Unity/Admob playing odd music loop when switching scenes.

[ad...@superpea.com]

This video illustrates the issue:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4Qjeu5biNI

I strongly suspect this is due to Admob as the music that is played is not a file we recognize as part of the app, yet the only two ways of stopping it are:

1. Close the app.
2. Watch an interstitial advert.

There is about a 3% probability of it occurring when switching between Unity scenes (to the scene where Admob is initialized) as far as we can tell. Once it is triggered it will remain in this irritating music loop until either of the above actions are performed.

On one occasion we were able to trigger it twice in the same play session by going back and forward between scenes. Here both instances of the music loop were playing at the same time making quite the racket!

Is this music loop something you guys recognize? If so could you please tell us what circumstances can trigger it on Admob initialization?

Many thanks,

Richard

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor]

Hi Richard,

Thank you for reaching out to us with this issue. I was able to watch the video and will need a simple sample app that displays this behavior. As well as a Charles log that shows what is happening during this time. Also any steps that you might have seen that help to replicate this.

Regards,

William Pescherine Mobile Ads SDK Team

ref:_00D1U1174p._5004Q2NVdnf:ref

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor]

Hello Richard,

Thank you for reaching out to us.

I work with William and will be assisting you on this. I've tried the apk as well as the steps you mentioned, and I wasn't able to replicate the odd music you mentioned on this thread. With that being said, could you please provide a sample app with your implementation that can replicate this behaviour, so that we can further check your implementation as well? You can send it via Reply privately to author option or send it directly to mobileads...@gmail.com. Kindly inform us on this thread if you sent it directly to the email provided.

On the other hand, I've deleted your post as it contains private information. Kindly refer to the copies post with scrubbed information below.

Regards,

Princess Pamela Pineda Mobile Ads SDK Team

Hi William,

Thanks a lot for this. I'm having more difficulty replicating it today which, along with the probabilistic nature of the event and the fact it is always the same music track is making me think it occurs only when a particular advert (an ad containing the music) on your network is requested and loaded pending delivery. My current thinking is that this advert and only this advert somehow causes its music file to play at the moment it is requested, while other adverts do not, until they are delivered.

So firstly, our implementation involves a script on a GameObject in the main scene that calls this on Start() which fires up every time the scene loads.

 

private void InitInterstitial() 

// The interstitial advert object is initialized.

{ string adUnitId = "ca-app-pub-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/xxxxxxxxxxxxx";

  interstitial = new InterstitialAd(adUnitId);

  interstitial.OnAdClosed += HandleInterstitialClosed;

  interstitial.OnAdLoaded += HandleInterstitialLoaded;

  interstitial.OnAdFailedToLoad += HandleInterstitialFailedToLoad;

  RequestNewInterstitial();}

 

private void RequestNewInterstitial()

// A new interstitial advert is started loading.

{ interstitial.LoadAd(CreateAdRequest());}

 

private AdRequest CreateAdRequest()

// Returns an ad request with custom ad targeting.

{ return new AdRequest.Builder().Build();}

 

It is later on that we may or may not deliver the advert:

private void ShowInterstitial()

// Provided that a new interstitial advert has been loaded, the advert is displayed.

{ if (interstitial.IsLoaded()) 

  { interstitial.Show();}}

 

As Unity destroys all objects and repopulates them upon exiting and re-entering a scene, re-executing all Start() functions, it is possible for an existing advert to be loaded but not delivered, and a new one to be loaded on top of it by repeating the InitInterstitial() function above. I wonder if that is what we are doing wrong and need to set this up as a singleton with UnityEngine.Object.DontDestroyOnLoad() so that the GameObject is not destroyed upon switching scenes and only ever initializes once?

Due to the increasing rarity with which we are reproducing this, and the possibility that you might not at all if you are targeted with different adverts if this truly is advert-specific (as it's always the same music), I'm not sure how much patience you guys will have, but you are welcome to download the problematic .apk from here (65mb):

https://superpea.com/Superpea/Files/APKs/PetalFarm.apk

At the "Login Screen" (button on the left as app opens) just log in with:

Username: xxxxxx

Pass: xxxxxxx

Then enter the following cycle:

close friend-window----> press "Continue" ---> close popups -----> press menu button in bottom left corner ----> press "Save&Exit"

Repeatedly to transition between the Menu Scene and the Main Level scene where adverts are being repeatedly initialized until this music bug is triggered. Like I say we're currently looking at a 3% or so chance of reproducing it each time you enter the main scene.

I've never used Charles logs before but I will try to get on the case now if I don't hear anything from you regarding the singleton approach above and whether our implementation may predict this type of behaviour as undelivered ads are potentially overridden by new requests (this would be a rare event with normal use).

Many thanks,

Richard

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[admin]

Hi Pamela,

I have sent an update to the email address you provided. This includes the entire Unity project, and links to a simpler .apk file which reproduces this in only one scene along with another video of that .apk demonstrating the behaviour. Please let me know if you have received this or would like me to repeat any of the information provided there in this thread. I think you have an issue with an ad on your network which auto-plays it's music file the moment it is requested, possibly impacting all admob users. If you think this is likely, and that there is nothing specific about our implementation that is causing this, I'd be keen to know before it is necessarily fixed so that we can launch our new update with some confidence that it won't impact our users any more than they are impacted in other apps that use admob.

