Ad Redirect

[Lucas Stark]

Forum URL: gffriends.boards.net

Some people have been reporting that, when they go on our forum, they get redirected and it can take many tries until they manage to get on he site. I asked someone for a link and I got this:

play.king.com/click?type=ad&idfa=&network=hitfox&countryCode=US&targetAppId=17&publisher=21036&site=99dae55f-c8b6-4900-9044-f8d9504f5006&campaignName=Candy_Crush_Saga_US_99dae55f-c8b6-4900-9044-f8d9504f5006&creativeName=&creativeSize=&linkId=17-1&AffID=aff_lsr&TransactionID=1029980a186de27dd87299e24b3e79

track.12trackway.com/aff_r?offer_id=28638&aff_id=3628&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pxlvlt2.com%2Faff_c%3Foffer_id%3D4086%26aff_id%3D3020%26aff_sub%3D1022fbd56964865cb0b21d1f7927cf%26source%3D3628_%26aff_sub4%3DLOGO%26aff_sub5%3D9d4bdd48c2bcc6ac197326980dd99f10&urlauth=317964891674379560162911135861

Thank you.

[Ulises]

Hi, Lucas Stark . Thanks for the info but for next time the users get the redirect have them provide the following information:

Location/Geography of where you are (approximate area is fine).
Time and date the ad occurred.
Page you were on at the time it occurred.
Mobile Network or Wifi internet connection.

Alternatively, if possible, the user can enable the ad scanner mentioned here and post back the results they get when the click on "Copy Request." If you need any help using the ad scanning tool feel free to ask questions in this thread.

[Lucas Stark]

Thanks for replying!

Location/Geography: New Jersey
Time and date: today (April, 3rd) at 20:14 and at 20:16
Page: gffriends.boards.net/, gffriends.boards.net/thread/186/unpopular-opinion-thread
Mobile Network

[Libra Mike]

Add pulsemusic.proboards.com/ to the list of forums being affected by ad-redirecting; we've had multiple posters complaining about it in the past couple of days.

In the meantime I've posted a thread on Pulse passing along the above info recommendations. Whether that leads to compiling a bunch of info together that then gets brought here, or whether it leads to multiple Pulse posters bringing the same issue to Support (hopefully not), however - not sure yet.

[Lucas Stark]

New one:

Link: "i don't know for sure because it's not showing up in my history but i'm pretty sure it was play.king.com, that's what i saw for the split second before i hit the back button"
Location: North Florida
Time/Date: "around 4PM est, whenever i made my last post in this thread" (I've checked and their post was at 4:01)
Page: gffriends.boards.net/thread/277/redirected-ad-problem
Wifi

[Brian]

Ca nyou instruct your users to enable the ad debugger tool mentioned in Ulises' post?

[Libra Mike]

Apr 4, 2016 14:50:42 GMT -8 Brian said:

Ca nyou instruct your users to enable the ad debugger tool mentioned in Ulises' post?

I also mentioned to them that that was a thing.

A question with regards to that, though - since it still appears to be in testing stages, how wieldy will it be for Mobile users? All the complaints I've seen on Pulse have been people having it happen on Mobile.

[Brian]

The post Ulises linked is the one in which it was first mentioned, so it's a bit outdated in regards to the mention of it being in testing stages. The reason we link that particular post is because it provides very thorough instructions on how to utilize the tool. It actually works on Safari and Chrome on most modern devices.

Part of the reason we created the tool was because with our original methods mobile was difficult to scan on. It involves a very complex setup where we have to use a phone's hotspot or USB tethering option and utilize the phone's mobile data plan as an internet connection for our PCs as some ads would only show on data and not on wifi. Rather than doing that, it's much easier to obtain the ad's data by logging it on the user end with the debugger tool and having them submit it to us that way. Since there's more users than support staff they're much more likely to be able to reproduce the ad, at which point they'd then have the information from the debugger to send to us.

[Libra Mike]

Apr 4, 2016 15:26:08 GMT -8 Brian said:

The post Ulises linked is the one in which it was first mentioned, so it's a bit outdated in regards to the mention of it being in testing stages. The reason we link that particular post is because it provides very thorough instructions on how to utilize the tool. It actually works on Safari and Chrome on most modern devices.

Part of the reason we created the tool was because with our original methods mobile was difficult to scan on. It involves a very complex setup where we have to use a phone's hotspot or USB tethering option and utilize the phone's mobile data plan as an internet connection for our PCs as some ads would only show on data and not on wifi. Rather than doing that, it's much easier to obtain the ad's data by logging it on the user end with the debugger tool and having them submit it to us that way. Since there's more users than support staff they're much more likely to be able to reproduce the ad, at which point they'd then have the information from the debugger to send to us.

I gather from this that the debugger is much more reliable now than it was in the original post? Assuming that's the case, the main question I'd have is how it'd ultimately work when the user is using the debugger on a mobile device.

[Brian]

It works the same way it would on a desktop. Whenever an ad loads while you have the debugger enabled the data for who provided that ad is stored in your browser's local storage.

This is what's loaded and shown on the debugger page.