Consent Debugger
The Consent Debugger analyzes your live site in a headless browser and produces a detailed timeline of everything that happens during page load — script loading, consent signals, cookie writes, and tag fires. Use it to verify that your consent setup is working correctly and catch issues before they become compliance problems.
This is a Pro+ feature.
How to access
- Open your site in the CookieBoss dashboard
- Navigate to the Site Detail page
- Find the Consent Debugger card
- Enter your site URL and click Analyze
Live site analysis
The debugger uses a headless browser and takes 10-30 seconds to complete. It visits your live site, so the analysis reflects your actual production environment.
What it captures
The debugger records five categories of events during page load:
Script load order and timing
Every script that loads on your page is logged with its source URL and exact timing. This reveals whether the CookieBoss consent script loads before third-party tags — which is essential for proper blocking.
Consent signal events
All gtag('consent', ...) calls are captured, including:
- Consent defaults — the initial
deniedstate set by the consent script - Consent updates — the
grantedstate after visitor consent
Cookie writes
Cookies set during page load are tracked with timestamps, showing which cookies are written before consent and which are written after. This is the most direct way to detect pre-consent tracking.
Tag and pixel fires
Network requests to known analytics and advertising endpoints are detected, including:
- Google Analytics (
google-analytics.com) - Google Ads (
googleads.g.doubleclick.net) - Facebook Pixel (
facebook.com/tr) - Other common tracking pixels
DataLayer pushes
All dataLayer.push() calls are logged, showing you exactly what data flows into Google Tag Manager and when.
Timeline view
The debugger presents events on a color-coded timeline:
| Color | Event type |
|---|---|
| Green | Consent events (defaults, updates) |
| Red | Violations (scripts or cookies firing before consent) |
| Blue | Network requests (tag/pixel fires) |
| Orange | Cookie writes |
Events are ordered chronologically with millisecond timestamps, so you can see the exact sequence of operations during page load.
Issues detected
The debugger automatically flags common problems:
Tags loading before consent
When a tracking script fires before the consent default is set, the debugger flags it with the exact timing gap. For example: “Google Analytics loaded 340ms BEFORE consent default.”
Cookies set before consent
Any cookies written to the browser before the visitor has interacted with the consent banner are flagged as potential pre-consent tracking violations.
Missing consent defaults
If the page loads without a gtag('consent', 'default', ...) call, the debugger warns that Google tags are operating without consent signals.
Banner not appearing
If the consent banner does not render during the analysis, the debugger flags it — which may indicate a script loading error, a configuration issue, or a CSS conflict.
How to use the results
-
No issues found — your consent setup is working correctly. The consent script loads first, sets defaults, and third-party tags respect the consent state.
-
Issues found — review each flagged item:
- Check your script loading order in the
<head>tag - Verify the CookieBoss script loads before any analytics or marketing scripts
- Ensure Google Consent Mode V2 is enabled if you use Google tags
- Re-analyze after making changes to confirm the fix
- Check your script loading order in the
Test after every change
Run the debugger after publishing configuration changes, adding new scripts to your site, or updating third-party tags. Even small changes to script loading order can introduce consent issues.