Many thanks,

Richard

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor]

Hi Richard,

I work along with Pamela. Allow me to assist you in this.

I've checked our email (mobileads...@gmail.com), and didn't find the file that you've sent. Could you please send it once again?

Regards,

Teejay Wennie Pimentel Mobile Ads SDK Team

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[admin]

Hi,

Sorry about this, perhaps it's something with my ad...@superpea.com email address that's being filtered into your junk folders? I will simply reply to this thread with the insensitive info as helpful as that can be to people and send a follow up email to mobilead...@gmail.com with a link for you to download the entire Unity project.

I am now convinced it's an issue with Admob, and has nothing to do with changing Unity scenes. I've restructured the code to initialize the ads SDK on the very first Unity scene, and with an interactive panel that helps reproduce it without the laborious login credentials and scene-switching method I gave you earlier.

I also remain convinced it is caused by a particular ad on your network, possibly with some virus or other issue causing this behaviour, potentially also for other Admob users. The reason is that it is always the same audio track and the error occurs with a probabilistic behaviour similar to the delivery of individual adverts (going a long time without seeing it then seeing the same one frequently). Essentially, it appears to play the music component of the advert at the moment it is requested (or loaded), while it should remain silent until it's time to actually show it. Due to the fact you are on a different network with different ads targeted to you personally, I very much doubt you would be able to reproduce it.

However you can find our more convenient .apk for reproducing the issue here:

www.superpea.com/Superpea/Files/APKs/AdBug.apk

And a new video displays the behavior I am seeing:

https://youtu.be/UWoeTCZF3M8

Most illuminating is that it appears possible (shown at the end of the video) for this to occur by doing nothing more than loading the app and requesting an ad, provided that the ad which is served is the problematic one.

We've reproduced this on two Android devices:

• Motorola G10 (Android 11).
• Xiaomi Remdi Note 9S (Android 10).

Note this is an in-development build we are preparing for a future update. I have not seen it yet in the live production build on the Playstore, but since I have started trying I can no longer reproduce it. Presumably the troublesome ad is no longer being delivered to me.

Which should open in Unity 2021.1.6f1

Essentially, the issue is triggered by executing the following code:

using System;
using UnityEngine;
using GoogleMobileAds;
using GoogleMobileAds.Common;
using GoogleMobileAds.Api;

  string adUnitId = "ca-app-pub-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/xxxxxxxx";
  interstitial = new InterstitialAd(adUnitId);

  interstitial.OnAdClosed += HandleInterstitialClosed;
  interstitial.OnAdLoaded += HandleInterstitialLoaded;
  interstitial.OnAdFailedToLoad += HandleInterstitialFailedToLoad;

  interstitial.LoadAd(new AdRequest.Builder().Build());

In the video this is all we do upon pressing the "Init" button, it also happens once on application Start().

The music issue probably occurs around the time of the callback:

public void HandleInterstitialLoaded(object sender, EventArgs args)
{ TV.interstitialLoaded = true;}

If this behaviour has been described by other Admob users previously I'd be keen to know just so that we can launch our update basically, confident that our app won't be impacted any more than other users of Admob. I will send a contact number for you to reach me on to mobilead...@gmail.com it can be helpful.

Many thanks,

Richard

[ad...@superpea.com]

Just to confirm, the follow up email was sent 20 minutes ago, at 09:13am (UTC+1). Look forward to hearing from you.

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor]

Hi Admin,

Thank you for all the help with trying to find this. I was looking for your email and did not see anything at this moment. From what you have stated and what we seem to be seeing based on this. I would generally agree that this appears to be due to a bad creative, and nothing that the SDK or you have done. The biggest piece of information that we would really need is some kind of Charles log that shows the offending ad.

Regards,

William Pescherine Mobile Ads SDK Team

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[ad...@superpea.com]

Hi William,

Thanks a lot for this. There's definitely something wrong if you guys aren't getting my emails. Maybe some sort of higher level filter as other gmail users haven't had spam folder issues with us. It also reaches you guys promptly when I send an reply email to google-adm...@googlegroups.com and automatically posts the content to this thread. What I'll do is send the email from another private address (within 5 minutes from now) with the ref to see if that gets through. 

Is it not possible to infer anything from the AdBug.apk file I linked to via Charles logs that would be meaningful to you guys as a result of pressing the "InitAd" button or are you expecting the log to be different as and when the bad creative/error occurs?

No matter, if a bad creative can explain this behaviour I think we'd be happy to launch for now. We hadn't specifically touched the ad system in this update and it had been doing what we expected for some time. Obviously it would be great for all Admob users if you guys could continue to investigate and come up with a solution for such creatives. It's a pretty intolerable user experience that requires closing the app mid session and as a developer that doesn't have access to vast beta testing resources undermines our confidence that we've not introduce some serious new error. There's nothing you can think of that would allow us to detect it programatically so that we can flush the advert for another one? The "close ad" event seems to end the music (as evidenced toward the end of my most recent youtube video) so that could be a workaround while we await a better solution.

