Unrecognized “a.” and “.a” query parameter items appear when debugging mobile app

This article explains an issue encountered while debugging mobile app implementations or measurements within Customer Journey Analytics. Unrecognized query parameters like “a.”, “.a” or others that indicate the start and end of data collection may appear in the query string, but they do not contain values and are used for Lifecycle Metrics and Application Context purposes.

Description description

Environment

Issues/Symptoms

When you validate or debug a mobile app implementation or measurement, you may find some query parameter “items” that are not documented.

For example: “a.” OR “.a”  in the query parameter: a.&AppID=xxxxx&CarrierName=xxxx&DeviceName=xxxx&OSVersion=xxxx&Resolution=xxxx&RunMode=xxxx&TimeSinceLaunch=xxxx.a

For related reading, refer to Data collection query parameters.

Resolution resolution

The “a.” parameter indicates when Adobe starts the data, and the “.a” parameter indicates when Adobe finishes the data. Note that neither of these parameters contain a value. The “a” is the initial letter of the key for Lifecycle Metrics and Application Context. Besides this, you may find other parameter items that you do not recognize. These represent the “start” and “end” of the thing. Note that these do not contain any values.