lots of adds and accept cookies banners. yes I'm logged in
Seems to have sorted itself for me now. I logged out then logged back in again and the constant pop up hasn't reappeared.
Turn it off, then turn it on again 😆
I’m logged in and have ads everywhere. Tried clearing all cookies and logging in again and I still have ads. I’m particularly unimpressed by the ads on the login page which seem to dump a load of tracking cookies so your data can be collected even if you paid not to have ads. Nice. Latest Safari on latest iPadOS so yes, edge case again that no-one would test.
It's stopped for me now. I've kinda given up with regards to my data but this site is the one I'd be most worried about.
Cookies AND adverts, both when signed in this morning on laptop on Chrome.
I remember being lambasted when I didn't pay and complained, well now as a paying customer I'd say it's pretty rubbish and bollocks to installing a specific browser on a specific os just for 1 site.
Just briefed our tech team on the weekend issues and pointed them here. They are about to lift the hood and see what needs fixing.
Sorry again.
Mark
Full member here, getting the same problems, automatically logged out, adverts even when logged in. Does anyone from STW staff actually read these threads? Just in case they do.... I literally only pay my subscription to avoid adverts. I don't even read the digital version of the magazine which, ostensibly, is what the subscription is for since it is not optimised for phone screens which make it a right PITA to read on one. So, since I'm paying directly to have ads removed on the forum why the fk am I still having to put up with these crappy ads? There is absolutely no way I'm going to renew my subscription if this isn't fixed (and at least see some response about it from the site managers). Way to build your business model guys, charge for a service (an ad free experience) then totally fail to deliver it!
Does anyone from STW staff actually read these threads?
Yes. In fact I've been posting on this thread all weekend. See the post right before yours.
The report/help page (bottom left on desktop) does feed directly to the inbox of our techs. They haven't been working over the weekend but they are catching up on everything now.
update. Ads on the login page should now have gone. That one was a case of adding a wildcard to the filter. It was set to disable ads on the page ../login/ but since there's a redirect added to the url to send you back to the page you came from after you login that needed an extra /* at the end to work. That one I did myself. The main ads when logged in issue is more complex so it won't be me that fixes that. But I will keep you updated through the day.
Mark
Full member here, getting the same problems, automatically logged out, adverts even when logged in. Does anyone from STW staff actually read these threads? Just in case they do…. I literally only pay my subscription to avoid adverts. I don’t even read the digital version of the magazine which, ostensibly, is what the subscription is for since it is not optimised for phone screens which make it a right PITA to read on one. So, since I’m paying directly to have ads removed on the forum why the fk am I still having to put up with these crappy ads? There is absolutely no way I’m going to renew my subscription if this isn’t fixed (and at least see some response about it from the site managers). Way to build your business model guys, charge for a service (an ad free experience) then totally fail to deliver it!
the post just before you is from the owner. So they are listening/seeing...
Your point is correct, but poorly delivered.
Is the GDPR Consent popup (not ours, but a legal requirement) still happening on each page load for everyone? That is supposed to plant a cookie in your browser that stores your choices. The presence of that cookie should be detected each time you visit a page and prevent the popup from appearing. That's what is meant to happen anyway.
It’s getting ridiculous using chrome on the iPad. I stay logged in (yay) but every time I re-open the tab to look at this site there are adds everywhere and I have to cancel a few before they then stop for the rest of the session. Look at something else for a while then come back and there they are again.
Is the GDPR Consent popup (not ours, but a legal requirement) still happening on each page load for everyone?
It's not doing it for me today.
I remember being lambasted when I didn’t pay and complained, well now as a paying customer I’d say it’s pretty rubbish and bollocks to installing a specific browser on a specific os just for 1 site.
There is no need to do that. You can use the browser of your choice.
Is the GDPR Consent popup (not ours, but a legal requirement) still happening on each page load for everyone?
Nope - I got logged out once and the gdpr popup appeared and I got white spaces not adverts. Logged back in on the third attempt and all good since
...given I've never encountered similar issues even in a minor way on any other forum of my acquaintance, it's got to be deliberate hasn't it? Some kind of branding thing "we don't care about all this internet nonsense" or something more subtle than that, shonkiness becoming part of the charm maybe?
I got logged out this morning as I hit reply which was rather annoying, but not as annoying as all the adverts that remained after I logged back in. It took three attempts to get the log in to hold past closing the adverts.
You can use the browser of your choice.