Oh, while I've got you guys here we used to have a helpful adb logcat command for admob crashes (courtesy of some stackoverflow comment which we can no longer find) which seemed to display more relevant things than the standard unity command:

adb logcat -s Unity ActivityManager PackageManager dalvikvm DEBUG

Short of referring us to the very very difficult to comprehensively absorb manuals on the subject can you think of any way we might tweak the above to catch more relevant admob errors?

Cheers,

Richard

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor]

Hi Richard,

Thank you for the response. Fromw aht you ahve said so far, it would appear to be a creative issue. That's why we would like to see the logs and especially the Charles log,. So that we can look at see if it is the creative and if so remove it from our system. Also at the same time we want to make sure that this does not in any6 way cause any issues with your app in the future.

[ad...@superpea.com]

Hi William,

Thanks for the response. I'm no longer being aggressively targeted by this "bad creative" it seems so cannot reproduce it so easily. Although if it can be helpful I received an email from another developer that was reading this thread with exactly the same behaviour. In their case the issue was also present with Admob for Unity on iOS. They experienced exactly the same music, recognizing the very audio track from our youtube video. 

I notice that you recognized our issue to be symptomatic of bad creatives, as if you had prior experience with them, and did not dismiss my suggestion that this might be an ad with a virus embedded which caused it to play it's music component prematurely. 

I wonder therefore, what reassurances you can give us, that we are not, through Admob, being intentionally targeted by competing apps that seek to undermine our store presence through the use of such malicious ads intended to frustrate our users?

In either case it would be great for all of us if you guys could fix this issue rather than rely on just removing bad creatives when they are reported by stifled developers that are able to catch the Charles log for you (this has come at the expense of a full week of what would have been more creative work for me). I would suggest improving your vetting of creatives at the point that they are uploaded to your system or at the level of the SDK so that they are unable to cause unexpected behaviour.

All the best,

Richard

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor]

Hi Richard,

I work along with William. Let me do the best I can to answer your concern on SDK perspective.

When publishers reported a bad creative to us, we always request a detailed debug information from a device where it's observed in order for us to actually make any progress in diagnosing it. The only way for us to investigate further is by capturing the Charles log while reproducing the issue, as this will enable us to replicate the behavior in our test app environment (by trafficking the creative in the test network). Once we have this, we will make necessary changes to the SDK to mitigate this kind of behavior. 

In addition, please do note that the SDK just requests an ad to the ad-server (E.g AdMob, Ad manager, 3rd-party ad network thru mediation, etc.) and doesn't have any control on what ad it will receive, so it would be hard for us to create a fix for this malicious ads intended to frustrate your users.

To conclude, one best course of action is to remove that bad creative from its source. For example, if the said creative came from a 3rd-party ad network, then the recommendation is to report it directly to that ad network, so that they can ban the advertiser who created that ad. 

Regards,

Teejay Wennie Pimentel Mobile Ads SDK Team

 

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[ad...@superpea.com]

Hi Teejay,

Thanks a lot for this clarification it is most insightful. I understand the practical difficulties you must have in identifying malicious ads on your network and the need for detailed Charles logs to proceed with the investigation/banning process. I had no idea malicious ads were even a thing we might be exposed to using the Admob SDK until now. it wasn't clear from the term "bad creative" first used in this thread, with the implications that our app might have been targeted only dawning on me a few days later. I have found a helpful link that sets out some of Google's policies towards malicious ads on it's network including the minimum 3-month ban to the advertiser:

https://support.google.com/admanager/answer/181490?hl=en

Nonetheless I find it concerning that this particular ad has been present on your network for at least one week, affecting two independent developers, and being first noticed by the developers themselves as opposed to being reported by their end users who they might be designed to frustrate. Had the nature of this issue and potential damage to our community been made more clear to me I might have tried a lot harder to find these Charles logs.

Given the difficulties to developers in catching the ads in question with Charles logs, due to their probabilistic, transient nature and targeting mechanisms that might exclude them, I still think Google needs to take more ownership of this issue to ensure that they aren't on it's network in the first place.

The symptoms I have described of music playing prematurely look like something you can possibly work with from a programmatic detection point of view. If Admob works with third party networks and doesn't always have control over the vetting process when ads are uploaded, perhaps you can use firebase's robo-script to hunt-out ads on such networks and check that elementary behaviours like that are fulfilled. Perhaps an ID of the advert could be logged to the ADB console at the moment it is requested to help facilitate the reporting process without the need for Charles logs. 

I'm just trying to help with these suggestions as we value Admob and want to minimize the damaging effects of it that we now need to consider against our business model.

All the best,

Richard

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor]

Hi Richard,

I understand your concern and thank you for sharing your in-depth insight. There is indeed a difficulties to developers in catching the ads in question with Charles logs, much more that it only occurs on your users upon ad request. However, do kindly note that we always do strive to improve our SDK with each update, in our efforts to mitigate this kind of creative behavior. 

