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[Bug]: External ID and User Tags being cleared/removed automatically #1659

@bundleberk

Description

@bundleberk

What happened?

For the past 2 weeks, we have observed a regression where identified users are being reverted to "Anonymous" status. The external_id is removed, and user tags—specifically "County" and "Language"—are being wiped.

This behavior began around mid-April 2026

1 - We suspect the SDK might be misidentifying the custom tag "Language" as the internal system property language. Is v5.5.0 inadvertently syncing custom tags into system property slots and failing to persist them if they don't match the device's locale settings?

2 - Similarly, is there a new internal logic in the User Model that treats "County" as a protected location-based field, causing it to be overwritten by the SDK's auto-detected location data?

3 - Is this a known issue on the 5.5.0 branch? Should we downgrade to 5.2.14 to avoid this new User Model behavior?

4 - Given that this started 2-3 weeks ago (during the April 15th Data Model migration), is the SDK sending an "Anonymous" heartbeat on launch that the backend processes after the login call, effectively wiping the identified session?

Steps to reproduce?

Some of our 2-3 years old subscriptions suddenly getting anonymous.

What did you expect to happen?

Once I set the external id and the user tags, I expect them to stay there forever unless I manually remove a tag or log the user out.

OneSignal iOS SDK version

Release 5.5.0

iOS version

18, 17, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11 or below

Specific iOS version

Relevant log output

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