A page visit does not always produce a session replay. Recording depends on workspace access, the selected audience, sampling, the daily quota and successful capture and upload. Work through these checks with a synthetic test user before changing production settings.

Start with the workspace and filters

Open Analytics, then Replays, in the intended workspace and project. Clear an old identity search and check the date filters. You can search with the test user's distinct ID rather than a real person's email.

Record the test time and time zone. If a recording once existed but is no longer available, check the workspace's replay retention policy. Changing retention now does not restore expired recordings.

Confirm recording is enabled

Ask an owner or administrator to open Recording settings and review Record new sessions. Paid plan access and recording enablement are separate: access alone does not turn recording on. Active trials enable recording automatically, subject to eligibility and other controls.

If Recording settings is missing, check permissions and the controls available in your deployed version with your workspace administrator or Userorbit support. Do not assume that a missing button means recording is disabled.

Ask your developer to check the SDK initialization too. This option disables replay for that SDK instance:

sessionReplay: { enabled: false }
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Removing a disabled setting from source is not enough if the deployed application still uses the old configuration. Verify the version and configuration actually loaded by the test browser. Repeating init() while the SDK is already initialized is not a general-purpose way to change its settings.

Check the audience, sampling and quota

Check Why a session may be absent
Audience is Saved segment Only identified users in the selected segment are eligible. Anonymous visitors do not qualify.
Sampling is below 100% Some eligible sessions are intentionally excluded. With browser storage available, the choice is remembered for the session, so refreshing it may not change the result.
Daily quota has been reached The server limits the logical sessions accepted for the project on each UTC day. Passing sampling does not bypass this ceiling.

Use a fresh, approved test session when validating a changed configuration. A 100% sampling rate does not bypass audience, quota, browser or delivery requirements. Avoid increasing production collection just to find one test replay.

See Configure Session Replay privacy and retention for the settings and worked examples.

Check browser support and requests

Have your developer open the browser's developer tools in the test environment and inspect the Console and Network panels.

  1. Confirm the Userorbit SDK and its configuration requests succeed.
  2. Check whether the separate replay recorder script loads. The recorder is loaded only when recording is eligible; its absence can be expected after an audience or sampling exclusion.
  3. Inspect failed recording-start or upload requests. Record the request's hostname, path and status code without copying credentials or private request bodies.
  4. Check any Content Security Policy errors or browser extensions that block scripts or requests. Use the failing request to identify the necessary fix; do not broadly allow every domain.

The replay runtime uses browser features including compression streams, crypto.randomUUID() and fetch keepalive support. A browser without the required capabilities will not start replay. Restricted session storage can also prevent a browser-tab identity from being created. If behavior differs between browsers, compare their versions and storage permissions with a synthetic account.

Allow the test recording to upload

Replay data is sent in batches. Keep the test page open while you exercise the workflow and allow its requests to complete. Closing a tab or losing the network during capture can leave a replay incomplete. The recorder also has duration and upload-size limits, so a long or unusually large session may end or contain gaps.

If a replay opens but has masked text or empty regions, check privacy settings first. Images and videos are blocked by the default selector list. Canvas capture and cross-origin iframe capture are disabled in the browser replay recorder. These limits are different from a failure to upload the session.

Do not unmask sensitive content to diagnose a display problem. Reproduce the issue using synthetic values and check whether a selector deliberately excludes the affected region.

Send useful support evidence

Share the workspace and project, the synthetic distinct ID, test time and time zone, browser version, installed SDK package version or script source, and the expected result. Include safe request status codes and relevant error text. If a replay exists, provide its link through your approved support channel.

Remove tokens, cookies, personal data and private query strings from screenshots or logs. A full network export can contain sensitive payloads; prepare a sanitized reproduction before sharing it.

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