Unfortunately, this did not help. I stripped the changes out of the after_end and end view files and observed the same behavior.
The only other things that i have activated are
1. hikashop google remarketing plugin
2. Google Analytics plugin by niche extensions:
nicheextensions.com/extensions/google-analytics
Currently, the setting inside the GA plugin uses the newest "Global sites Tag" whereas the Hikashop GA plugin only offers "universal code" and the older "asynchronous Google code". Is it possible that the issue arises from the newest "global sites tag" implementation in the Google analytics plugin? For now, i turned this option back to "universal code" to match the hikashop plugin.