Firebase AB Test has 0 users

Question

We've started an AB test using Firebase remote config. It's been over 24 hours, and it's showing "Total Users: 0" when there should have been tens of thousands of DAUs assigned to each variant.

• how long does it take for data to come in?
• is there any way to tell if it's running?
• If it remains at zero, what are the potential root causes? Why are people not being assigned to test variants?

Yl

What happens when you follow the steps to validate your experiment on a test device? Are you able to receive different variants on a test device? – Quarterstaff

@Quarterstaff nope! I get all the remote configs, including new ones I add. However, I never get the value from the AB test. – Yl

Answer 1

Found the solution. A few dumb mistakes, but they are easy to miss because the remote config works fine without fixing them.

• Ensure you upgrade Firebase SDK/pod to 4.5 or later. Earlier versions have an identical API but won't serve AB tests values (only remote config values)
• Ensure you call fetchWithExpirationDuration AFTER you call FIRApp configure
• Verify a draft AB test is working before shipping to app store. Some tips for doing this:
  • Pass 0 for expiration in fetchWithExpirationDuration when in debug mode so it's forced to fetch new values every time (it will cache by default).
  • Setup remote config in debug mode (code below)
  • Instructions from Google on how to verify: https://firebase.google.com/docs/remote-config/abtest-config#validate_your_experiment_on_a_test_device

#ifdef DEBUG
    FIRRemoteConfigSettings* remoteConfigSettings = [[FIRRemoteConfigSettings alloc] initWithDeveloperModeEnabled:YES];
    [FIRRemoteConfig remoteConfig].configSettings = remoteConfigSettings;
#endif

Yl