AdNauseam blocking, but not collecting/clicking after PB install

[raspberryspider]

Describe the issue

As the title says. When AdNauseam is active, it blocks ads but it doesn't collect them and presumably doesn't click on them. The extension icon on the page shows zero in blocked ads but ads don't show on the page, and new ads aren't being added to the vault. Looking at my vault, no new ads have been collected since late May, but I hadn't noticed until now. (Ended up noticing because of unblocked ads on Youtube but you've already got a ticket and solution for that, and my vault is empty again because I reset the settings /shrug)

Screenshot in which the issue can be seen

AdNauseam is off and ads aren't blocked, obviously. Included to show another extension isn't blocking ads, but by this point the only extensions I hadn't uninstalled or disabled for troubleshooting purposes were DuckDuckGo and a few others that aren't privacy/ad blocking related.

AdNauseam is on and ads ARE being blocked, but neither collected nor clicked as far as I could tell (the zero on the extension icon in the top bar and the lack of new ads in the vault.)

Steps for anyone to reproduce the issue

I'm really not sure for this, since ads are showing/not showing normally, except that they aren't being collected.

Your settings

• OS/version: Windows 10
• Browser/version: Firefox 77.0.1
• AdNauseam version: 3.9.106
• Other extensions you have installed: At the time of my giving up my own troubleshooting and writing this ticket, DuckDuckGo, OneTab, New Popup Dictionary, and Unpaywall (none of which should be doing anything to ads afaik, and the latter 3 aren't anything related to privacy). I also had Privacy Badger installed when I first noticed the issue since I had it in my head that it was compatible (think I mixed up Privacy Badger and TrackMeNot somehow, haha) but I uninstalled it to check it wasn't blocking ads. Edit; I also have NewXKit and Shinigami Eyes (not the thing from Death Note) installed but again, neither of these should be doing anything to ads.
• AdNauseam settings: Default, other than hiding non-tracking ads.

Your filter lists

Default filter lists

Your location/country

Australia, but I've had this issue on multiple sites, so I'm not sure a location will help.

[cqx931]

Hi @raspberryspider, I'm sorry that you are experiencing this issue with AdNauseam. Could you please first check this page and see whether your AdNauseam will be able to collect and click the ad image on it?

[raspberryspider]

It does collect and click the ad on that page, but still nowhere else.

[cqx931]

Have you tried re-install AdNauseam after late May? Could you please try visit another test page and see whether your AdNauseam picks up any ad there? If it works, there should be three ads being collected on this page. Another thing to check is text ad parser for google search results

If any one of these don't work you can go to settings page and check "Activate debugging mode", then go back to the page again and open the console. The ad parser should leave log messages there and that would be helpful to debug this issue.

[raspberryspider]

I reinstalled AdNauseam, no changes to ad collection.

The first test page picks up three ads, as it should; the google search page collects one ad by following that link but not when I search something in google any other way. The console messages from the google search page following your link are here. The parser doesn't leave any log messages on a google search when it doesn't collect ads.

[krystian3w]

Maybe ad killed by html filtering or +js( ) scriptlet.

[cqx931]

The basic parsing function of your ad parser seems to work correctly. There are not always text ads in your google search results, it depends on the keyword you are searching. If you try google search the keyword "credit card" by yourself, do you still see the text ad being collected?

Go to https://www.nytimes.com/ and see if any ad is being collected. Usually AdNauseam picks up a few ads from their home page. Try refresh the page a few times and if you still don't see any ads being collected, you can follow these debugging strategies:

1. On NY Times home page, click on AdNauseam icon, in the menu click the tiny "u" button then the eye icon. This will temporarily unhide the ads on your page. After doing this, do you see any ad images rendered at all? If not then your ad images are somehow blocked(either by AdNauseam or other browser settings/extensions...)

2.If you don't see any ad images in step 1, try again with AdNauseam disabled.