[ad...@superpea.com]

No worries guys,

Just had a few more ideas that could potentially help you flush out malicious ads from your network more quickly. Please excuse me if they are impractical for any reason I'm just trying to help.

1) log the ID of each ad requested to the developer's account/console. We've only had < 6k requests so far this week, many of which will be repetitions of the same advert. Of the few hundred creatives within that list would be the one containing the virus, detection could be filtered down further by logging location, time of day etc.

2) log the proportion of delivered requests that result in impressions, scanning for any outliers (I assume from the behaviour of this particular ad it never results in an impression).

3) involve the end user with a 1/1000 chance of triggering a "rate this ad" popup. Anything distributed at scale should be quickly identified. 

4) log app-close events and look for anomalies with them peaking after requesting or showing a particular advert. 

That's all I can think of for now, but really you want to involve the end-user over the developer as in the overwhelming majority of circumstances it will be they who observe it not us and obviously can't be expected to report Charles logs.

Cheers,

Richard

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor]

Hi Richard,

Thank you for the response. I appreciate the feedback and thoughts that you have passed on to us. I will definitely bring these to our team and see what they say as a possible feature that could be added to help with issues such as this.

Regards,

William Pescherine Mobile Ads SDK Team

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[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor]

Hello all,

 

Michael here from Mobile Ads SDK support team. I just want to get back here to as we received feedback from our team that our spam team already does things like catching outliers on metrics for high/low click through rates, unnatural click times, etc. You may keep an eye on our blog post for more future updates.

Regards,

Michael Angelo Mobile Ads SDK Team

ref:_00D1U1174p._5004Q2NVdnf:ref

[Alain-Daniel Bourdages]

I've been facing the same issue (sounds playing in the background) with my Unity game for years now but it has been getting worse in the last month. In fact, this issue tends to ebb and flow without the client being update: hinting at a buggy ad being served. The problem has gotten a lot worse recently so I'm turning to the forums for some advice. It is nigh-impossible to replicate as it happens only rarely but even a 0.01% rate is enough to trigger a bunch of support calls.

The last comment from Michael links to a blog that has not been updated since 2016. Has there been any more movement on this issue?

Alain-Daniel

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor]

Hello,

Thank you for reaching out to us.

We suspect this may be an issue with the specific ad creative. We acknowledge that reproducing this would be difficult, however, would it be possible to provide us with a Charles Log when this occurs? As this is the only way that will allow us track down the cause. Also, kindly provide us the following information below privately to help us further investigate:

• SDK Version
• Device name and versions affected
• Charles Log (https://www.charlesproxy.com/documentation/getting-started/)  - See Instructions (https://support.google.com/admanager/answer/6206401?hl=en)

You can provide the following details via reply privately to author option or directly provide it to the link below.

If the file(s) you are looking to share are less than 25mb in total you can attach them to this case on your next reply. If you are having trouble attaching your file to this case or if your file(s) are larger than 25mb, you can share your files with me by performing the following steps:

1. Navigate to

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfkAiXMeYP-fw1W3Z-tT9uwmATEKO5X6S-th0gR2ezdKaaqfg/viewform?usp=pp_url&entry.400550049=Mobile+Ads+SDK&entry.460850823=5004Q00002NVdnfQAD&entry.80707362=00079743

2. Fill out all fields, and attach your file(s).

3. Please reply back on this thread when you have uploaded your file(s). Please do not share this link.

This message is in relation to case "ref:_00D1U1174p._5004Q2NVdnf:ref"

Thanks,
 

Mobile Ads SDK Team

[jaker...@gmail.com]

I've also been struggling with this issue for years, despite no changes on my side. Every so often there are reports that the app is playing music even before the interstitial is shown, which makes users believe the audio is coming from the app itself. If the interstitial is shown to the user, the music does then stop. The main problem is if the interstitial is loaded, but does not get shown. I've heard that the music keeps playing even when the app goes to the background, and there is no way to stop it without force closing the app. One user brought their phone into a repair store because they thought their phone was faulty since they couldn't make the music stop.

It has also proved impossible to obtain a Charles log of this. It is so rare that I cannot replicate it myself, and when a user is affected by it they often don't have the technical knowledge to obtain Charles logs. Since it is particular creatives that are the problem, by the time I've asked them for a Charles log they've also either uninstalled the app due to the annoying background music, or the ad has been shown to them so they can no longer replicate it. It's a little frustrating that this issue has been going on for so long just because of this.

Would be great to see progress on this issue. So far I have only had complaints on Android, so perhaps it is an issue which is specific to the Android SDK. One workaround I've found is to change your ad units to disable video ads, which seems to stop the problematic creatives. This does harm revenue though, which is not ideal in the long term.

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor]

Hi Jake,

Thank you for providing the details of your concern. We do understand the impact of the reported issue to your users. Allow me to raise this to a wider team for further checking and to get their insight as well. Before I can proceed, would you able to provide the following details?

