Android & iOS IMA SDK: Ad display container - how to implement support for screen rotation changes and floating/fullscreen

[Alexandru Isaia]

Hello IMA SDK team,

We use the newest version of IMA SDK for Android and iOS.

Ad tag: any demo tag.

We need your help to understand how to properly implement support for the IMA unit for:

1. screen rotate / orientation changes

2. change the size and location of the initial unit like for fullscreen or jump into a floating position on scroll out-of-view

What we have observed so far for the above cases:

ads with IMA starts playing within current ad display container. Once ad container becomes invisible (in case of floating) or destroyed (in case or rotation), IMA SDK doesn’t allow to set a new ad display container (on floating player or on newly created playerview after rotation) during the same ad play. Disappearing of IMA ad container leads to breaking of ad inner tracking.

We have not found anything yet in the documentation on how to handle these cases and we think there should be already support in IMA SDKs (Android and iOS) for these as are common actions in the mobile apps.

Please let us know if any other details are needed.

Thank you for the help.

Best regards

Alex

[IMA SDK]

Hi Alex,

 

Thank you for reaching out to us.

 

I have tested the described scenario (e.g screen rotate) on our Android advance sample app using and I am getting a white screen instead but the Ad continues to play. To make sure we are having the same behavior and I am getting your issue correctly, could you please send us a screen recording of the behavior you are reporting? Once provided, I will reach out to the rest of the team to get their feedbacks.

Regards,

Michael Angelo Legaspi IMA SDK Team

ref:_00D1U1174p._5004Q2JZwFn:ref

[Alexandru Isaia]

Hi Michael, hi IMA SDK team,

I've sent you a private message with:

- an Android test apk download link 

- steps how to reproduce the 2 issues

- and implementation details. 

The apk we sent you will display event logs from IMA SDK and logs regarding reset of ad UI container for better understanding of what’s going on with ads and this switching between players.

We use 2 players in Android SDK and each player has an ad UI container. One of these players is always visible at the moment of IMA SDK initialization. IMA SDK is initialized with the visible player’s ad UI container same way it is done in Advanced Example. On a certain point of ads playing the visible player may become invisible (it’s scrolled out of screen in layout hierarchy) and we switch playing video to 2nd player, which is visible. Its ad UI container (View) is also visible. However it is not possible to set new ad UI container (from the 2nd player) for existing AdDisplayContainer during ads playing in a situation like this. 

There is also a case when the screen rotates, we restore player state, but we can’t set the new ad ui container to AdDisplayContainer that survives the rotation. 

The method setAdContainer (https://developers.google.com/interactive-media-ads/docs/sdks/android/client-side/api/reference/com/google/ads/interactivemedia/v3/api/BaseDisplayContainer.html#setAdContainer(android.view.ViewGroup) is deprecated and doesn’t work during ads play. 

Is there any alternative to switch to a new ad ui container during playing ads?

What would it solve it for us:

In IMA SDK to have a possibility to set a new ad UI container to AdDisplayContainer during ads playback, not only for the new ad requests and reinitialization of AdDisplayContainer.

Best regards

Alex

[IMA SDK]

Hi Alex,

 

Thank you for providing additional information and your use case.

 

I was able to see the behavior you are reporting upon testing. I noticed that this behavior of not showing the UI overlays is happening wether it is from floating to non-floating or vice versa as long as the current Ad is playing. This is in relation to your scenario 1: step5 and scenario 2: step6, notice that in your second Ad (in floating mode), if you scroll up while the Ad is playing, you wouldn't also see the UI overlays in non-floating video. And same thing when rotating the screen orientation.

 

With this, I will raise this to the rest of our team to get their insights as well. We will get back to you the soonest we have our findings.

Regards,

[IMA SDK]

Hi Alex,

 

Hope you are doing well.

 

Our team confirmed that the SDK does not currently support this scenario and we would recommend for you to find an alternative way to continue using the current ad display container with your use case.