Abmob Interstitials Closing automatically - Issue

[Kumar Mettu]

Hi,

  Since Monday(27th) we noticed that sometimes (depending on ad) interstitials are automatically closing a second after display. This seem to happen on android 8 and 9 devices. Our app hasn't been updated recently. It appears something changed on admob side causing the issue.

  Anyone else has same issue?

  Reddit thread regarding same: https://old.reddit.com/r/androiddev/comments/bv8vpl/abmob_interstitials_closing_automatically_issue/

Thanks in Advance.

[Heberth Vargas]

maybe is this same problem https://groups.google.com/forum/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer#!msg/google-admob-ads-sdk/IL_usiG2g0Q/kaSJ0SD1AwAJ

[Kumar Mettu]

We don't seem crashes. Ads just close automatically. 

This started on May 27th. 

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor Prod]

Hello there,

Thanks for reaching out to us. Are you able to reproduce the issue with the creative using our sample apps ? Can you please share the Ad unit Id (Using "Reply Privately to Author" option ) that is showing this behaviour for us to take a look? If this is happening with only one creative, then it might be a creative specific issue and we would suggest that you filter the specific creative on the Ad Review Center to help avoid this issue.

Regards,
Deepika Uragayala
Mobile Ads SDK Team

ref:_00D1U1174p._5001UBksGL:ref

[Kumar Mettu]

Hello Deepika,

   Thanks for getting back to me. 

   Yes I am able to reproduce the issue with Sample app with 1 minor change to interstitial example. I am attaching modified file for your reference. This is the original file on github we modified. 

   Change made: Instead of loading next interstitial after closing 1st ad, we are loading second interstitial after display of first interstitial. i,e commented line 73 and added lines 138 to 154.

   This is results in crashing first interstitial on some devices.

Devices Tested: 

1. Nexus6P with Android 8.1 . --> Works fine. Never crashes.

2. Samsung Note 9 with Android 9 ---> Always crashes/closes the ad.

  Please note that this working fine before and some changes pushed to devices around Monday this week is resulting in this crashes. We are seeing a significant drop in interstitial revenue due to this crashes.

Thanks,

Kumar.

[Delfina Young]

Hi Kumar, have you found a solution?

I am experiencing the same issue with our app, since Monday, May 27, leading to a significant decrease in revenue. Apparently, some interstitials in Android 8 and 9 (Android 6 is not affected at least in our case) close automatically after a second or two, or start loading and close unexpectedly.

I replied to your comment in https://old.reddit.com/r/androiddev/comments/bv8vpl/abmob_interstitials_closing_automatically_issue/

We tried upgrading the Admob SDK to the latest and so far no interstitials have closed automatically while testing on a Samsung S9 with Android 9, but still seeing low revenue.

Were you able to solve it?

[Kumar Mettu]

Hi Delfina Young,

   In my last email on this thread, I Provided modified sample code showing when the ads are closing. 

   It appears admob ads started closing since a week back if we/developers are loading additional interstitial ads in background when an ad is on display.

   This is a situation pretty common in any complex app.  Apps loads ads asynchronously can encounter this issue. I hope admob team understands the seriousness of issue and push an update.

Hope this helps.

Kumar.

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor Prod]

Hello Kumar,

This sounds like a creative specific issue only and my recommendation here would be to capture these creatives via Charles logs (here are setup instructions) and let us know or use  Ad Review Center to block them.

Regards,
Deepika Uragayala
Mobile Ads SDK Team

ref:_00D1U1174p._5001UBksGL:ref

[Kumar Mettu]

Hello Deepika,

  The issue is not with creatives. Play services now seem to close ads if interstitials are being loading in background when an ad is in display.

  We can reproduce the issue with simple modification to admob example (I attached modified code in previous message). I am also sharing modified apk for interstitial example on Google drive: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Cukv8czIaZyKetzEt2RzU_BUELWfKpE5/view?usp=sharing

To be clear, there is a concurrency issue with recent play services where ads are closed when another interstitial is loaded in background.

Hope this helps in clarifying the issue.

Thanks,

Kumar.

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[Delfina Young]

Thanks Kumar,

Publisher Support told us something similar:

"We've tested both the APK provided, as well as the latest app from the Play Store, and can confirm that the issue could be replicated only on the former, as you mentioned on the last email. The resulting log from the app where this is happening is as follows:

W/WebView: java.lang.Throwable: A WebView method was called on thread 'FinalizerDaemon'. All WebView methods must be called on the same thread. (Expected Looper Looper (main, tid 2) {c04bd56} called on null, FYI main Looper is Looper (main, tid 2) {c04bd56})

This issue can happen if the app tries to load a new interstitial ad while the previous one was still displayed on-screen"

We do not preload interstitials nor load an ad when another one is on-screen. I'll let you know if we find a solution but it looks like it is on our control, and it is rather something that on Google's side.

Have you found anything else?

El lunes, 3 de junio de 2019, 17:19:36 (UTC-3), Kumar Mettu escribió:

Hello Deepika,

  The issue is not with creatives. Play services now seem to close ads if interstitials are being loading in background when an ad is in display.

  We can reproduce the issue with simple modification to admob example (I attached modified code in previous message). I am also sharing modified apk for interstitial example on Google drive: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Cukv8czIaZyKetzEt2RzU_BUELWfKpE5/view?usp=sharing

To be clear, there is a concurrency issue with recent play services where ads are closed when another interstitial is loaded in background.

Hope this helps in clarifying the issue.

Thanks,

Kumar.

On Mon, Jun 3, 2019, 12:59 PM Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor Prod <mobileadssdk...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hello Kumar,

This sounds like a creative specific issue only and my recommendation here would be to capture these creatives via Charles logs (here are setup instructions) and let us know or use  Ad Review Center to block them.

Regards,
Deepika Uragayala
Mobile Ads SDK Team

ref:_00D1U1174p._5001UBksGL:ref

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[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor Prod]

Hello Kumar,

You are creating a new reference to the InterstitialAd and loosing the one that is presented to the user. This is the reason for you to notice this automatic closing issue. If you have an InterstitialAd presented, or being presented and if you want to create another request, then make sure to . create another reference and not reuse the same one. You are loosing the Ad because of this.

[Kumar Mettu]

Hello Deepika,

  Thanks. That helps.

  We used the same code for more than a year. It appears till recent play services update, admob was holding onto interstitial while its on display but its no longer the case and hence we started seeing the issue now.

  We will update our implementation accordingly.

Thanks again for looking into this.

Kumar.