pch - Ads blocked but page waits for time ad would have run

[rclii]

Could not find match for issue. Website GAMES.PCH.COM made change yesterday. The ad is blocked but the page waits 35-40 seconds (time the ad would have taken) to continue. Same thing happens in FIREFOX.

[mapx]

post specific link, are you talking about video ads or what

[rclii]

A link will not get to the site. A login is required. The PCH (Publishers Clearing House) account is free, but it has to be created to get to the sites. I have a video I made, but cannot see how to attach it. Before I used ABP ads would play for 20-40 sec. I was not listening to the ads. After ABP installed the ads went away for the most part, and the time the ads were running was gone also. Instead of taking 20-40 sec, it took 1-2 sec and continued on.

[lewisje]

A link will not get to the site. A login is required. The PCH (Publishers Clearing House) account is free, but it has to be created to get to the sites. I have a video I made, but cannot see how to attach it. Before I used ABP ads would play for 20-40 sec. I was not listening to the ads. After ABP installed the ads went away for the most part, and the time the ads were running was gone also. Instead of taking 20-40 sec, it took 1-2 sec and continued on.

Upload the video to an external host (maybe vid.me?) and post the link here.

Also, considering that an "account is free," you should still post a link, trusting that one of us will register just to see where your problem is; we do need to ensure that we're seeing the same problem that you are and would rather not guess at which games you've been seeing the problem with.

[rclii]

Tried to upload at VID.ME? https://vid.me/OHBk

Here is link to this game in video,

Code: Select all

http://games.pch.com/token-games/52-card-pickup

however I tried 2 other games and they doing the same thing. When this started about 9:30AM yesterday I deleted cache and cookies and rebooted my system. I edited my original post to say that same issue is happening in FIREFOX also. It is a change PCH made. The site has had warning about using AD BLOCKING software for the last 2 months.

There are a couple of places on the different PCH websites where this issue happens. For the most part I do not go to those parts because of this exact problem, however, this is one of the main areas I use daily.

[lewisje]

I noticed you're still using Windows XP; you should use Firefox as your main browser now, because Chrome hasn't been updated on XP since version 49 (currently the latest Chrome is version 52).

Anyway, I tried looking into the code, and although I couldn't find direct evidence (like a particular timer being fired), I suspect that PCH is setting a timer before injecting the Flash object that the game lives in, independently of any ads; someone might be able to whip up a UserScript that finds the code for the specific game and injects the Flash object right away.

[mapx]

if I add

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@@||games.pch.com/css/*ad

I can see "game is loading please wait" message

However, if you block this frame:

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http://games.pch.com/ad-alfy?map=game-preroll

nothing happens. The preroll loading is controled by this script

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http://games.pch.com/js/csobjects.js?v=6894

[fanboy]

I had no issues (apart from a small delay showing the game), for 52-card pickup

[hschaars]

I am having the same problem. Will there be a fix for this? It takes me forever to play one game.

[koala]

I have been having the same issue with pch since yesterday. Normally, the video ad that would play before an instant win, scratch off, or sweepstakes would be blocked effortlessly, just showing a quick black square and then loading your game. When the video confirmation would play during sweepstakes entries, that was also blocked and the processing bar would just zip along really fast. Now the video ad before a game or sweepstakes displays only the top third of the black square, no video or sound, but there is a long delay before your item will load. The video confirmation for the sweepstakes doesn't play the ad, but the progress bar moves along at a snail's pace as if the video was playing. I find their whole website unusable now because everything takes so long. I, too, have been seeing the ad blocking warning on pch for a couple of months, but just clicking on anything on the page gets rid of it. I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling ABP four times with no improvement. Obviously, pch has changed something. Any ideas on a fix for blocking things again on pch?

[rclii]

That is exactly how the games and sweepstakes were running until 9:30 AM CDT on Tuesday. I had been on the site since 7AM and everything was fine. The FRONTPAGE.PCH website games started doing it several months ago, but since there was only 5 of them I tolerated the wait, but this pretty much doubles the time to play any game on the website. I put in a ticket, but of course they say it was nothing they did (HA!), but that is the same reply I get whenever I submit a ticket even when I show them it is multiple browsers, and I follow all of their useless instructions.

[hschaars]

I sent in an incident report on 9/2 and on 9/4 I received an email saying they resolved and closed out my issue. Really? Nothing's changed. This is getting very frustrating.

[rclii]

I put in an incident and the same thing happened. The asked me to rate the response WHICH I DID!!. The next day I got this response to the original incident from PCH. "Upon reviewing your video, we ask that you please allow third party advertisements to run from our website on AdBlocker Plus. Please add "*.pch.com" to your "allow" list to ensure that the ads are played properly. For more information please follow the link below:

acceptable-ads

Please keep in mind, PCHgames/Play and Win remains free as a result of the featured advertisements. We must provide a sufficient amount of time in between our games for the advertisements to be fully displayed. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and appreciate your understanding."

I REPLIED "Your ads are NOT ACCEPTABLE. I complained before I blocked them because 2 sometimes 3 ads are running with sound at the same time. I did not have speakers, so the only way I had to listen to ads was through headphones. With the new browsers, they all have MUTE TAB functions, so I do not even hear the sound. All this is causing is a BAD CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE when you play TWO 35-40 second ads for one 35 second game."

I received a response to this reply
"Thank you for contacting Publishers Clearing House to express your thoughts about the online advertisement that was displayed at one of our sites. The advertisement described did not come from Publishers Clearing House but was presented by a third party advertiser network where we are not given an opportunity to review.
At PCH it is not our intention to persuade consumers to take one view over another. We would never want to impose any particular standards or points of view on others.
We work hard to ensure that we partner with reputable companies who provide clear disclosures, opt-out information, and value driven offers. We do not take any political stands, nor do we endorse the views of advertisements that might appear on third party or partner sites.
Your sense of responsibility in expressing your opinion and taking a position in this matter is admirable and we appreciate you taking the time to contact us. The views of those who contact us are very important to us and shared with senior management for future planning."

So basically, they are NOT GOING TO CHANGE. Unless ABP can make modifications to fix this issue, you either quit going to the PCH sites, or live with it taking 3 times as long to play the games.

[koala]

PCH's customer service is a joke. You will never receive anything but a vague response that does nothing to address your issue. I have only played on PCH because of ABP. Everything was running so smoothly and QUICKLY and then, boom, we're stuck with waiting and waiting. ABP's counter shows that they're blocking the ads, and I never see any picture or video playing, but I have to wait with a black space as if the ads were playing. ABP needs to modify something to be able to fully block the ads like it was a very short time ago. PCH is certainly going to do everything in their power to make you watch their junk, so ABP needs to change with them, otherwise it's pointless to even go to PCH at all. Who has time to wait that long between every sweepstakes, game, etc. especially if you play everything?

[sredden1]

So far the only "workaround" I can find for this issue is to enable/disable ABP between each scratchcard/game/etc... It's tedious, but makes going through things much faster. It works for scratchcards, sweepstakes, instant wins, and PCHGames, but I still have to wait through the phantom ads for Slots, Lotto, and Frontpage.

If you're desperate enough to use this method, be sure that ABP is disabled before you click continue/enter/next or whatever the lovely orange button says, and re-enable it as the ad frame loads.

Not a fix, per se, but it works.