Recently an annoying script error has started to pop up in the Zwift launcher, at least in the Windows version. It looks like this:
As some have found out, the error is in a script coming from Pinterest. But how can that be, and can it cause Zwift to run poorly?
To answer the last question first: No, this does not cause Zwift to run poorly.
This is because the Zwift launcher (zwiftlauncher.exe) is a separate program from the Zwift game itself (zwiftapp.exe). The launcher handles user authentication and login, then starts the Zwift game, which runs in its own process.
But why is this error appearing?
The Zwift launcher does user authentication by showing regular web pages, coming from Zwift web servers, inside an embedded Internet Explorer control. If you investigate what those pages contain you will see that they include a whole load of different scripts and tracking stuff from many different sources, including Pinterest.
The same web pages for login are also used when you access Zwift web sites such as my.zwift.com. Apparently, Zwift forgot to test that their pages also work properly in their own launcher when they updated something recently!
What can you do about it?
It is possible to change your Internet Explorer settings to block the script from Pinterest entirely, but the easiest is simply to answer ‘Yes’ to continue to run scripts. It will probably be fixed by Zwift zoon.
Note: this post originally ran on ZwiftHacks.com