• Your App ID
• Interstitial ad unit ID being used
• Percentage occurrence of the said behavior (your can provide to us an estimate)
• Devices where you've seen the behavior 

[Alain-Daniel Bourdages]

Since I was doing a lot of on-device testing, I setup Charles and got lucky with a misbehaving ad. I should say partially lucky because there are some network requests that Charles cannot decrypt (certificate_unknown (46)) but there might be some useful info there anyway. You will see multiple requests to googleads, the last one(s) around 8:10am PST are the ones give the buggy ad.

• I'm using com.google.android.gms:play-services-ads:21.0.0
• It happened on a Moto G Stylus 5G (2022) running Android 12 with March 1, 2023 Google Play Update and May 1, 2023 Android Security Update
• I uploaded the logs using the provided link
  

Here are a few observations

• The ad plays its music from the moment the game is loaded
  
• The ad plays its music over the lock screen
• It was a playable insterstial ad
• It was a Star Trek Fleet Command ad (screenshots below)
• The test device in this case was a Moto but this problem is not restricted to that phone. It has happened in testing on a Pixel 6 Pro and been reported on a variety of devices by users.

I'm not sure what the state of this issue is internally, but from our point of view it is somewhere between Critical and Important. It has been plaguing the game for years but there has been a marked uptick of issues recently with a corresponding drop in retention. In case the Charles logs are not comprehensive or lack critical data to highlight where the problem is, I would urge the team to run their own replication test. It could be done using a custom game or I'm happy to provide an APK with the security settings needed for log captures.

Jaker gives a good idea about blocking ads - that's definitively my next stop to see if those interactive ads can be turned off.

Cheers,

Alain-Daniel

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor]

Hi Alain,

Thank you for your response.

Upon further checking, it appears that the Charles log that you've provided was not in the correct format as we're unable to open it in our end. With that, kindly try to capture again the behavior and provide us a correct Charles log (https://www.charlesproxy.com/) format. You may also check this guide (https://developers.google.com/admob/android/charles) if you're using Android devices. In addition to that, kindly provide us a screen recording of the behavior.

[Alain-Daniel Bourdages]

I'm using the v5.0b11 beta of Charles (that's the version for apple silicon). Maybe the file format has changed with that version!?

Alain-Daniel

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor]

Hi Alain,

Thank you for responding back. Would you able to provide a screen recording capturing the reported behavior? Once provided, I'll be raising this to a wider team to expedite the investigation. You may send it to us via the steps provided on this thread.

[Alain-Daniel Bourdages]

Yes, I will turn on a screen recorder from now on but it may take a little while before it happens again. I'm a little unsure what you expect to see/hear in a screen recording that would help with debugging. The issue happens like this:

• Start game, ad is requested in the background
• Strange music starts playing over the game audio
  
• The ad is displayed after playing a level (and the music matches the ad)
  
• When the ads is dismissed the music stops
  

I forgot to mention that I have the android logs from the last bugged ad, should I send it your way? There are a couple of errors related to ads but I'm not sure whether they mean anything:

• E/Ads: JS: Uncaught SyntaxError: Unexpected token ',' (https://tpc.googlesyndication.com/sadbundle/$csp%3Der-p$/10129565341747054958/ad.html:557)
• Couldn't create RTB adapter :     android.os.RemoteException        at com.google.android.gms.internal.ads.aus.b(com.google.android. 
  • This one has been happening since we took out Facebook integration. I don't have the notes from that changelog but it has appeared harmless so far...

Here is the subset of logs pertaining to ads (\Ads|Admob|.ads). Around those logs there are some entries about 'PlayCore' and a lot of media debug output. I'm mentioning those has this appears to be a playback-related issue.

