Inconsistent ad blocking behavior with puppeteer-extra-plugin-adblocker in Puppeteer[Bug]

[MichealAaron]

Description:

I am using Puppeteer with the puppeteer-extra package and the puppeteer-extra-plugin-adblocker plugin in my Node.js project, which is deployed on Google Cloud Functions. I have a function takeScreenshotWithOptions that takes a Params object, including a block_ads parameter. However, I am experiencing inconsistent ad blocking behavior. When I set block_ads to true or false, the ad blocking behavior is inconsistent. Sometimes ads are blocked with both settings until I restart the server.

Reproduction Steps:

1. Set block_ads to false and observe ad blocking behavior.
2. Set block_ads to true and observe ad blocking behavior.
3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 to see if the behavior is consistent or changes over time.

   Expected Behavior:

   • When block_ads is set to true, ads should be blocked.
   • When block_ads is set to false, ads should not be blocked.

     Actual Behavior:

   • Sometimes ads are blocked even when block_ads is set to false

     Environment:

   • Node.js version: “18.20.1”,
   • puppeteer: "^22.6.4",
   • puppeteer-extra: "^3.3.6",
   • puppeteer-extra-plugin-adblocker: "^2.13.6"

     Additional Information:

   • Restarting the server temporarily resolves the issue, but it reappears after some time.

     Sample Code:

     index.ts

     
     import * as ff from '@google-cloud/functions-framework';
     import { takeScreenshotWithOptions } from './screenshot';

ff.http('TypescriptFunction', async (req:ff.Request, res:ff.Response) => { try { const result = await takeScreenshotWithOptions(req.body); res.status(200).send(JSON.stringify({ 'screenshotUrl': result })); } catch (error) { console.error(error); res.status(500).send('Errors taking screenshot'); } });

**takeScreenshotWithOptions.ts**

import { Storage as GoogleStorage } from "@google-cloud/storage"; import puppeteer from 'puppeteer-extra'; import Adblocker from 'puppeteer-extra-plugin-adblocker';

export async function takeScreenshotWithOptions(params: Params): Promise {

//For Adblocking if (params.block_ads) { puppeteer.use(Adblocker({ blockTrackers: true })); }

const browser = await puppeteer.launch({ args: ["--no-sandbox"], headless: false, targetFilter: (target) => target.type() !== "other", }); const page = (await browser.pages())[0];

await page.goto(‘https://www.w3schools.com/html/default.asp‘,{ waitUntil: "networkidle0" })

await page.screenshot({ path: 'g2.png', fullPage: true });
await browser.close()

return `All done, check the screenshots.`;

}

### Expected Outcome:
I hope to understand why the ad blocking behavior is inconsistent and find a reliable solution to ensure that ads are blocked or unblocked based on the block_ads parameter.

[chrisdruta]

Completely random suggestion which may or may not work;

I think I saw in another thread somewhere that you have to make a new page via await browser.newPage() for some reason, cant use (await browser.pages())[0]