Discovery, Science Channel, Animal Planet, all ads are back!

[risottto]

I don't know if everyone else is experiencing this, but with my cable login, all full episodes on Discovery, Science Channel, and Animal Planet all now have around 10-15 minutes of ads per episode. They were not there yesterday Nov 13th (seamlessly blocked by AdBlock) There is no adbocker warning, they just play with no option to pause of turn down the volume until each run of around six commercials have played though around 5 times per show. Any way I can this can return back to the way it was?

Thanks

[mapx]

provide example shows / videos, you should post some free episode which does not need login account.

[risottto]

It's pretty much every episode of every show on every discvoery related network, here's some random links that don't require a login at this moment:

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https://www.discoverygo.com/treasure-quest-snake-island/the-trail-of-blood/
https://www.animalplanetgo.com/pit-bulls-parolees/redeemed/
https://www.sciencechannelgo.com/outrageous-acts-of-science/accident-or-design/

[ChrisV]

I'm also interested in the AdBlock solution to this. I'll be monitoring activity here in hopes to learn what it is. Thanks in advance.

[ChrisV]

I'm also interested in the AdBlock solution to this. I'll be monitoring activity here in hopes to learn what it is. Thanks in advance.

...If you are able to advise on blocking discoverygo.com ads, I'll be happy to donate to adblock.

[mapx]

it's difficult to reproduce: do we need an us ip ? are you using flash player or html5 ? some account on those sites ?

[shepguessed]

it's difficult to reproduce: do we need an us ip ? are you using flash player or html5 ? some account on those sites ?

i believe you need to have a US ip and also sign in with your cable provider, but i think there are free links posted above this posts.

[ChrisV]

it's difficult to reproduce: do we need an us ip ? are you using flash player or html5 ? some account on those sites ?

Yikes. I don't know if it's because of US ip that is causing your inability to duplicate...

I am using:
Mozilla Firefox v 50.0.2 streaming via flash player (as far as I know),
on Windows 10,
logged in to DiscoveryGO.com via Frontier Communications using my father's credentials (he lives in a different household in a different city).
My internet service provider is Comcast Xfinity.
The ads play regardless of the show streamed on discoveryGO. Examples are:
https://www.discoverygo.com/edge-of-alaska/
https://www.discoverygo.com/alaska-the-last-frontier/

I can try to provide more information as you request it.

(If this helps, I had same problem with ads on History channel. I read your thread about history.com, installed your recommended filters, and the ads immediately stopped).

[anon42]

FWIW, I use ABP and NoScript, and when I told NoScript to leave those three example links alone (but left ABP active), they all started playing for me. Also, no ads. So I cannot reproduce the problem (and I am in the US) except when NoScript is doing its normal default blocking.

Also, I cannot test that discoverygo stuff since I use ATT U-verse as my provider and discoverygo requires provider partenership to unlock their videos. U-verse is not supported by discoverygo...yet.

[mapx]

I tested the sciencechannelgo link above, it starts with no ad but I get video ads at the first yellow sign and I see no way to stop them.
If someone else finds a way ...

[risottto]

I tried installing noscript, and it totally disabled the ability to play videos on discoverygo.com etc..., even enabling some scripts one by one (optimizely.com, ddmcdn.com...) .. video was either a black screen or network error.

With noscript off the videos play, but commercials start at the first dot on the player timeline (from a New York IP address, Firefox 50.0.2, Adblock Plus, logged in or not logged into my TWC account) I'm assuming its HTML 5 player, since right click gives you no flash options, and the progress bar, timeline...all appear in the the code as DIV elements.

Here's a currently free example on discovery go for testing without a cable login.

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https://www.discoverygo.com/treasure-quest-snake-island/the-trail-of-blood/

With history Channel, a few custom filters in adblock solved the same problem a few months ago from this thread:
forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=48216

Hoping there is a similar solution for discoverygo .... also it could apply for all other discovery networks that have ads again now, like Science Channel, Animal Planet etc

[mapx]

no solution for brightcove player (the ads are SSAI - baked in the stream)
read more:

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http://www.onlinevideo.net/2016/01/stream-stitching-what-pros-must-know-about-the-ad-blocker-beater/

[risottto]

I wouldn't say "no solution".... YET!

[ChrisV]

I also installed noscript and attempted toggling different scripts and combinations of scripts on and off on discoverygo.com. So far I had the same result as you risottto. However it seems brightcove is implicated as necessary for the ads to play, but when disabled the main program video will also not play.

[risottto]

Yes, unfortunately a quick look at the source code on the page shows a javascipt variable being defined as "brightcove":{"account_id":"103207"... that only occurrence seems to be the call to play the video with embedded ads?!

However the ads are distinct form the actual video as they have a clickable overlay.. so i tried blocking the overlay directly during an ad ... "discoverygo.com##.anchor-ad-link" easily blocked the overlay over the ad, once i got down to the actual video, and unfortunate finding:

The element with an ad playing:
discoverygo.com###dgo-video-player-1_html5_api
discoverygo.com##.vjs-tech
discoverygo.com##video[src="blob:https://www.discoverygo.com/880639fa-8e ... 7199d98eac"]

The element with the show playing:
discoverygo.com###dgo-video-player-1_html5_api
discoverygo.com##.vjs-tech
discoverygo.com##video[src="blob:https://www.discoverygo.com/880639fa-8e ... 7199d98eac"]

exactly the same stream! this sucks, looks like the ad and video truly are part of the same feed .... but the "anchor-ad-link" only appears when there is an ad, maybe there is a way to trigger a block based on the appearance of that element, which could mute/cover the ad, but still not nearly as good as skipping it, could this be in the realm of custom adblock filters?