=========

2023-08-01 12:58:24.718 8424-8894/? I/Ads: Updating ad debug logging enablement.
2023-08-01 12:58:24.734 8424-8907/? W/Ads: Update ad debug logging enablement as false
2023-08-01 12:58:24.748 8424-8894/? I/Ads: Use RequestConfiguration.Builder().setTestDeviceIds(Arrays.asList("A0F7BF34E9ACE7DA5D3CF1DAD74C3D75")) to get test ads on this device.
2023-08-01 12:58:25.211 8424-8943/? E/Ads: Couldn't create RTB adapter :
    android.os.RemoteException
        at com.google.android.gms.internal.ads.aus.b(com.google.android.gms:play-services-ads-lite@@21.0.0:4)
        at com.google.android.gms.internal.ads.auu.a(com.google.android.gms:play-services-ads-lite@@21.0.0:8)
        at com.google.android.gms.internal.ads.qo.onTransact(com.google.android.gms:play-services-ads-base@@21.0.0:3)
        at android.os.Binder.transact(Binder.java:1072)
        at agb.ba(:com.google.android.gms.policy_ads_fdr_dynamite@230500000@230500000057.504263922.504263922:2)
        at com.google.android.gms.ads.internal.mediation.client.b.c(:com.google.android.gms.policy_ads_fdr_dynamite@230500000@230500000057.504263922.504263922:1)
        at com.google.android.gms.ads.nonagon.adapter.e.b(:com.google.android.gms.policy_ads_fdr_dynamite@230500000@230500000057.504263922.504263922:1)
        at com.google.android.gms.ads.nonagon.signals.ej.a(:com.google.android.gms.policy_ads_fdr_dynamite@230500000@230500000057.504263922.504263922:3)
        at bsw.a(:com.google.android.gms.policy_ads_fdr_dynamite@230500000@230500000057.504263922.504263922:2)
        at bsf.run(:com.google.android.gms.policy_ads_fdr_dynamite@230500000@230500000057.504263922.504263922:3)
        at bsy.run(:com.google.android.gms.policy_ads_fdr_dynamite@230500000@230500000057.504263922.504263922:0)
        at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1137)
        at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:637)
        at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:1012)
2023-08-01 12:58:25.587 8424-8424/? I/Unity: [AdmobManager] MobileAds initialized
2023-08-01 12:58:25.610 8424-8424/? I/Unity: [AdmobManager] com.google.android.gms.ads.MobileAds is Ready:
2023-08-01 12:58:25.611 8424-8424/? I/Unity: [AdmobManager] com.google.ads.mediation.chartboost.ChartboostMediationAdapter is NotReady: Failed to create Adapter.
2023-08-01 12:58:25.611 8424-8424/? I/Unity: [AdmobManager] com.google.ads.mediation.facebook.FacebookMediationAdapter is NotReady: Failed to create Adapter.
2023-08-01 12:58:25.611 8424-8424/? I/Unity: [AdmobManager] com.google.ads.mediation.unity.UnityMediationAdapter is NotReady: Failed to create Adapter.
2023-08-01 12:58:25.763 8424-8982/? W/Ads: Not retrying to fetch app settings
2023-08-01 12:58:25.995 8424-8522/? I/Unity: [GameLog][Ads] [AdmobRewardedAd] Ad Requested
2023-08-01 12:58:25.996 8424-8522/? I/Unity: [AdmobRewardedAd] Ad Requested
com.google.android.gms.ads.dynamite:0 and remote module com.google.android.gms.ads.dynamite:230500000
2023-08-01 12:58:26.005 8424-8894/? I/DynamiteModule: Selected remote version of com.google.android.gms.ads.dynamite, version >= 230500000
2023-08-01 12:58:26.011 8424-8894/? I/Ads: Use RequestConfiguration.Builder().setTestDeviceIds(Arrays.asList("A0F7BF34E9ACE7DA5D3CF1DAD74C3D75")) to get test ads on this device.
2023-08-01 12:58:26.034 8424-9129/? E/Ads: Couldn't create RTB adapter :
    android.os.RemoteException
        at com.google.android.gms.internal.ads.aus.b(com.google.android.gms:play-services-ads-lite@@21.0.0:4)
        at com.google.android.gms.internal.ads.auu.a(com.google.android.gms:play-services-ads-lite@@21.0.0:8)
        at com.google.android.gms.internal.ads.qo.onTransact(com.google.android.gms:play-services-ads-base@@21.0.0:3)
        at android.os.Binder.transact(Binder.java:1072)
        at agb.ba(:com.google.android.gms.policy_ads_fdr_dynamite@230500000@230500000057.504263922.504263922:2)
        at com.google.android.gms.ads.internal.mediation.client.b.c(:com.google.android.gms.policy_ads_fdr_dynamite@230500000@230500000057.504263922.504263922:1)
        at com.google.android.gms.ads.nonagon.adapter.e.b(:com.google.android.gms.policy_ads_fdr_dynamite@230500000@230500000057.504263922.504263922:1)
        at com.google.android.gms.ads.nonagon.signals.ej.a(:com.google.android.gms.policy_ads_fdr_dynamite@230500000@230500000057.504263922.504263922:3)
        at bsw.a(:com.google.android.gms.policy_ads_fdr_dynamite@230500000@230500000057.504263922.504263922:2)
        at bsf.run(:com.google.android.gms.policy_ads_fdr_dynamite@230500000@230500000057.504263922.504263922:3)
        at bsy.run(:com.google.android.gms.policy_ads_fdr_dynamite@230500000@230500000057.504263922.504263922:0)
        at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1137)
        at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:637)
        at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:1012)
2023-08-01 12:58:26.048 8424-9128/? W/Ads: Not retrying to fetch app settings
2023-08-01 12:58:28.716 8424-8424/? I/Ads: ExoPlayerAdapter initialized.
2023-08-01 12:58:29.040 8424-8424/? E/Ads: JS: Uncaught SyntaxError: Unexpected token ',' (https://tpc.googlesyndication.com/sadbundle/$csp%3Der-p$/10129565341747054958/ad.html:557)
2023-08-01 12:58:29.732 8424-9349/? I/Unity: [GameLog][Ads] [AdmobRewardedAd] AdLoaded
2023-08-01 12:58:30.984 8424-8424/? W/Ads: JS: Canvas2D: Multiple readback operations using getImageData are faster with the willReadFrequently attribute set to true. See: https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/canvas.html#concept-canvas-will-read-frequently (:2)
2023-08-01 12:58:31.278 8424-8424/? W/Ads: JS: Canvas2D: Multiple readback operations using getImageData are faster with the willReadFrequently attribute set to true. See: https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/canvas.html#concept-canvas-will-read-frequently (:2)
2023-08-01 12:58:32.626 8424-9464/? I/Unity: [AdmobInterstitial] ad loaded. Requested at frame: 3 - Cancel frame: 0. Play Immediately: False
2023-08-01 12:58:32.626 8424-9464/? I/Unity: [GameLog][Ads] [AdmobInterstitial] ad loaded
===========

Cheers,

Alain-Daniel

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor]

Hello Alain,

We will have to share this to the wider team to provide assistance on this. Rest assured that one of our team will reach out to you.

