As the title says, I can’t get out of a thread without hitting the back button at least twice. I’m sure this has to do with the ads, because I see the reloading icon in my toolbar every time an ad loads. I’m worried that I’m being redirected and I was wondering if board staff could check this out for me - in the mean time, is there anything I should do to make sure I’m not being redirected? I have the most recent version of Safari Adblock Plus but it appears the advertisers have already outsmarted the software.
Sorry for the double post, but I have just confirmed that yes, I am being redirected.
The link above is to my drop-down “Back” menu, which clearly shows several titles that are not the thread titles but are from the ads themselves.
This is really worrying, and I hope board staff can alert the necessary parties soon.
Yup, it’s happening to me as well. It’s extremely annoying and concerning.
I can assure you that Firefox with Adblock Plus and the Easylist subscription will fix your issue.
I’ve been having that issue too. Quite annoying.
Which I have at home. At work, however, I cannot download Firefox.
I’ve passed this up to Ed.
We’re not sure what’s up here. The ads that led to the previous round of problems have not resumed - this is something new. If an ad on the SDMB has given you problems, please provide the following info if possible:
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Time/date of occurrence.
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Screenshot of the questionable ad (on PCs you can do this with Alt-Print Screen, then copy into Word, Paint, etc.), or a description of the ad.
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Description of what happened. Did you click anything? If you were redirected, what URL were you directed to? Describe any related window or pop-up.
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What page or thread were you on when this happened? What was the URL of the thread?
Send to edzotti at aol.com.
Thanks. Sorry for any inconvenience.
Thanks, Ed. I’m back to normal, so if there were any ads you gave the boot to, they were well targeted.
It’s been happening to me all day today (12/16). I’m not being re-directed, I just can’t leave the current page using my browser’s back button. The last time was just a few minutes ago (12:30pm CT) on this very page.
The ads displayed vary, but right now I have a banner ad for Sprint, under the first post for Bank of America, under the last post for Gerald Subaru, and at the very bottom of the page for Nutri-System.
I can click the Back button repeatedly and absolutely nothing happens. Using the drop-down next to the Back button, the word “clip” appears at the top of the list, followed by my previous pages, which I can use to successfully go back.
Hope this information is helpful!
ETA: Oops, I missed the request to send the info to your e-mail. Will do so shortly.
Just heard back from one of our tech guys. A new ad campaign started today (not the same advertiser that caused the previous problem). Apparently there was some code in the ad that conflicted with something in the vB code - nothing malicious, possibly a duplicated variable name. This caused the odd behavior you noticed. We’ve stopped the ad and notified the advertiser. Sorry for the inconvenience.
I’m still having issues with this. It began last night and has continued to the present. What time should we be back to business as usual?
Please add me to the e-mail notification when it’s fixed.
Thanks, Ed! The board is back to normal for me.
This has been an intermittent problem for quite some time (months). It happened before the recent fake antivirus flap and it is happening now.
I’ve put a screen snapshot here. Note the top 3 bogus entries in the page history - “Current page” and 2 instances of “clip”.
Same problem here, two minutes ago in the "Is there a church more extreme than Amazing Grace Baptist Church" thread. Gave me “clip” when I hovered over the back button, and it wouldn’t let me leave the thread via the back button.
It’s supposed to be back to normal now - we stopped the one ad known to be causing the problem as of ~4 p.m. CST. Our tech guy’s theory is that a variable name in the ad duplicates one used by our message board software; obviously multiple ads could have this problem. The indications are:
- your back button won’t work
- when you click on the “down” arrow next to the “forward” button at the upper left of Internet Explorer, the second item on the list of visited sites says “clip.” Clicking on this produces no result. Personally I’ve only seen this in MSIE, never Firefox.
If you notice this problem, please post in this thread what ads are loaded on the SDMB page you’re currently viewing. There should be three; you’ll probably have to scroll to see them all. To emphasize, this is just a coding conflict, not malware, and as far as we know now won’t permanently mess up your system.
Still happening here as of 11:13 PM (EST).
Ads displaying:
Nothing above the “THE STRAIGHT DOPE” headline (odd). In addition to being blank, there’s nothing clickable up there, so it isn’t just an invisible-but-present ad.
“The Optimum Triple Play Three Great Services $29.95” (Flash image, so no URL)
“It’s Not Just a Pickup Truck It’s a Ford F-150” (likewise)
This might be the top ad:
<!-- Begin ZEDO -->
<script language="JavaScript">
var zzp=new Image();
zzp.src="http://l1.zedo.com/log/p.gif?a=521392;c=305000038;x=3840;n=305;e=i;i=0;s=38;z="+Math.random();</script>
<noscript>
<img width=1 height=1 border=0 src="http://l1.zedo.com/log/p.gif?a=521392;g=0;c=305000038;x=3840;n=305;i=0;e=i;s=38;z=1261023074">
</noscript>
<!-- End ZEDO -->
I saved the complete HTML page locally and then viewed it and it displayed 3 different ads (including one at the top). The copy of the page is here (Warning: IE7 will try to render the page - FireFox 3.5.6 displays it correctly as text).
Excellent, thank you. I’ve passed this along to the tech guys - we’ll see what they can figure out.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=515205&highlight=back+button
Yes because ignoring it the first time didn’t fix it.
The OP himself ignored a request for further information.