cookie_sync responses lack UUID key - potential misconfiguration of host_cookie values?

[afsheenb]

Hello,

I have two test instances of prebid-server running; one of them returns the following in response to a POST to the cookie_sync endpoint:

{"uuid":"148781fb-96dc-4cc1-b30b-b7b71c99477f","status":"ok","bidder_status":[]}

the other returns responses without the uuid key present, e.g.

{"status":"ok","bidder_status":[]}

The only difference between the two instances is the host_cookie stanza defined in pbs.yaml; the non-working instance has the following defined:

host_cookie:
  cookie_name: uids //have tried userid and leaving key blank
  family: prebidServer // have tried adnxs, prebid, and leaving key blank
  domain: the-test-domain.com
  opt_out_url: https://the-test-domain.com/optout
  opt_in_url: https://the-test-domain.com/optin

I suspect but can't confirm that we aren't providing the correct value for the family key, after going over the logic in pbs_light.go and cookie_sync.go - but as near as I can tell from the test params in config_test.go, setting the family to prebid should be all I need to do.

I can confirm that the uuid is being passed along in the request payload, along with an array of bidders, to both test instances. As far as I can tell there are no other differences between the two instances, other than that both have different external_url's defined in pbs.yaml.

Can you provide some more detail on what sane values for the host_cookie stanza in the YAML configuration should be set to, for a self-hosted instance of prebid-server?

Thanks,

--afsheen

[dbemiller]

which version(s) of prebid server are they running?

That uuid was removed quite a while ago: https://github.com/prebid/prebid-server/pull/354/files#diff-444feda808b76687bcc8827c1025876cR234

Nobody was actually using it for anything, so we got rid of it... but it had nothing to do with the host cookie config.

[afsheenb]

!
I think I've been misinterpreting my test results then - this all started with the assumption that the first instance was 'working' and not 'extremely out of date'. After checking, the first 'working' instance was on commit e9b7bd634d781fd8d001374c76c30a97ad600907, which explains why uuid is still present in the responses.

I'm still wondering what proper values are for the host_cookie stanza, but I suspect everything is actually working and we've just been chasing our tails. Thanks for the quick response!

[dbemiller]

sure thing ^^.

If you're seeing recently problems with cookie sync, it may be due to the GDPR changes. See #501 for the root summary, and all those linked tickets/PRs for associated changes. #503 in particular might be useful, because the "falsey" config options would kill your cookie syncs if you didn't notice them.

[dbemiller]

Tough to say what proper values for host_cookie are, because it varies from host to host.

They only really impact PBS hosts who also have a Bidder in the project, though. Those config values make sure the auction can find user IDs which were already saved somewhere else in their domain's cookie.