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor]

Hi,

I will need some more details to solve this issue. From the looks of it we have two issues 

1. Music playing when the ad is not shown.
2. A crash related to `Uncaught SyntaxError: Unexpected token`.

Both of these issues may be related and may be caused by a bad creative. To solve this we need to know which creative was being loaded. For this, I need to a charles log (the attached charles log did not load).  Currently I have no visibility into which creative is being used. If you are unable to generate a charles log, you can also try disabling mediation adapters to isolate where this ad might be coming from.

Nick

ref:_00D1U1174p._5004Q2NVdnf:ref

[Alain-Daniel Bourdages]

I had an idea since you can't open the existing Charles logs. I re-saved it using what they call the "legacy Charles format" and uploaded it using the form. Maybe that will work? Also included is the full android log of the bugged session.

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor]

Hi Alain,

The charles log provided did not [have SSL enabled](https://developers.google.com/admob/android/charles). As a result I could not extract the creative id. Please enable SSL and send me the results.

Second, I did not see any trace of the error you encountered. Can you please provide me a trace which includes the `Uncaught SyntaxError: Unexpected token` crash ?

Thanks,

[Khôi Nguyên]

I got the same issue , when my app loaded Interstitial ad but hasn't called showAds , a strange sound came up without any view of ads . I believe it's a playable ads . I can't reproduce it but many users got this and they have terrible exp with my app ( Music player app) .  

Vào lúc 01:22:00 UTC+7 ngày Thứ Năm, 10 tháng 8, 2023, Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor đã viết:

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor]

Hi Khoi,

Thank for letting us know. To move forward we need a code sample which can replicate this issue or a charles log which recorded the issue session.

[Tom]

Hi Nick,

I've experienced the exact same issue with my app. I've received reports from multiple users and it's quite concerning. I wasn't able to obtain Charles Logs, but I managed to record the background music using a voice recorder. Would this be helpful in resolving your issue?

The issue occurred with the Google Mobile Ads Unity Plugin v7.3.0. Is there a possibility that updating to the latest version of this SDK might resolve the problem?

I'd appreciate a response.

Thanks,
Tom

2023年8月12日土曜日 6:19:24 UTC+9 Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor:

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor]

Hi Tom,

 

Yes, a video showing the problem would be great. That said, I was unable to make use of the `.chlz` file. I am unfamiliar with that file format and could not find any reference to it online. Can you please resent the `.chls` file. If it is large you can `.zip` it. Additionally you could look into network tracing to provide additional details.

[WON]

As you are reading this thread, it is January 2024. The exact same phenomenon as the YouTube video in the first thread (2021) is occurring to our game users. After double-checking with the user, it was the same music. I receive at least 3 to 4 CS emails from users a day. (If you consider the users who did not send the email, I think there will be hundreds or thousands of cases per day.
Is this a problem that hasn't been resolved yet? How can this be solved?

2021년 9월 20일 월요일 오후 10시 15분 20초 UTC+9에 ad...@superpea.com님이 작성:

This video illustrates the issue:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4Qjeu5biNI

I strongly suspect this is due to Admob as the music that is played is not a file we recognize as part of the app, yet the only two ways of stopping it are:

1. Close the app.
2. Watch an interstitial advert.

There is about a 3% probability of it occurring when switching between Unity scenes (to the scene where Admob is initialized) as far as we can tell. Once it is triggered it will remain in this irritating music loop until either of the above actions are performed.

On one occasion we were able to trigger it twice in the same play session by going back and forward between scenes. Here both instances of the music loop were playing at the same time making quite the racket!

Is this music loop something you guys recognize? If so could you please tell us what circumstances can trigger it on Admob initialization?

Many thanks,

Richard

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor]

Hi,

Thank you for contacting the Mobile Ads SDK support team.

We need detailed debug information from a device where it's observed in order to actually make any progress in diagnosing this. The only way for us to investigate further is by creating a project where the issue is reproducible. Once provided, I'll be raising this to a wider team for further checking and to get their insight as well.
 

