Prevent Non-Linear VAST Image Ads

[Travis Czerw]

Hi there,

I run a VMAP server that is using the HTML5 SDK. I have been running into issues with preroll where the UI will show that an ad is playing (no ad shown, skip button there but can't click) but the video is playing in the background. So basically the ad has not stopped the video content. I've narrowed this down to only the non-linear ads (which my understanding is non-linear ads do not stop content).

However since this is a preroll spot, this obviously creates a problem. It seems like the IMA hard sets the parameter afvsz as per this documentation (https://support.google.com/admanager/answer/1068325?hl=en) with a list of sizes that can be used for non-linear ads. However both the VMAP and the ad tag (using the vad_type=linear) indicate that only a linear response should be returned. 

So basically the IMA is ignoring everything the VMAP is telling it, which seems to defeat the point of the VMAP. I do not have control over the code on the page directly, so I'm trying to figure out a way to prevent non-linear ads from serving at all. I have not been able to find any settings in my GAM or parameters to pass to the VMAP/ad tag that seem to work. 

To reiterate, preroll works fine except when an image-ad (non-linear) gets returned. 

Any ideas? Or am I missing something.

Thanks,

Travis