Error 402 Timeout Suddenly Started

[The PowerBlockTV]

Our website uses DFP to deliver several direct video campaigns which are uploaded directly to DFP. Suddenly without any changes being made, all vast tags for our various video players no longer deliver ads. Instead we only see a 402 error when testing in the video suite inspector. We've tried regenerating the tags and have had no luck.

What could cause sudden and frequent 402 errors when no changes were made to the tags or campaigns? Here is a sample tag where the problem is present.

https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/ads?sz=1080x720&iu=/47279575/Specific&impl=s&gdfp_req=1&env=vp&output=vast&unviewed_position_start=1&url=[referrer_url]&description_url=[description_url]&correlator=[timestamp]

[Vu Chau (IMA SDK Team)]

Hi there,

Thanks for the tag! I tested with it and was able to get a preroll back 100% of the time.  

A 402 is thrown when there is a timeout trying to access the media file.  Usually, that is due to a the network connection having low bandwidth and/or the media file has an extremely high bitrate that is slow to load.  My recommendation would be to try requesting ads again in a different network condition and/or leveraging the bitrates of the assets.

Vu Chau

IMA SDK Team

[The PowerBlockTV]

Hi Vu,

Thanks for testing that for us. We've tried checking our website just on mobile data network and the ads were playing regularly. It's very strange that we aren't seeing the ads on our regular network connection, using either wired desktops or wifi on desktop or mobile. We're in our own office building and haven't had any connection issues lately. It's pretty odd that just our video ads aren't working for us here.

[Vu Chau (IMA SDK Team)]

Hi there,

Would you be able to provide us the URLs to the sites where you encountered the 402s? I'll test them out on my end.

Again I suspect it is highly network-related, so make sure there is no firewall and the like that might be blocking the assets from being loaded.  You can also try to increase the timeout (the default is 15s) and see if there is an improvement.  

Vu Chau

IMA SDK Team

[The PowerBlockTV]

You can find players with the DFP tags throughout pages on www.powernationtv.com to test. I agree that it seems to be a network issue, I'm just having trouble understanding why we suddenly are having that issue in our office. If all of our users outside of people in our building can see ads, it's less of an issue.

[Vu Chau (IMA SDK Team)]

Thanks for the page!

All the video ads worked fine on my end, and there was no error thrown.  Given that it also didn't manifest in the Video Suite Inspector, we'd need a case where we can see the issue reliably.  

For the time being, see if you can gather any log (browser's, IMA's, Charles) when you run into a 402.  It might help shed some light.

Vu Chau

IMA SDK Team