# Verify data is arriving

Once the tag is live, only one thing is definitive: a real event arriving. This page gives the order to look in — Realtime first, then Test installation, then the short list of things that actually stop data.

## Open Realtime first

The fastest check is the live report itself. Load your site with an empty cache — `Ctrl` + `Shift` + `R` on Windows and Linux, `Cmd` + `Shift` + `R` on macOS — then open Realtime overview in the console.

> The first hits show up in Realtime within seconds. — [analytics.adpix.io/en/realtime](https://analytics.adpix.io/en/realtime)

Three things about this screen that save time:

- Its window comes from the 5, 30 and 60 minute chips, not from the date picker. **The date picker does not apply to realtime screens** and is not even shown there.
- The page refreshes itself every few seconds; there is nothing to reload.
- The count is unique users, not events. Open ten pages yourself and you are still one active user.

If your own visit shows up here, the install is healthy and you are done. If not, go to the next step.

## Then run Test installation

This check gives the definitive answer, because instead of guessing it measures three signals separately.

1. Open Admin in the console.
2. Under the Property column, select Data streams.
3. Open your stream and click View tag instructions.
4. Click Test installation and read the result.

The same check is the final step of the guided setup. There it is shown as three indicators, and it keeps retrying every few seconds for about a minute and a half while it waits for the first event.

### The three signals

| Signal | What it measures | How definitive |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Data heartbeat | Has an event arrived from this stream's domain in the last 30 minutes? | Definitive. The only real criterion. |
| Snippet in page | AdPix fetches your domain's home page and looks for the tag in the source. | Advisory. It explains why data is not flowing. |
| Proxy health | Tag-Gateway mode only: does your metrics subdomain answer healthily? | Advisory, but if it is red that is the root cause. |

### The states and what they mean

| State | What it means | What to do |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Not tested yet | You have not run the check. | Click Test installation. |
| Receiving data | A real event arrived. The stream is stored as verified, and the last event time and a sample page URL are shown. | Nothing. |
| Proxy live — waiting for a hit | The Tag-Gateway is healthy but no event has arrived yet. | Load a page on the site and test again. |
| Tag found — waiting for a hit | The tag is in the page source but no event arrived. | Look at consent and blockers. |
| Needs attention | The metrics subdomain is not responding (Tag-Gateway mode only). | Check the CNAME record and the proxy configuration. |
| Waiting for data | Neither a tag nor an event was found. | Check the snippet on the published site. |

> **The heartbeat is scoped to that stream's domain**
>
> One property can hold several streams, and events do not carry a stream id — a stream's traffic is recognised by its **domain**. If the tag runs on a domain that is not the stream's registered domain (and not a subdomain of it), you can see hits in Realtime while Test installation still reports "waiting for data". Fix the stream's domain, or add the second domain to the cross-domain settings.

The Data streams list says the same thing per stream: either "Receiving traffic in past 48 hours" or "No data received in past 48 hours". That indicator uses the same domain logic.

## If there is still no data, check in this order

Top to bottom. Each item is more likely than the one after it.

1. **Is the snippet really published?** Look at the source of the live page, not your development environment. One template left out — a checkout page, say — is one completely invisible section.
2. **Is the measurement ID the one the console shows?** With the wrong ID, events are sent but never reach your property and nothing reports an error. The ID always starts with `AP-`.
3. **Did the consent banner reject the statistics category?** Under opt-in, no cookie is written and no event is sent until the visitor accepts. The default behaviour is closed, not open.
4. **Is your own IP excluded?** Admin → Property details → traffic filtering. Requests matching an excluded CIDR are dropped before any reporting.
5. **An ad blocker?** In direct mode a share of visitors is lost. Try once in a browser with no extensions; if it shows up there, that is the cause, and the Tag-Gateway is the fix.
6. **Does the stream's domain match where the tag runs?** The same trap as above.
7. **Is the tag installed twice?** That does not stop data, but it inflates it — if your counts look implausibly high, check this too.

The full troubleshooting path, with the symptom of each case, is in [no data arriving](analytics/troubleshooting/no-data-arriving).

## Realtime has data but the reports are empty

That is a different problem and has nothing to do with the install. Three usual causes:

- **The date range.** Reports show the selected window, and the default is the last 30 days. If you installed the tag today, switch the range to Today.
- **The property time zone.** Day boundaries are evaluated in the property's time zone, not your browser's clock. Near midnight the difference shows.
- **Excluded IP ranges.** If your office network is in the property's excluded ranges, your own visits never arrive at all. That is the usual reason a developer sees nothing while real traffic is fine.

Once data is arriving, go to [read your first report](analytics/start/read-your-first-report) to learn what each number means.

## Frequently asked questions

### Snippet in page is green but Data heartbeat is not. What does that mean?

The tag was found in your page source but no event has arrived. Three common causes; consent (under opt-in nothing is recorded until the visitor accepts), an ad blocker in direct mode, or simply that nobody has loaded a page since you deployed. Load a page yourself with an empty cache and run the test again.

### My site is behind a login or a firewall, so the snippet check fails.

That is expected. The snippet check fetches your domain's home page from the outside; if it cannot reach it, or the page is rendered in the browser, it will not find the tag. That signal is only advisory - the heartbeat is what counts. A green heartbeat means the install is correct even if the snippet check stays grey.

### I loaded my own site several times and Realtime is still empty.

Check that your IP address is not in the excluded CIDR list under Admin - Property details - traffic filtering. Matching requests are dropped before any reporting, so they never appear in Realtime either.

### When does the stream become verified?

The moment Test installation finds the data heartbeat - an event from that stream's domain within the last 30 minutes. The status is stored, so you do not have to run the test again.

## Related

- [Install the measurement tag](https://docs.adpix.io/en/analytics/start/install-the-tag/)
- [No data is arriving](https://docs.adpix.io/en/analytics/troubleshooting/no-data-arriving/)
- [Realtime overview](https://docs.adpix.io/en/analytics/reports/realtime-overview/)

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[Docs](https://docs.adpix.io/en/analytics/start/verify-data-is-arriving/) · AdPix