3.If ad images do show up, there are three places you could check. a) The console of the page to look for logging messages

b) "about:debugging#/runtime/this-firefox" -> extensions -> AdNauseam -> Inspect. Note down any error messages you see there.

c) open the logger UI

Then set the filters to:

Take a screenshot of what you see.

[raspberryspider]

If I google search "credit cards" no ads are shown, but none are collected.

AdNauseam isn't collecting ads on the NY Times page. Step 1 and step 2 give me the same results: loading a space for an ad without showing an ad, then the space gets hidden and replaced with the rest of the page, like this. I don't know what else would be hiding ads; none of the other extensions I have installed should be blocking ads. The parser logs in the console that it's finding ads when AdNauseam is enabled and not when it's disabled, obviously. The logger with the filters you asked for shows this with ads hidden but not collected:

[cqx931]

It seems to me that the ads are not blocked and hidden by AdNauseam... Just to double check, if you can still reproduce the same results you recorded with AdNauseam removed, then it's certainly caused by something else. If it's not caused by extensions, it might be your browser settings.

Can you take a screenshot of your privacy page? (about:preferences#privacy)

[raspberryspider]

If AdNauseam is disabled like in a private window I get shown ads, but if it's installed but disabled in its settings a space for an ad loads but doesn't show the ad. Edit; to clarify, installed but disabled as in I've clicked on the icon in the bar then clicked "disable" in that menu, and disabled like in a private menu as in I checked "don't allow" for private browsing in Firefox's menus for test reasons.

My privacy settings are mostly default I think.

[cqx931]

I could finally reproduce your issue by installing Privacy Badger with AdNauseam. Though in your initial post you said that you have tested with Privacy Badger uninstalled, this should be the reason why you don't get any ads collected.

Once I disable Privacy Badger, I can see ads being collected in AdNauseam again.(tested on nytimes).

In general we don't recommend using these tools together(see this FAQ). If my memory is correct, it used to be okay to use Privacy Badger with AdNauseam. But if it starts blocking ad requests, I will update our warning notifications for potential conflicts.

[raspberryspider]

AdNauseam still isn't collecting ads for me even with Privacy Badger uninstalled. I uninstalled it early in my testing, and it hasn't been installed since then, but I haven't had any change.

[dvivanov00]

Hello,

I am experiencing the same issues with Ungoogled Chromium. I had Privacy Badger installed before isntalling AdNauseam and it complaiend that there was another adblocker installed. Removing Privacy Badger dismissed the pop-up but still couldn't collect ads other than the one in the given link in the first posts.

Tested on a completely new profile with no other extentions. Still won't click on ads.

Your settings

• OS/version: Linux Mint 20 with Linux kernel 5.8.0-050800-generic
• Browser/version: 84.0.4147.135
• AdNauseam version: 3.9.2
• Other extensions you have installed: At the time of installation I had Privacy Badget installed and uBlock Origin. I have currently removed them from my browser. Other extentions: HTTPS Everywhere (2020.8.13) and enhanced-h264ify (2.1.0), Chromium Web Store (1.1.1).
• AdNauseam settings: Default.

Your filter lists Default filter lists

[dhowe]

@cqx931 could a previous install of PB be conflicting with ADN ?

[yellowsink]

I'm having this issue too :(

[dhowe]

we need to test the following cases:

• [x] PB, ADN, Firefox
• [x] PB, ADN, Chromium
• [x] PB (installed and uninstalled), ADN, Firefox
• [x] PB (installed and uninstalled), ADN, Chromium

Let's make sure our warnings are happening as expected and that there are no problem's with ad collection/clicking

[mneunomne]

@dhowe Should I use a simple ad collection case for this testing. Or should I say, does this bug theoretically affect ALL collection?

If yes, then I will use the Simple test case for ad collection.

If not then I will try to run multiple ad collection cases, but it will take some more time.

[dhowe]

Yes, lets start with the simple test case...

[mneunomne]

@dhowe the ads are being collected and clicked in every case mentioned above, with the warning showing properly as well.

[dhowe]

Ok, lets do the same test in a real-world situation - a 3rd-party site where we know ads can be collected...

