IMA failure in Chrome on iOS

[Guillaume.A]

Hello every one,

I'm Guillaume andouard from Freewheel, developper in charge of ad integration on publisher side.

We've noticed a strange behavior using google ima3 on this page:

https://antoine-sticky.github.io/NQA/test-pages/brighcove-adssetup.html?zone=1957

when running in Chrome on iOS devices, the ad doesn't play.

Here are our observetions:

1. It's not a problem with playsinline. Removing playsinline in the vpaid hedgehog.js doesn't fix the issue.
2. It's not a problem with the encoding of MP4 media files. Playing the MP4 ad media file in Chrome on iOS using a simple video tag and it plays well.
3. VIDEOJS reports an error thrown by the IMA SDK on the console:
   VIDEOJS: ima3-ad-error AdError 402: VAST media file loading reached a timeout of 8 seconds.
   However we do not even see the any of the media file being requested in Charles traffic. We also tried removing the VPAID media file or replacing the mp4 media file with another mp4 and neither works.

In conclusion, we think there is a bug with the IMA SDK's VIDEOJS integration in Chrome on iOS. We're not able to look further into the issue as we don't have the source code of IMA SDK.

Hope that helps.

[ima-sdk-adv...@google.com]

Hi Guillaume,

Thank you for reaching out to support. Can you please ensure that you're calling adDisplayContainer.initialize as the direct result of a user gesture? Doing so is required since Chrome and Safari stopped allowing autoplay with volume. If you're not calling that API correctly, it's possible that the browser thinks you're trying to autoplay the ad (even if you're not!). I've seen this cause unpredictable like what you've been experiencing.

You can take a look at our GitHub to see how this is implemented in our samples (link).

Regards,
Chris Feldman

IMA SDK Team

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[Yue Wang]

Hi, Chris.

Thanks for the prompt reply.

The playback works in mobile Safari where autoplay is also blocked.

When we disable autoplay, the playback still doesn't work in mobile Chrome on iOS.

Based on the above is it still possible that the issue is caused by the player not calling adDisplayContainer.initialize when the user clicks the play button? We're asking because we don't own the player so we have to reach out to our partner about the issue if it's confirmed to be a player issue.

Thanks.

[ima-sdk-adv...@google.com]

Hi Wang,

Chris is OOO today and I'll be assisting you with your issue here.

I was able to load ads using the same AdTag with our VSI without any issues in Chrome on an iOS device. This seems to be an implementation specific issue and I would suggest that you reach out to your video player partner to get this resolved. You can check the same AdTag using VSI with this link: https://goo.gl/NeYPqC and let us know.

Regards,

Deepika Uragayala

IMA SDK Team

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Also find us on our blog and Google+ page:
    http://googleadsdeveloper.blogspot.com
    https://plus.google.com/115658573333388777174/
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[Guillaume.A]

Hi Google team!

I was told by the Brightcove player team that Google’s IMA SDK doesn’t support Chrome on iOS, so this issue will never be fixed.

They send me the link below which, indeed, doesn't mention iOS in the list of chrome mobile systems. 

https://developers.google.com/interactive-media-ads/docs/sdks/ios/compatibility

 

Can you please confirm it or update this table?

I don't wan't to say or partner they are loosing money because a google product they don't even use (IMA loaded through brightcove player) is incompatible with another google product their visitors use a lot... 

[ima-sdk-adv...@google.com]

Hi there,

Thank you for reaching out to us. We do support Chrome on iOS mobile devices, you can see by yourself when opening this link https://goo.gl/NeYPqC using a Chrome browser on an iPhone/iPad. However, we do not support issues related to third party libraries and do recommend you to reach out to the given library support team to solve these issues.

Regards,

Deepika Uragayala

IMA SDK Team

=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~
Also find us on our blog and Google+ page:
    http://googleadsdeveloper.blogspot.com
    https://plus.google.com/115658573333388777174/
=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~

[Guillaume.A]

That's all I wanted to know.

Can you please add it on https://developers.google.com/interactive-media-ads/docs/sdks/ios/compatibility

it is saying:

Mobile: Chrome/Android Browser (Android 4.1+ for phone, and Android 4.1+ for tablet), Safari (iOS 9.0+)

Seems missing Chrome iOS though.

Thank you again.

[ima-sdk-adv...@google.com]

Hi Adrian,

Thank you for reaching out to us. We've investigated the web page you shared with us and extracted the ad tags you mentioned. We were able to reproduce the behavior that you’re seeing with the Facebook Audience Network and FreeWheel that return empty VAST on Chrome iOS. Our team is going to review the issue. I will get back to you with more information as soon as possible.

Regards,

Deepika Uragayala

IMA SDK Team

=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~
Also find us on our blog and Google+ page:
    http://googleadsdeveloper.blogspot.com
    https://plus.google.com/115658573333388777174/
=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~

On 11/27/18 03:35:36 adria...@gmail.com wrote:

Hi everyone, we observe the same behavior on our player : https://www.viously.com/video-fr/s7WGuvG2NEu

However, we noticed that ads from DFP are being played successfully on Chrome iOS : https://adrian-poix.fr/divers/7136.jpg

Facebook Audience Network and FreeWheel doesn't work. IMA throws a timeout error even if VAST contains an ad.

[Michael Arguin]

Deepika,  This is Michael Arguin from Brightcove Engineering.  

One important part that Guillaume left out is they have to play their ads using INSECURE vPaid mode.  Using the The Video Suite Inspector link you shared ( https://goo.gl/NeYPqC ), and toggling vpaidMode set to INSECURE, you will see the 402 error that Guilluame posted.  The ad plays correctly on Chrome on iOS if vpaidMode is set to ENABLED.

Guillaume, please correct me if I am incorrect in this minor detail.  

I have also reached out to my contact on the IMA SDK team to verify that the HTML5 IMA SDK is indeed supported on Chrome on iOS and to request that the Compatibility Guide be updated to include this information.

Regards

Michael Arguin

Brightcove Customer Engineering

[Guillaume.A]

From the brightcove team:

"Our contact at Google's IMA SDK Engineering team has confirmed that the current compatibility documents on their site are up-to-date and that the currently do not support Chrome on iOS."

Can you please make sure google IMA is supporting Chrome on iOS and make sure the compatibility document is up to date ?

Thanks.

Le mercredi 28 novembre 2018 11:04:57 UTC+1, adria...@gmail.com a écrit :

Michael, we also toggle vpaidMode on INSECURE instead of ENABLED.

We experienced issues with some of our DSP that couldn't retrieve data like ad completion rate.

[Michael Arguin]

Deepika, can you provide an official response from Google or should I just post my reply from your team here?

[ima-sdk-adv...@google.com]

Hi Michael,

I have reconfirmed this with the team and had the confirmation that we don't officially support Chrome on iOS.

Regards,

Deepika Uragayala

IMA SDK Team

=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~
Also find us on our blog and Google+ page:
    http://googleadsdeveloper.blogspot.com
    https://plus.google.com/115658573333388777174/
=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~

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