SDK 7.5.1: This application is modifying the autolayout engine from a background thread

[Johannes Plunien]

Hi,

we're using GoogleMobileAdsSdkiOS 7.5.1 via CocoaPods on our application [1]. We have fairly standard setup with a UICollectionView and some UICollectionViewCell objects. In the cell objects we ad a GADSearchBannerView as a subview to the cell's contentView. We also set and implement the GADBannerViewDelegate. When we start scrolling and new ad cells are being used, we start seeing following warnings in the console.log of Xcode [2]. As soon as we comment out this line, the warning goes away:

    GADRequest *request = [self buildRequest];

    [self.bannerView loadRequest:request];

We checked already the implementations of the GADBannerViewDelegate methods, all of them are coming back on the main thread. All other methods inside our cell are also called on the main thread. So we're blind there and rely on you guys, can you please have a look into it?

Thanks,
Johannes

[1] https://itunes.apple.com/de/app/ebay-kleinanzeigen-kostenlos./id382596778?mt=8

[2] https://gist.githubusercontent.com/plu/9eaa9851ebdfa02a0c6a/raw/eb496a569aa43b34c1c6afe80f9502b1b8de75c2/gistfile1.txt

[Vu Chau (MobileAds SDK Team)]

Hi Johannes,

When I ran your live app here on our device, I wasn't able to get the reported warning.  Is there any chance you can send us some code snippets that reproduce this warning locally?

Thanks!

Vu Chau

Mobile Ads SDK Team

[Johannes Plunien]

Hey,

thanks for your quick response. Here's a minimal example reproducing the issue.

1. git clone https://github.com/plu/AdMob-Example

2. open AdMob.xcworkspace

3. CMD + r

4. scroll a few screens down

5. notice warnings in Xcode console: "This application is modifying the autolayout engine from a background thread......."

If you need more information, please let me know. Also if we are doing something wrong in the example code I provided, also please let me know.

Thanks,

Johannes

[Johannes Plunien]

Sorry, I missed giving one important testing hint: Run on iOS 9 :).

[Jason McNeil]

There are many issues with admob doing layout while not running on the main thread.

It's a common but not consistent bug. We get about 1% to 2% of users with this bug daily.

[Vu Chau (MobileAds SDK Team)]

Hi guys,

Thanks for the code.  I was able to reproduce the warning exactly as you reported.  It looks like the exception comes from a WebThread, so there might be some operations on a WebView from a background thread.  I'll speak with the rest of the team about this and see what we can do to rectify the issue.

Thanks,

Vu Chau

Mobile Ads SDK Team

[Tristan Emrich]

In your CollectionViewController.m file, try putting [cell setUpAd] in a background thread to avoid blocking the main thread (which is probably causing the warning):

dispatch_async(dispatch_get_main_queue(), ^{

        [cell setUpAd];

});

Let me know if you have any additional questions or issues.

Thank you!

Tristan

[Johannes Plunien]

Hi,

thanks for your response. It does fix the warning. However I find this solution a bit disturbing. I have also changed your recommendation slightly:

https://github.com/plu/AdMob-Example/commit/3d00a2078b6db06071b70316bd8cfd04ca315648

This points out that there is something weird going on when creating a GADSearchBannerView object.

So I'd really like to see this fix *inside* your SDK, please. A consumer of your API should not have to worry about this, right?

Thanks,

Johannes

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[Tristan Emrich]

Hi Johannes,

Taking a closer look at your example, it appears you are creating a GADSearchBannerView and a GADSearchRequest every time setUpAd is called. You should only need to create each of them once. Attached a modified version of your AdCollectionViewCell implementation.

Let me know if that helps.

Thank you!

Tristan

On Wednesday, October 7, 2015 at 1:04:35 PM UTC-7, Johannes Plunien wrote:

Hi,

thanks for your response. It does fix the warning. However I find this solution a bit disturbing. I have also changed your recommendation slightly:

https://github.com/plu/AdMob-Example/commit/3d00a2078b6db06071b70316bd8cfd04ca315648

This points out that there is something weird going on when creating a GADSearchBannerView object.

So I'd really like to see this fix *inside* your SDK, please. A consumer of your API should not have to worry about this, right?

