Pixel Auditor/Help/DataLayer Inspector

DataLayer Inspector

The dL tab — search, expanding pushes, the pending → silent state machine.

The dL tab streams every dataLayer.push() call live. Pixel Auditor intercepts Array.prototype.push for the dataLayer specifically — every push is captured, including the ones GTM does internally.

Reading dL rows

Each row shows:

  • Index (position in the dataLayer)
  • Event name (or — if the push doesn't have one)
  • Status: pending / sent / silent
  • Timestamp

Expanding a row

Click any row to expand the JSON payload inline. The viewer is searchable (Cmd/Ctrl-F) and supports nested object expansion.

Searching the dL log

The search box at the top of the dL tab matches across event name and payload values (case-insensitive). Useful for finding a specific transaction ID or product SKU across hundreds of pushes.

Pending → confirmed → silent state machine

Pixel Auditor tracks the network confirmation for every dataLayer push:

StateMeaning
pendingPush captured, no matching network hit yet. Waiting up to 2.5 s.
sentA network hit landed within 2.5 s that matches the event by name and key parameters.
silent2.5 s elapsed without a matching hit. The push didn't deliver — usually a misconfigured GTM trigger.
why Silent dataLayer pushes are the single fastest way to find tags that look configured but aren't actually sending data. The push is there in the dataLayer, but GTM's trigger condition didn't match, so no fire.

Internal events muted

GTM emits a lot of internal events (gtm.js, gtm.dom, gtm.load, gtag.config, etc.) that are signal noise for most debugging. Pixel Auditor visually mutes these (lighter text, no expand-by-default) so your real events stand out. Click the "Show internal events" toggle in the action bar to un-mute.

Cap

The dataLayer log caps at 200 entries in the service worker state. Beyond that, oldest entries are dropped. Save the run before it caps if you need the full log.

Common debugging workflow

  1. Open the dL tab.
  2. Trigger the interaction you're debugging (click, navigation, form submit).
  3. Look for your event in the dL stream — confirms the push happened.
  4. Watch the status: pending → sent (good) or pending → silent (problem).
  5. If silent, the dataLayer push is correct but GTM isn't firing. Open GTM Preview Mode, check the trigger.
  6. If sent, switch to Live Events and inspect the network fire.