Tracker.Current is not initialized for RSS page

Question

We're getting a ton of errors from an RSS page on one of the websites when bots hit it to get/parse RSS:

Exception: System.InvalidOperationException
Message: Tracker.Current is not initialized
Source: Sitecore.Analytics
at Sitecore.Analytics.Pipelines.StartAnalytics.StartTracking.Process(PipelineArgs args)
at (Object , Object[] )
at Sitecore.Pipelines.CorePipeline.Run(PipelineArgs args)
at Sitecore.Analytics.Pipelines.HttpRequest.StartAnalytics.Process(RenderLayoutArgs args)

There are thousands of errors in logs. The RSS page is fairly standard - using standard FeedDeliveryLayout.

<%@ Page Language="c#" EnableSessionState="false" EnableViewState="false" Inherits="Sitecore.Syndication.Web.FeedDeliveryLayout, Sitecore.Kernel" CodePage="65001" %>

I disabled analytics a few hours ago for this page by going to Appearance ->Tracking ->Attributes ->Settings ->Disable analytics. There are still errors in the log though.

Are there any other settings I need to change to disable analytics for this page?

Answer 1

The reason the tracker is not initialized is because it can't work with session state disabled.

As I understand, you don't want this page to be tracked anyway. To ensure that xDB tracking is disabled, just add the following code into the page:

<script runat="server">

protected override void OnPreInit(EventArgs e)
{
    Tracker.Enabled = false;
}

</script>

This way, the startAnalytics pipeline will be aborted way before the StartTracking processor, which is where your exceptions occur.

You may have to add the following lines at the top of the page:

<%@ Page Language="C#" %>
<%@ Import Namespace="Sitecore.Analytics" %>

Answer 2

The Disable Analytics option on item is used during the Processing/Aggregation activities of Sitecore Analytics, specifically the processItem pipeline.

<processItem patch:source="Sitecore.Analytics.config">
  <processor type="Sitecore.Analytics.Pipelines.ProcessItem.CollectParameters,Sitecore.Analytics"/>
  <processor type="Sitecore.Analytics.Pipelines.ProcessItem.TriggerCampaigns,Sitecore.Analytics"/>
  <processor type="Sitecore.ExperienceExplorer.Business.Pipelines.ProcessItem.InteractionValuePipeline, Sitecore.ExperienceExplorer.Business" patch:source="Sitecore.ExperienceExplorer.config"/>
  <processor type="Sitecore.Analytics.Pipelines.ProcessItem.RegisterPageEvents,Sitecore.Analytics"/>
  <processor type="Sitecore.ExperienceExplorer.Business.Pipelines.ProcessItem.SaveInitialProfilesPipeline, Sitecore.ExperienceExplorer.Business" patch:source="Sitecore.ExperienceExplorer.config"/>
  <processor type="Sitecore.Analytics.Pipelines.ProcessItem.ProcessProfiles, Sitecore.Analytics"/>
  <processor type="Sitecore.ExperienceExplorer.Business.Pipelines.ProcessItem.ProfilesPipeline, Sitecore.ExperienceExplorer.Business" patch:source="Sitecore.ExperienceExplorer.config"/>
</processItem>

The reason you are seeing the error pop-up, even on the default FeedDeliveryLayout is because of the startAnalytics pipeline. As Dmytro points out, manually setting the Tracker.Enable to false on the layout is a way of telling Sitecore to ignore tracking for that request, which checked in the CheckPreconditions processor of the same pipeline.

Interesting to note, other reasons why this pipeline would not proceed:

• Tracker.Enable is false
• SiteContext is null
• Context.Page is null
• site.Tracking().EnableTracking() isfalse`

<startAnalytics patch:source="Sitecore.Analytics.Tracking.config">
  <processor type="Sitecore.Analytics.Pipelines.StartAnalytics.CheckPreconditions, Sitecore.Analytics"/>
  <processor type="Sitecore.Analytics.Pipelines.StartAnalytics.CreateTracker, Sitecore.Analytics"/>
  <processor type="Sitecore.Analytics.Pipelines.StartAnalytics.StartTracking, Sitecore.Analytics"/>
</startAnalytics>

Specifically the StartTracking processor:

  public class StartTracking
  {
    public virtual void Process(PipelineArgs args)
    {
      Assert.ArgumentNotNull((object) args, "args");
      Assert.IsNotNull((object) Tracker.Current, "Tracker.Current is not initialized");
      Tracker.Current.StartTracking();
      Log.Debug("[Analytics]: Start tracking: " + (object)         

      ... code snipped ...

    }
  }

The Assert is Not Null is throwing the error. If you wanted to manually fix the way this reports, you could create a custom processor that goes before StartAnalytics, and instead of doing a Assert.IsNotNull at the begging, you could check for null, perform a Log.Debug() signifying that the Tracker is null here, and then gracefully abort out of the pipeline.

public class CheckNullTracker
{
    public virtual void Process(PipelineArgs args)
    {
        Assert.ArgumentNotNull((object)args, "args");

        if (Tracker.Current == null)
        {
            Log.Debug("Tracker.Current is not initialized");
            Tracker.Enabled = false;
            args.AbortPipeline();
        }
    }
}

The above custom processor is more of a fundamental example. Care should be taken. The Tracker.Current use case is utilized in a whole bunch of pipeline processors and other areas. Appropriate uses of Tracker should always include a check to ensure Tracker.Current is not null.