# Ads causing Chrome to be Unresponsive



## LoREvanescence (Jun 19, 2007)

Tonight I am noticing that at the bottom left hand corner of the browser window in Chrome I keep getting "Connecting to"... and it keeps cycling through several addresses related to banner ads.'

While It is doing this Chrome is unresponsive and I can't scroll up and down or follow a link to a post.

A couple times it was bad enough where it prompted chrome to pop up the notification box that this tab has become unresponsive and ask me if I want to kill the process on this tab.

Closing out Chrome and reopening it doesn't seem to be helping.


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## Mike Lang (Nov 17, 1999)

We haven't had any similar reports.


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## LoREvanescence (Jun 19, 2007)

It has stopped for me now. Only happened a few times last night when one certain ad was loaded. One political ad local to my area. I think it was getting stuck in a redirect loop.


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## Soapm (May 9, 2007)

I am having the same problem with both FireFox and IE.

I turned off my ad blocker to stop that popup but now it seems the sight stalls while it's fetching the ads.

I don't mind seeing ads but don't delay my viewing experience while you get them to me ROFL...


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## CraigK (Jun 9, 2006)

I had the same thing happening to me using the Opera browser (which is Chromium based).

I'd turn ad blocker on and and everything would be fine. I'd wait a day or two and then turn ad blocker off and the stalled page loaded would eventually (but not immediately) return.

Working fine as I browse the site now with ad blocker off.


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## BRiT wtfdotcom (Dec 17, 2015)

Im seeing the same stall and unresponsiveness of the forums when its serving up the ads, especially when using chrome on my tablet. Sometimes I just close the tab and completely stop reading these forums, it is that bad.


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## David Bott (Jan 1, 1999)

Unless you can identify the ad that is making for the issue, it is not possible to see if it can be corrected. I have full ads running on my browser with TCF and have not run into any such issues.


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## Soapm (May 9, 2007)

David Bott said:


> Unless you can identify the ad that is making for the issue, it is not possible to see if it can be corrected. I have full ads running on my browser with TCF and have not run into any such issues.


I wonder if it's because you have all the adds in your cache? I will see if I can spot the ads but what happens with me is I make moves while it isn't responding so once it starts responding I instantly see the multiple moves I tried... But first there is a stall for the ad at the top then there is a second stall for the ad on the right...

We want to help you fund the board but we also want a pleasant browsing experience.


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## David Bott (Jan 1, 1999)

Ads don't cache that I am aware of. Ads are based on browsing and location. So I may never see the ad you are getting if in fact it is coming from an ad vs something else. (Which happens)


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## Mikeguy (Jul 28, 2005)

Simply to report a like experience, I'd been away from the site for awhile and got the site message a couple of days ago to consider turning off Adblock here, to help support the site. I was happy to do so, and then had my ordinarily capable Windows Dell tablet (2GB RAM, plus SSD memory) crash 3 or 4 times on me here in the course of 2 hours. (There also are significant, and painful, site stalls.) As best I can tell, the site tries to load so many ads and related paraphernalia that it causes Windows to crash. I was using IE11 each of the times. FYI.


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## BRiT wtfdotcom (Dec 17, 2015)

Today i experienced a couple of ads that redirected my tablet chrome browser to a completely different site. This is the only site I was browsing at the time. I suspect the destination site is a phising scam site setup to get personal details. I dont know exactly what offending ads this forum is serving up, but something needs to be done by the admins here.

The destination hijacking url is:

Chance to get $1000 Walmart reward card


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## keirgrey (Nov 20, 2001)

BRiT wtfdotcom said:


> Today i experienced a couple of ads that redirected my tablet chrome browser to a completely different site. This is the only site I was browsing at the time. I suspect the destination site is a phising scam site setup to get personal details. I dont know exactly what offending ads this forum is serving up, but something needs to be done by the admins here.
> 
> The destination hijacking url is:
> 
> Chance to get $1000 Walmart reward card


I got one that directed me to a fake Chrome update site.


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## cherry ghost (Sep 13, 2005)

BRiT wtfdotcom said:


> Today i experienced a couple of ads that redirected my tablet chrome browser to a completely different site. This is the only site I was browsing at the time. I suspect the destination site is a phising scam site setup to get personal details. I dont know exactly what offending ads this forum is serving up, but something needs to be done by the admins here.
> 
> The destination hijacking url is:
> 
> Chance to get $1000 Walmart reward card


There was a previous thread on this and the response was,

"It's an AD, what can I say? We have ads."

Ad spam hijack


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## justen_m (Jan 15, 2004)

keirgrey said:


> I got one that directed me to a fake Chrome update site.


I also got the fake Chrome update site this morning. These are the types that might actually fool some people.


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## BRiT wtfdotcom (Dec 17, 2015)

cherry ghost said:


> There was a previous thread on this and the response was,
> 
> "It's an AD, what can I say? We have ads."
> 
> Ad spam hijack


Thank you for letting me know of their lack of caring.

As an admin of other sites, the easy dismissal with a "It's an AD ..." is exactly the wrong attitude to have and extend to the users. An admin who cares about the users would let the ad agency they're using know about the issue and have the offensive hijacking ads removed. They would even go to the extent of switching ad agencies.


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## keirgrey (Nov 20, 2001)

justen_m said:


> I also got the fake Chrome update site this morning. These are the types that might actually fool some people.


Not to be critical but I was told that it was my own problem, not a problem with the ad stream.