Thanks,

Johannes

On 7 October 2015 at 21:52, Tristan Emrich <mobileadssdk-advisor+tristan@google.com> wrote:

In your CollectionViewController.m file, try putting [cell setUpAd] in a background thread to avoid blocking the main thread (which is probably causing the warning):

dispatch_async(dispatch_get_main_queue(), ^{

        [cell setUpAd];

});

Let me know if you have any additional questions or issues.

Thank you!

Tristan

On Wednesday, October 7, 2015 at 11:59:10 AM UTC-7, Vu Chau (MobileAds SDK Team) wrote:

Hi guys,

Thanks for the code.  I was able to reproduce the warning exactly as you reported.  It looks like the exception comes from a WebThread, so there might be some operations on a WebView from a background thread.  I'll speak with the rest of the team about this and see what we can do to rectify the issue.

Thanks,

Vu Chau

Mobile Ads SDK Team

On Wednesday, October 7, 2015 at 10:57:34 AM UTC-4, Jason McNeil wrote:

There are many issues with admob doing layout while not running on the main thread.

It's a common but not consistent bug. We get about 1% to 2% of users with this bug daily.

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[Johannes Plunien]

Hey Tristan,

thanks for your suggestion. This would mean, that every dequeued ad cell would display the same ad, right? What we want is: Every n-th cell should be an ad cell. Every of these ad cells should display a new/different ad. But it feels a little like this wish is working against your design :).

Cheers,

Johannes

On Wednesday, October 7, 2015 at 11:28:40 PM UTC+2, Tristan Emrich wrote:

Hi Johannes,

Taking a closer look at your example, it appears you are creating a GADSearchBannerView and a GADSearchRequest every time setUpAd is called. You should only need to create each of them once. Attached a modified version of your AdCollectionViewCell implementation.

Let me know if that helps.

Thank you!

Tristan

On Wednesday, October 7, 2015 at 1:04:35 PM UTC-7, Johannes Plunien wrote:

Hi,

thanks for your response. It does fix the warning. However I find this solution a bit disturbing. I have also changed your recommendation slightly:

https://github.com/plu/AdMob-Example/commit/3d00a2078b6db06071b70316bd8cfd04ca315648

This points out that there is something weird going on when creating a GADSearchBannerView object.

So I'd really like to see this fix *inside* your SDK, please. A consumer of your API should not have to worry about this, right?

Thanks,

Johannes

On 7 October 2015 at 21:52, Tristan Emrich <mobileadssdk-a...@google.com> wrote:

In your CollectionViewController.m file, try putting [cell setUpAd] in a background thread to avoid blocking the main thread (which is probably causing the warning):

dispatch_async(dispatch_get_main_queue(), ^{

        [cell setUpAd];

});

Let me know if you have any additional questions or issues.

Thank you!

Tristan

On Wednesday, October 7, 2015 at 11:59:10 AM UTC-7, Vu Chau (MobileAds SDK Team) wrote:

Hi guys,

Thanks for the code.  I was able to reproduce the warning exactly as you reported.  It looks like the exception comes from a WebThread, so there might be some operations on a WebView from a background thread.  I'll speak with the rest of the team about this and see what we can do to rectify the issue.

Thanks,

Vu Chau

Mobile Ads SDK Team

On Wednesday, October 7, 2015 at 10:57:34 AM UTC-4, Jason McNeil wrote:

There are many issues with admob doing layout while not running on the main thread.

It's a common but not consistent bug. We get about 1% to 2% of users with this bug daily.

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[Tristan Emrich]

Hi Johannes,

If you would like a new add every nth cell, then you can pull out the [self loadRequest] from the !self.bannerView "if" statement in AdCollectionViewCell. This will make a new ad request for every nth cell.  

If your app is an AdMob implementation, then please make sure that it adheres to the banner implementation policies. 

Thank you!

Tristan

[Otam]

I'm getting the same error under version 7.5.2, iPhone6+, ios 9.0. It only disappear if i downgrade all the way to 7.4.1.

As Vu Chau mentioned the problem is indeed in  WebThread and since 7.5.2 didn't solve this i'm assuming this is still an open issue?

[Tristan Emrich]

Hi,

Can you please provide a sample app that reproduces this issue? This will make it easier to debug and will help us determine what is causing this error.

Thank you!

Tristan