If the file(s) you are looking to share are less than 25mb in total you can attach them to this case on your next reply. If you are having trouble attaching your file to this case or if your file(s) are larger than 25mb, you can share your files with me by performing the following steps:

 

1. Navigate to

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfkAiXMeYP-fw1W3Z-tT9uwmATEKO5X6S-th0gR2ezdKaaqfg/viewform?usp=pp_url&entry.400550049=Mobile+Ads+SDK&entry.460850823=5004Q00002rXXlKQAW&entry.80707362=00219842

2. Fill out all fields, and attach your file(s).

3. Please reply back on this thread when you have uploaded your file(s). Please do not share this link.

This message is in relation to case "ref:!00D1U01174p.!5004Q02rXXlK:ref"

Thanks,
 

Mobile Ads SDK Team

 

This message is in relation to case "ref:!00D1U01174p.!5004Q02rXXlK:ref"

Thanks,
 

Mobile Ads SDK Team

 

[sven...@gmail.com]

There's no way for us developers to reproduce as we're only supposed to ever see test ads. Not to mention the randomness involved makes it very unlikely we would ever see, and it would be pretty hard to make a project that only showed the malicious ads. I think the onus lies on Google to stamp out these malicious ads as they are ruining many apps and games currently. I also 3-4 user's / day one-starring my app because of this background music playing problem, and there must be many thousands affected just in my app, it completely ruins the app as it is a music playing app.

[sven...@gmail.com]

The only information I have currently is a screen recording by a user, and it happens to be of the same song as depicted in this video game: https://www.reddit.com/r/WorldOfTanksBlitz/comments/17wv3o9/annoying_music_while_playing/

The song in question is Honey Cmon by The Best Of's, so if there was any way to correlate the song with a particular ad, that might provide a way to track down what ads are responsible. Tracking down an ad like that is beyond an app developer's scope, perhaps Google has more information that could be used.

[Kerem]

This is probably the same problem with the following: https://x.com/kerem_erkan/status/1735295339576320392?s=46

The creative is loaded and starts running in the background immediately. In my case it was the tapping of a gull, in your case it is a much annoying music. If you ever find the app that loads this creative, please let us know, so we can block that app from displaying ads on our apps.

Unfortunately you will not get help on this forum, since they reply with automated answers. We tried it on the following thread with the same results. They will not investigate even if they are provided with a creative ID.

https://groups.google.com/g/google-admob-ads-sdk/c/dsD_MuPaEok

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor]

Hi,

Thank you for getting back to us.

It is very important to follow AdMob Policies, as well as Implementation Guidelines to avoid any issues. Kindly double-check your implementation so that Ads load and show as expected. To investigate this audio issue further, we kindly request that you privately provide us with the following details:

• app ID
• ad unit ID
• SDK version being used
• Video recording of the issue
• Sample project reproducing the issue

You can provide the following details via reply privately to the author option or directly provide it to the link below.

If the file(s) you are looking to share are less than 25mb in total you can attach them to this case on your next reply. If you are having trouble attaching your file to this case or if your file(s) are larger than 25mb, you can share your files with me by performing the following steps:

1. Navigate to

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfkAiXMeYP-fw1W3Z-tT9uwmATEKO5X6S-th0gR2ezdKaaqfg/viewform?usp=pp_url&entry.400550049=Mobile+Ads+SDK&entry.460850823=5004Q00002rXXlKQAW&entry.80707362=00219842

2. Fill out all fields, and attach your file(s).

3. Please reply back on this thread when you have uploaded your file(s). Please do not share this link. 

This message is in relation to case "ref:!00D1U01174p.!5004Q02rXXlK:ref"

Thanks,
 

Mobile Ads SDK Team

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor]

Hi,

Thank you for contacting the Mobile Ads SDK support team.

By reviewing your concern, I understand that one of your apps is facing an audio issue in Unity.

I see that you have already raised this concern on another thread with the subject “[google-admob-ads-sdk] Unity/Admob playing odd music loop when switching scenes"’', and we have already responded there for this issue. To avoid multiple threads on the same issue, please take a look at that thread and continue the discussion on the same for further updates on the issue. 

This message is in relation to case "ref:!00D1U01174p.!5004Q02rXjdC:ref"

Thanks,
 

Mobile Ads SDK Team

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor]

Hi Kerem,

Thank you for contacting the Mobile Ads SDK support team.

By reviewing your concern, I understand that one of your apps is facing an audio issue when switching scenes in Unity.

It is very important to follow AdMob Policies, as well as Implementation Guidelines to avoid any issues. Kindly double-check your implementation so that Ads load and show as expected. Can you confirm whether you were able to replicate the mentioned issue in our Google Sample applications? To investigate this audio issue further, we kindly request that you privately provide us with any of the following details:

• app ID
• ad unit ID
• SDK version being used

• Error logs

• Video recording of the issue
• Sample project reproducing the issue

You can provide the following details via reply privately to the author option or directly provide it to the link below.

If the file(s) you are looking to share are less than 25mb in total you can attach them to this case on your next reply. If you are having trouble attaching your file to this case or if your file(s) are larger than 25mb, you can share your files with me by performing the following steps:

1. Navigate to

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfkAiXMeYP-fw1W3Z-tT9uwmATEKO5X6S-th0gR2ezdKaaqfg/viewform?usp=pp_url&entry.400550049=Mobile+Ads+SDK&entry.460850823=5004Q00002rXkBZQA0&entry.80707362=00219944

2. Fill out all fields, and attach your file(s).

3. Please reply back on this thread when you have uploaded your file(s). Please do not share this link.

This message is in relation to case "ref:!00D1U01174p.!5004Q02rXkBZ:ref"

Thanks,
 

Mobile Ads SDK Team

[Lhass Khiss]

Please close the app

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