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## keirgrey (Nov 20, 2001)

I am a long time IT professional. I do know how hard it is to police these things. Telling a user that it's something on their end, though is not helpful.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

keirgrey said:


> I am a long time IT professional. I do know how hard it is to police these things. Telling a user that it's something on their end, though is not helpful.


Take a trip to tv.vom or tvguide.com, two sites that also use the same guide data as TiVo. If you get stuck on a HULU ad don't be mad. IE11 indicates a "long running script" and offers to kill it. It's obvious that the XenForo software is fine. It's the ad linkage that kills performance.


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## David Bott (Jan 1, 1999)

As far as NOT CARING, you can not be so far from the truth. We DO contact the ad network and we do make sure are settings are such that such ads are not suppose to be shown.

The fact of the matter is that with all the companies and ads that are server across many platforms, it is VERY HARD to track down a single ad to block it. Without seeing the ad ourselves, we can not then pull up the page source to try to located what service sent it down. Ad networks sell space to other ad networks and the call backs also happen if an ad can not be served from X provider and thus another ad network is then given the chance. It is not as simple as you think. Then you add in that when someone puts an ad on-line, it can be miss labeled either intentionally or not intentionally and thus until corrected, it could be shown. (Think Like Spam email gets by and to you.)

It is also try that a lot of times it is NOT the site, but in a persons browser that had been compromised. Of the last 7 notices we got on something like this, 5 of them were found in the users system. "David, I am so sorry for accusing your site of serving bad ads. Upon your request to please run a MalewareBytes scan, it did locate two, yes two, browser add-ons that got installed. Thank you for your help."

In any case, we can only do what we can, and when we get a note that says "I was redirected", that info surely is of no help unless we can tell why. IF you search the interwebs you will see that tablet redirects can happen based on the OS as it uses an loophole in the code that allows for it. Here is a Google search for example... Google

All in all, we do of course care.

(I for one have all the ads displayed. I have yet to find a popup or Chrome Alert ad. If I did, I surely would capture the code to look into.)


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## BrettStah (Nov 12, 2000)

Would it be helpful for folks with ad complaints to choose View Source, and then send it to you or someone else?


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## David Bott (Jan 1, 1999)

Yes. If you can, at the time it occurs, then we may be able to send that page code to be looked at.


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## wedgecon (Dec 28, 2002)

Something has to be done to control the ads. For the last couple of days they have been real bad, making the site unusable. My only option is to re enable the ad blocker so I can read the posts. I do my best to use Origin as little as possible, but these super aggressive ad's are making it impossible. The ad's inside the posts seem to be causing the most problems.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

I have found using my router to block flashtalking.com, used for the hulu ads, to keep from dying on those long running scripts. Same issue with the same ads on tv.com and tvguide.com. Such a coincidence.


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## David Bott (Jan 1, 1999)

wedgecon said:


> but these super aggressive ad's are making it impossible.


Hi...What are you considering "super aggressive ad's". ? Just wondering as I do not see, nor have issues, with the ads I see loading on the pages. So not sure what you may be getting. Thanks


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## Mike Lang (Nov 17, 1999)

wedgecon said:


> For the last couple of days they have been real bad, making the site unusable.


Even logged in as you with full ads I'm able to navigate the whole forum without any issues.


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## Mikeguy (Jul 28, 2005)

Mike Lang said:


> Even logged in as you with full ads I'm able to navigate the whole forum without any issues.


Please forgive my naïve question but, are you using his hardware as well? On my Windows 10 Dell tablet with 2GB RAM and flash memory, using IE11, either this site or the ads have caused my tablet to fully crash 3 or 4 times in under 2 hours; if I enable AdBlock, no issue whatsoever. I haven't had this issue at any other site (although pcmag.com and cnet.com will lead to long delays, presumably as the many ads load up and related connections are made).


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## David Bott (Jan 1, 1999)

Just a note...We have made NO ad network changes or how the ads are called between the old forum software and the new software. We ported the ad calls over directly from the other site. So the ads are the same, aka, the providers, as before. 

Now you surely can and will get different ads based on your browsing etc. so I surely will not see the same type ads for the most part.

Feel free to use an adblocker, as a member, you should only get a notice about it every 30 mins.


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## Mikeguy (Jul 28, 2005)

And to provide some--egads, dare I say it--positive news on the ads situation, I was at my local library yesterday, which has older, wired PCs which are linked together somehow that often can leave to big lags, and I came to TCF and had no issues whatsoever with the site--no lags or crashes (using IE and Windows 7, I believe). As distinct from my home situation on a wireless Dell Windows 10 tablet.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

Mikeguy said:


> And to provide some--egads, dare I say it--positive news on the ads situation, I was at my local library yesterday, which has older, wired PCs which are linked together somehow that often can leave to big lags, and I came to TCF and had no issues whatsoever with the site--no lags or crashes (using IE and Windows 7, I believe). As distinct from my home situation on a wireless Dell Windows 10 tablet.


My serious delays are gone. I now block flashtalking.com in my router. All those Adchoices ads still come through, but the HULU ads with their long running scripts are blocked. Blocking with IE11 didn't help. I'm on Win 8.1.


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## ClearToLand (Jul 10, 2001)

[Tried to send this in a PM / Conversation so as not to go 'Off Topic' but got the message: "You may not start a conversation with the following recipiants: JoeKustra"]


JoeKustra said:


> ...I now block flashtalking.com in my router...


I'm running DD-WRT. Since I just added some tablets to the household, I'm reading about moving ad-blocking from each PC to the router (or at least add some minimal blocking via some sort of hosts file on the router). Are you using DNSMasq or JJFS and Pixelserver?

Any advice or LINKs would be appreciated.

Thx.


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