Adblock False positive on Firefox ESR

Not sure if this is the place for this but it's my best guess.

Today when I opened tvtropes while at work a second after the page loaded the content changed to a blank page with the message:

"You are seeing this page because ads cannot be shown

Ads allow us to pay the content creators of this site.

Why is this happening?

One of your browser extensions is blocking ads or scripts"

and instructions on how to disable adblock, which mentioned in the title I don't have. After a refresh I can even sometimes see the ads load before I am shown the adblock page.

I just checked, same exact thing happens with IE 11. I am starting to doubt the problem is at my end. Any ideas?

edited 17th Aug '17 2:26:12 AM by Hikarizu

Hmm, the ads might be blocked by your workplace network. Can you access the site from a non-workplace connection?

We have checked with the administrators and there is no coding on our site that prevents access if you have an ad blocker. We do have a "bug" that asks you to disable it and/or offers an ad-free subscription option, but that's not what you described in your post.

The only things I can think of are that it's something built into your office's Internet access policies _or_ that one of our ad providers is detecting what it thinks is ad blocking and inserting its own "paywall", which is absolutely not something we condone and will attempt to get resolved if we can identify the culprit.

edited 17th Aug '17 11:28:12 AM by Fighteer

For what it's worth, I got exactly what OP describes on my home PC earlier today (latest version of Firefox, Telia ISP), down to the wording of the request that I disable my ad blocker.

Now, I do have ABP installed, but I also have an ad-free account. I was logged out at the time, however, and couldn't log in because the "request" took up the entire page whenever I tried to access the TV Tropes front page.

I do suspect it was something via one of your ad providers trying to be sneaksy, because a little while later everything was business as usual again.

I was too baffled by the entire thing to collect info, I'm sorry to say, but I find it concerning that it got past ABP's filters.

I've had this happen to me, as well. It only happens when you're not logged in, but there appears to be an anti-adblock filter being loaded; the code is in the source under the comment,

"<!— Only display AB wall to non-users —>"

I think it's this line and the script immediately after that: '<script src="https://contributor.google.com/scripts/49180a037d37f789/loader.js"'

And it is apparently a Google thing, I think, as the domain associated with the wall redirected to a Google 404.

Also, see a reddit thread on same: https://www.reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/comments/6ty9xz/tvtropes_is_blocking_with_options_to_buy_an_ad/

As the wall is currently implemented, removing it with the debugger doesn't work; it overwrites the content of the page when it appears.

I just inspected the main page myself and I see no such script. There is a section for "non-logged in users" but it displays the discreet pop-up asking users to disable Adblock and offering an option to subscribe for ad-free viewing. It does not block access to the site.

Edit: Hmm. I tried it while logged out and I see what you're looking at. However, as far as I know, that should do what I said above and prompt the user politely. If it's hijacking the entire browsing session, that's not something we intended.

Regardless, I don't see how one can reasonably expect any website to just sit there and take it when users block their revenue stream. "Yes, sir, I'll gladly take the bottom bunk. Please be gentle."

edited 22nd Aug '17 7:27:09 AM by Fighteer

Posting again. I updated my (very old) version of Firefox and installed ABP on it. When I loaded the site, logged out, with ad blocking, I got the expected nag asking me to disable ABP or subscribe. So far, no hijack has occurred.

edited 22nd Aug '17 7:43:57 AM by Fighteer

ABP may or may not trigger it; I observed it with a combination of Ghostery and RequestPolicy Continued, set to block every TV Tropes crossdomain request except for boostrapcdn.com.

(As an incidental side note, I do have my own personal opinions about ads on websites and the use of adblockers, but I don't necessarily think they belong in this debate rn.)

edited 22nd Aug '17 8:28:26 AM by SoItBegins

TVT loads cross-site scripts from Google and Facebook, so the problem may lie in there somewhere. We can't support your browsing experience if you choose to block them. That said, the hijack you're reporting is not part of our site design, as far as we've been told at least.

edited 22nd Aug '17 8:36:15 AM by Fighteer

I managed to connect using the browser of the remote access environment we are working through.The problem I described happened out of nowhere, I had been using the site before. My workplace has blocked some sites, imgur for example, but the message is completely different from what was happening here. I checked with a colleague who had adblocker, got the same message, added the site as an exception, but no change. Maybe our network blocks connection with some of the ads and that response is triggered.

Here's the whole content of the page:

EDIT: I found just the error page, https://p.w.m80fg.com/s/err?w=49180a037d37f789

You are seeing this page because ads cannot be shown

Ads allow us to pay the content creators of this site. Why is this happening?

One of your browser extensions is blocking ads or scripts How to fix this:

Which ad block extension do you have installed?

Adblock Plus

Click the red octagon with “ABP” on the upper-right hand corner of the screen.

Select Disable on <this website> to allow ads.

Refresh the page.

Ad Block

Click the red octagon with the hand on the upper right-hand corner of the screen

Select Don't run on pages on this domain to allow ads.

