Does not work with Geolocation + Google Tag Manager

Yes, we want to ask users in GDPR area to give consent manually, and avoid tracking them and serving Google Tag Manager if they do not give consent. We want users outside the GDPR area to be served cookies and scripts without any user interaction. We are a charity and as such subject to EU Cookie + GDPR rules, but exempted from Californian & smiliar rules in USA.

Yes, region detect (both JS-based tested with Varnish, and non-JS-based tested without Varnish) break for visitors not in GDPR area. However, the reason cookies are not set is because Google Tag Manager is not loading.

Our GTM uses a page view as a trigger for loading tags. We block loading Google Tag Manager script in EU Cookie Compliance module, pending consent. This works for GDPR users, either because when they click 'Accept' that completes a page load, or at least it provides some kind of interaction GTM can respond to. Where there is no user interaction, GTM is waiting for a trigger and never gets one. After a delay it returns a 404.

The 'official' way of integrating GTM with cookie compliance modules is to use clicking 'Accept' as a trigger in GTM to trigger tags. Though not tested, I doubt this would work for non-GDPR users, because they never interact with the banner. GTM does not appear to provide a trigger which responds to setting a cookie such as the 'Accept cookies' cookie.

Our way of integrating GTM is simpler: load GTM if the user accepts, otherwise not. (To make this work, it is necessary to disable the noscript version of GTM, and to load GTM as a file, not inline). This works well for GDPR users who must click to opt in. It is not working for non-GDPR users who are automatically opted in.

The issue is unaffected by whether we user JS or non-JS geolocation. It just seems to be that users who do not interact do not provide any trigger which GTM can use to trigger tags. My (non-Varnish friendly) solution is to add a condition to prevent the module blocking GTM and other scripts for non-GDPR users, so GTM is already present once the page view completes, with the result that GTM does receive a 'page view' trigger.

I cannot think of a way to combine this with Varnish unles the Varnish geoip module is used, as the code must be un on firrst page load. Pehraps there is way.

Yes, this is still an issue. And my fix is currently working. (We have removed Varnish, and use the JS version of EU Cookie Compliance geolocation).

My fix at eu_cookie_compliance.module l.439 is as follows:

    // Add inline javascript.
    $disabled_javascripts = isset($popup_settings['disabled_javascripts']) ? filter_xss($popup_settings['disabled_javascripts']) : '';
    $load_disabled_scripts = '';
+    if ($disabled_javascripts != '' && eu_cookie_compliance_is_gdpr()) {
      ...
+    }

Not the cleanest way to do it, but eu_cookie_compliance_is_gdpr() refers to

/*
 * Custom helper function added jwb 2 June 2021.
 * Check whether user is in GDPR zone.
 */
function eu_cookie_compliance_is_gdpr() {
  $ip_address = $_SERVER["REMOTE_ADDR"] ? $_SERVER["REMOTE_ADDR"] : "";
  if (module_exists('smart_ip')) {
    $ip_info = smart_ip_get_location($ip_address);
    return isset($ip_info["is_gdpr_country"]) ? $ip_info["is_gdpr_country"] : TRUE;
  } else {
    return TRUE;
  }
}

The same issue appears on Drupal 9.

In other words, our staging and live D7 sites are working normally because of the fix in the above post. Our staging D9 site has the issue.

Steps to reproduce:

1. Set up a Google Tag Manager container where an identifiable tag (in our case Google Analytics) fires, provided the page hostname matches a regex such as .*example\.com
3. Set up a site which is loading the GTM container set up in 1., with EU Cookie Compliance set to show banner only in GDPR countries.
[ Alternatively to steps 1 & 2 above, visit an existing site set up this way, such as our D9 staging site which I mentioned privately.]
3. Have a way to identify whether the tag in question is firing. E.g. Google Tag Assistant (Legacy) Chrome extension.
4. If in a GDPR country, use VPN to connect via non-GDPR address.
5. Clear cookies in browser.
6. Visit the site.
7. Notice that the GTM tag set up to fire on page load (in our case, GA) is not loading.
8. On second page load, once the EU Cookie Compliance cookies have been set, GTM works normally and the tags fire.

I have dropped images in Slack chat showing use of Google Tag Assistant. Also have removed my hack from the D7 copy of the module on our staging site and dropped the URL in the Slack chat.

I was seeing the problem yesterday on both D7 and D9 staging sites, and cannot reproduce it today. But the problem always was intermittent. On the basis that the problem appears to be related to order of execution of async scripts, it may be worth clearing browser cache as well as cookies for testing.

It was definitely a real problem on D7 a year ago, and was messing up our GA analytics data.

I would not want you to spend time on an intermittent problem which you may not be able to reproduce. However, given the history we have with this issue, I probably will look into porting my hack in #9 to the D8/9 version of the module as a patch, unless you are able to reproduce and fix the issue.

There is a real issue here, which appears again since we launched a D9 version of the site on 13 June 2022. The site is using JS-based geolocation, with smart_ip module. The D7 site had the hack described above in #9, but the new site (a D9 clone of the D7 site) does not have that hack.

Steps to reproduce:

1.Have some method to see whether Google tag manager is loading (Could be Tag Assistant Legacy extension for Chrome, and/or Google Analytics Debugger extension for Chrome: if GTM is loading, so will GA).
2. Visit our site from Europe.
3. Clear all cookies.
4. Reload.
5. Now your Chrome extension will show Google Tags are not loading. This is correct.
6. Click "Accept" on the EU Cookie Compliance banner. Now Google Tags start loading.
7. Visit our site a second time from USA.
8. Clear all cookies.
9. Reload.
10. On first load, the EU Cookie Compliance cookies get set. However, GTM does not load. It should load.
11. Reload again. Now, with EU Cookie Compliance cookies in place, GTM and Google Analytics start working.

I can fix this by running euCookieComplianceLoadScripts(); for non-GDPR visitors. In eu_cookie_compliance.js I do

           // If not in EU, set an agreed cookie automatically.
                else {
                  Drupal.eu_cookie_compliance.setStatus(cookieValueAgreed);
                  // Set the geoip_match to false so it can be used elsewhere.
                  drupalSettings.eu_cookie_compliance.geoip_match = false;
                  // Also set all the categories as agreed if applicable, and load
                  // scripts.
                  if (!euCookieComplianceHasLoadedScripts && typeof euCookieComplianceLoadScripts === "function") {
                    euCookieComplianceLoadScripts();
                  }

This has had minimal testing, but so far it is working on a test site, & not throwing a JS error.

Patch implementing above fix. We will test it in production.

thanks!