UWP project randomly shows white blank Ad

Question

Hi,

In my case, the UWP banner ad size is 320x50. Sometimes when the Ad provider is Outbrain, there is a chance that the Ad is just blank and shows nothing but a white rectangle. The auto refresh is off for the ad control.

To reproduce the issue, you may need to configure the Ad provider to be outbrain at the dev center.

Sometimes it shows normally but sometimes it shows a blank rectangle. So, it's not my code's issue. The property HasAd is true when the white blank rectangle shows.

Will be great if someone take a look at the issue.

Best Regards

Answer 1

Apparently this is 'As designed' - despite that being utter nonsense, but there you go...

See multiple other threads reporting this exact same issue over several years...

Answer 2

Thanks. For my case, it does look like a 'As designed' issue as bbjbbj said... 

I tested the issue a few hours ago and tested just now, and cannot get a normal ad on my computer. Looks as if the ad providers are simply running out of ads for some time. But the AdControl takes the blank ad as a normal ad.

Why HasAd is still true on the ad is refreshed event, but still shows blank rectangle? Is it just because Edge cannot render the webview content correctly?

Answer 3

Found below similar threads...

https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsapps/en-US/fe556b4d-b20b-408a-8f3a-51381aadf6f4/why-are-white-ad-banners-acceptable?forum=aiasdk

https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsapps/en-US/146b5aec-62c9-4fa2-b19d-7ce9ddff0d7f/white-ad-no-ads-displayed-on-devices-updated-to-build-1809?forum=aiasdk

Really hope Microsoft can do something to fix the issue.

Answer 4

I am shocked that this is not listed in the known issue list below. Not sure whether the Microsoft's AD SDK team is not aware of the issue at all.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/monetize/known-issues-for-the-advertising-libraries

Answer 5

Hello,

Could you make a support ticket which includes detailed information (such as application id, ad unit id ... ) to ask the team for help directly? I will also report the team this issue. If you don't get response  from the team, please post the ticket number here, I will try my best to help you to contact the team to ask for help. 

Please click 'contact us' , select 'Dashboard issue' as support topic and proper issue type to 'submit an incident'.

Best regards

Daisy  Tian

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Answer 6

Thanks Daisy, following your suggestions:

Support request number: SR1467616357

Answer 7

Hi WuDiVeryLonely,

The team replied to me that they would pick up this issue. I will continue to sent your ticket number to team which could give contribute to their analysis.It may take little more time , however I will update here immediately if I receive the solution from the team. Sorry for any inconvenience.

Best regards

Daisy  Tian

---

MSDN Community Support
Please remember to click "Mark as Answer" the responses that resolved your issue, and to click "Unmark as Answer" if not. This can be beneficial to other community members reading this thread. If you have any compliments or complaints to MSDN Support, feel free to contact [e-mail].

Answer 8

Hi all,

@ MigrationUser 1 ,@bbjbbj Could you make support tickets with detailed issue information for the team to investigate? The team is working on this issue and they need more similar underlying cause to analyze. Thanks for your understanding and help.

Best regards

Daisy  Tian

---

MSDN Community Support
Please remember to click "Mark as Answer" the responses that resolved your issue, and to click "Unmark as Answer" if not. This can be beneficial to other community members reading this thread. If you have any compliments or complaints to MSDN Support, feel free to contact [e-mail].

Answer 9

Hi Daisy,

I have already included detailed info such as banner info when I submitted the ticket. I will reply email if I receive a reply.

Best Regards

Answer 10

An update for anyone who checks this thread. I have got no answer about when and why the white banner shows. Below is the final answer I got when my support case, SR1467616357, is closed.

In summary, no answer and the SDK developers will not be involved unless I can help the technical support engineer to reproduce the issue in his environment.

Below is the quote in the last mail reply.

Hello,

 

Thank you for your quick reply! Apologies as I was out of the office yesterday otherwise I would have gotten back to you sooner. I unfortunately cannot give you a 100% definitive answer as to why this happens as sometimes when the app goes through certification could be a hiccup in which I have seen many times whether on the backend of the certification process something might go wrong or whether there might be an issue with code. We do offer many viable options when something like this does occur such as our Technical Forums in which you can post an inquiry and a Microsoft Engineer can reach out to you directly. We are also available to help bridge the gap and provide support for the issue. Usually when we get involved we will need additional information prior to have the issue escalated as engineering needs additional insight into the issues prior to working on the issue. I will be sure to pass along your feedback to engineering but also want to let you know you can always provide feedback within the dashboard and that is viewed daily by engineering and management as they understand sometimes the experience can always be updated for a better overall experience by the developer. My apologies as I understand that is not what you wanted to hear but sometimes things do go wrong and we are always here to provide support. At this time, I will proceed in archiving the request and if you need additional assistance in the future please use the two links down below for support if needed.

 

https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/support

 

https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsapps/en-US/home?forum=wpdevelop

 

Regards,

Answer 11

According to the advertising team it is due to "ads not using the right format".  I don't think it has anything to do with a "certification hiccup".

Answer 12

EXACTLY WHAT IS THE POINT IN DOING THAT YET AGAIN.

SUPPORT REPEATEDLY DENY THERE IS ANY PROBLEM - with this or indeed almost any other Support Request.

If you do raise any support ticket you probably ought to note

i) It will take AT LEAST 3 months for any form of resolution, usually more

ii) 99.9999% of resoultions are: case closed with no actual action anywhere

What a surprise, MS Support saying they cant be bothered to do anything about it.

If it really is a problem with "ads not using the right format" DONT ALLOW THE ADS INTO THE INVENTORY - ITS NOT ROCKET SCIENCE

Answer 13

I can confirm that the issue is still there and that I'm getting almost 100% repro on one of my apps when it is running behind VPN (I tried Private Internet Access).

Surprisingly AdsControl still reports that ad was loaded successfully even when it is white/blank.

I tried to debug underlying WebView, but it also looks good, no JavaScript errors and it reports that content is loaded. Therefore there is no way to detect whether ad is loaded or not.

I wish to have an alternative ad provider to use in Windows apps, but unfortunately we stuck with buggy PubCenter. 

Microsoft, please fix this.