In the “Don’t run Ad Block on“ dialog box, select Exclude. The Ad Block icon changes to a “thumbs up” image.

Refresh the page.

edited 24th Aug '17 3:04:44 AM by Hikarizu

Doing a search on "m80fg.com" shows that it's way more than our site affected by the issue. This strongly suggests that ad providers are the culprit.

edited 24th Aug '17 7:16:53 AM by Fighteer

Is there a way to get them to stop doing it? I haven't had this issue on my home laptop (yet) but it did come up on the library's computers where I'm posting from. However at this rate I'm starting to think it COULD come up on my laptop if I tried to access it from there.

edited 1st Sep '17 1:21:29 PM by Warwolf

Unless we can figure out which ad or ad servicer is triggering the effect, there's little that we can do from our end. You might try blocking the hijacking site in your local hosts file.

Edit: interestingly, the alias traces to a site within the Google network, suggesting that the blocking is occurring within their own system.

edited 1st Sep '17 1:30:20 PM by Fighteer

How would I go about doing that? I'm not exactly what you'd call tech savvy.

Edit: So would it be best served to tell Google about this, or what?

edited 1st Sep '17 1:35:32 PM by Warwolf

We have channels to talk to them if their scripting is causing this. The problem is that we can't reproduce the issue ourselves. Nobody is doubting that it's real, but it seems to be triggering on very specific setups. What, if any, ad or script blocking plugins are you running?

I should mention that, while we have no intention of denying anyone the ability to access our site, it's rather counterproductive for us to provide technical support for how to block ads. We're looking into this mainly because it seems to be affecting people that are not doing so, and/or in unintended ways.

edited 1st Sep '17 2:04:05 PM by Fighteer

I just use adblock plus and noscript. I've never needed anything more than that on Firefox.

Are you using noscript on TV Tropes? I've heard that it can cause issues with other things, like the Google search feature. We use a lot of their APIs.

I always tell noscript to allow tvtropes as soon as I get on the site. I haven't seen this issue on my laptop back home, mind, just on the library's computer today, so I dunno if that matters any. I usually stay logged in on the site at home too, even if I'm not always on the site in a tab.

I looked into this a bit, and the problem is Java Script that is included in the HTML served from tvtropes.org. If you're not logged in and are on a desktop browser, view source and look for this:

if (!/Mobi/i.test(navigator.userAgent) && !window["turnoff49180a037d37f789"]) { h(window.stop); document.body && document.body.parentNode.removeChild(document.body); document.getElementsByTagName("HTML")[0].appendChild(document.createElement("BODY")); var a = document.createElement("IFRAME"); a.src = "https://p.w.m80fg.com/s/err?wx3d49180a037d37f789";

That says "delete entire page and try loading https://p.w.m80fg.com/s/err?wx3d49180a037d37f789 if the turnoff49180a037d37f789 test did not load and fire (and if you're not on a mobile browser, as determined by user agent)".

So if you're on a browser that doesn't load the turnoff49180a037d37f789 test properly, you're unable to use tvtropes.org (or any other site into which this is embedded).

It appears that this code is not loaded if you are logged in. If you're on a browser the code recognizes as "mobile", the code doesn't run. Otherwise it runs that test - in theory to try to detect adblock, but there appear to be cases (like some of my browsers, thus why I tested this and came to this thread) where the test malfunctions.

I believe this to be third party code that was not originated by TV Tropes' admins, given that the block of code responsible appears to start with:

<!— Only display AB wall to non-users —>

<!— Google Contribute AB code —> <script src="https://contributor.google.com/scripts/49180a037d37f789/loader.js"></script>

I hope this information will help in debugging this issue. Some admin with access to the HTML templates for the site can, hopefully, use this information to scan through and find the source of this. My recommendation is to simply do away with that particular included code. (In general, whitelisting "only allow browsers that have X" runs afoul or little-known browser configurations being denied, while "don't allow browsers that have X" reduces the impact to just the browsers being targeted - in this case, the ones with adblock.)

EDIT: This no longer shows an "adblock is blocked" page. The page being redirected to has an invalid SSL certificate. So if you're blocked because the page thinks you're on adblock, you aren't being told "disable adblock"; instead, you just get an error message page that most people won't know what to do with.

edited 9th Sep '17 9:19:47 AM by WingedCat

As far as I can tell, as you said, the issue is that we're calling out to a Google API that performs ad block detection, so that we can launch our own (unobtrusive) bug asking users to kindly disable it or pay for ad-free viewing. Google itself is hijacking the session to launch that page.

I got this message on Friday while using browsing on my Wii U. I never saw it prior and I haven't seen it since.

Edit: Wait, nope, I got it again several times today.

edited 18th Sep '17 7:25:18 PM by Pichu-kun

I got back to work after a three weeks break and can now access the site normally. Have been browsing in my time off with no problems.