist until I clicked through to the second step of the form (still on the same URL).

I was able to just run the study instead on another similar page that had all the text loaded at the start. I'd guess that setting Optimize to trigger from a custom event triggered upon loading the second step of the form instead of "on page load" would also have resolved the issue.

Answer 5

This problem is generally all about ad blockers. If you using an adblocker like uBlock Origin or adBlocker just turn it off and try again. It will solve your problem.

Answer 6

This is how it worked for me:

In Chrome go to Clear Browsing Data (chrome://settings/clearBrowserData).

Make sure you select checkboxes Cookies and Cached images and files.

Submit the form by hitting the button "Clear data".

Go to preview experience.

Answer 7

I think I've found a fix for this. Go to the top right corner of chrome (the three dots) Settings > Privacy & Security > Cookies & other data > and add the url in the bottom section called "sites that can always use cookies"

Example

Answer 8

For me it started working when I gave the Google Optimize plugin access to all pages (not just the page running the experience).