This one works for me: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-we-live-in-a-simulation-chances-are-about-50-50/

[mneunomne]

@dhowe I thought the issue was with PB but it is actually to do with https://github.com/dhowe/AdNauseam/issues/1798 instead.

Adn appears to be working normally at the moment with PB running along side it. I believe this ticket can be closed.

[dhowe]

lets leave open and recheck again after fixing redirects

[dhowe]

@mneunomne pls retest and close if ok

[mneunomne]

Retested the cases bellow and it is working as expected

• [x] PB, ADN, Firefox
• [x] PB, ADN, Chromium
• [x] PB (installed and uninstalled), ADN, Firefox
• [x] PB (installed and uninstalled), ADN, Chromium

[dave90dave]

I also have the same problem in edge and brave browser.

[dhowe]

Can you expand @dave90dave ?

[walkxcode]

I'm encountering the same issue with AdNauseam. It blocks ads effectively and collects the ads on some test pages but doesn't collect/click any ads on platforms like YouTube or Google. The extension's settings display the following error (I'm not sure if it's related to this problem):

An error occurred in the event handler: TypeError - There was an issue in invoking webRequestInternal.eventHandled(string eventName, string subEventName, string requestId, integer webViewInstanceId, optional webRequest.BlockingResponse response): The problem is with the 'response' parameter. The 'responseHeaders' property has an invalid type - Expected webRequest.HttpHeaders, but it found an object.

[dhowe]

@mneunomne I don't think the TypeError is causing the behavior above, but pls check regardless

[walkxcode]

Seems like it is only picking up some banner ads, only 12 after a full day of use though

[sagewilde]

I am experiencing this same issue.

I am currently running Ubuntu 22.04 (Kernel 6.5.0-21-generic), with Firefox 123.0 (the .deb package, not the snap package) on a newly refreshed install. I have used a reputable cleaner to remove all my Firefox data, disabled my VPN, and all my other extensions have been disabled. Theoretically, identical to a brand new, fresh install of Firefox 123.0 with all its default settings intact, including DNS-over-HTTP, cookie protection, fingerprint protection, and security certificates. I am in the US.

I have read through this bug report and checked the test links. The test links do collect ads correctly, but seemingly nowhere else on the internet does.

Here is UBlock Origin's output on msn.com (from the AdNauseam toolbar)

And here is AdNauseam's output on the same article.

So UBlock is blocking content, but AdNauseam seemingly isn't interacting with it. Do you need more information? I can give you whatever you need, just let me know.

Edit: So far, during two hours of deliberately feeding bogus queries to really obnoxious sites, UBlock has tagged 2,011 ads, and AdNauseam has tagged 718.

• I tested it on Amazon.com, and it is collecting from the Amazon Ad System correctly.
• It's a little hit-or-miss with Google; queries that trigger the shopping page, like 'high heels' spawn dozens of ads in AdNauseam's vault when it redirects to the Shopping tab. But 'top ten anime battles' on the All tab doesn't register at all. Testing 'weight loss supplements' in the All tab vs the Shopping tab yielded some interesting results; no ads collected under All, but at least a dozen under Shopping. Which is kinda interesting.
• Yahoo's direct search function collects advertisements (tested looking up the New York Giants, and it collected there).
• Etsy and the New York Times weren't collecting any.
• A lot of news sites, magazines, and articles are blocking ads without collecting.
• Weirdly, it hasn't collected a single text ad anywhere. Two whole hours, and not a single one.

So thankfully, we're still wasting Bezos Bucks! :smile: But it isn't recognizing most ads anywhere else, even if UBlock catches them and shuts them down. But my personal conclusion? I think that it may mostly be the way AdNauseam talks to UBlock that might be the problem. It's clearly doing its job, but it isn't picking up everything that Ublock is. Part of that may be due to users' particular browsing habits, staying away from these particular sites or queries in general. I had to actively go looking for ads for them to start spawning in the vault.

If you need me to add more screenshots or export data, I am more than happy to help. This is actually kinda fun!