As long as it's on your iPad
You shouldn’t have to close the ads themselves. That only removes that particular ad and not the placement. If you see ads on the page after you are logged in you should just need to refresh the page or move to another page to kick the cookie into action. We are working to make sure there are no ads once you have hit the login button. What seems to be happening is the page you see immediately after you hit the login button shows ads before the cookie that should tell it to not show ads has been read. Hitting the x on each ad placement won’t get rid of subsequent ads.
Both posted at the same time, hence the 'poorly presented' comment. By the way, writing this while having to ignore another bunch of crappy, unwanted, adverts.
Almost unusable - every forum page asks me to accept default cookies, despite being the same browser from last week, even when logged in.
Setting/getting cookies is web programmers lesson 1.
The box of death has disappeared for me on desktop. Still there on Android.
According to the Chat page there's only 3 posts in this thread.
As above - forum list shows 5 posts
whereas it has
something screwy there
And after posting that it jumped me back to page 1!
Post count is an unrelated issue. I edited a post of my own and deleted it.
Currently unusable - every forum page requests accepting default cookies
Getting/Setting session cookies is web programming lesson 1 - back to school please.
Post count is an unrelated issue.
Yeah, sorry I get that - didn't think a new thread about it was necessary as you were looking in this one already.
I'm trying to be constructive here and keep you updated. It's not a coder issue. It's a software issue. There are conflicts between the old and the new software. Cookies are being changed. This is not just a forum. It's a membership system with features enabled at every level. That makes it very complex to deal with and sometimes we don't anticipate every outcome and glitch. But we are bending over backwards right now to find the cause of these bugs. It's a PITA when they are intermittent as we have to see one in action to be able to find the cause. Those who say it doesn't happen on other sites are probably quite correct - there are very few sites like ours to compare it to. By that I mean with a membership system involving paywalls and the option to not view ads. I'd be genuinely interested if anyone knows of any. There must be some. So a site with a membership login that disables ads for those that are members and includes a selective paywall that allows users to see the same content but one group sees it with no ads and the other does.
I know this is frustrating, but please avoid the straw man arguments of accusing ours and Ezoic's devs of being incompetent - they definitely are far from it.
Keep reporting your issues here as that way we can gauge our success at fixing the bugs. They don't affect everyone. As far as we can tell they affect a minority at any particular time, but are moving around so some get the issues then don't.
Perhaps an obvious plan would be to switch off access entirely and fix it behind closed doors. But we aren't doing that because it's working for us most of the time and we only know of the issues when there's thousands of users on the site every hour. So right now we are like a hotel that's got builders in to fix things while the guests are still coming and going. And again, I do apologise for that. We are working as hard as we can.
Mark
Is the GDPR Consent popup (not ours, but a legal requirement) still happening on each page load for everyone?
I haven't seen it in, on, I don't know, months? Years, even.
Was getting the privacy & cookie notice on every page whilst logging in on my work computer a minute ago. Clicked on the STW Cookie Killer link but that didn't sort it, so cleared browser cookies and now seems to be ok.
I haven’t seen it in, on, I don’t know, months? Years, even.
i had it on and off at the weekend, cookie killer sorted it though.
As long as it’s on your iPad
Or any others who have reported back saying it’s resolved for them.
Thanks for that report @orena45 I'd be interested in hearing from you if it comes back.
The private window clear cookies thing worked for me, thanks.
Is the GDPR Consent popup (not ours, but a legal requirement) still happening on each page load for everyone?
I haven’t seen it in, on, I don’t know, months? Years, even
I'm seeing the GDPR consent popup on my phone every page load, but if my VPN pretends I'm outside the EEA I don't. That'll probably be because it's foisting cookies on me without a by-your-leave so it's not exactly a win.
Can you clear your recent browsing data and see what happens?
I’m trying to be constructive here and keep you updated. It’s not a coder issue. It’s a software issue. There are conflicts between the old and the new software. Cookies are being changed. This is not just a forum. It’s a membership system with features enabled at every level. That makes it very complex to deal with and sometimes we don’t anticipate every outcome and glitch. But we are bending over backwards right now to find the cause of these bugs. It’s a PITA when they are intermittent as we have to see one in action to be able to find the cause. Those who say it doesn’t happen on other sites are probably quite correct – there are very few sites like ours to compare it to. By that I mean with a membership system involving paywalls and the option to not view ads. I’d be genuinely interested if anyone knows of any. There must be some. So a site with a membership login that disables ads for those that are members and includes a selective paywall that allows users to see the same content but one group sees it with no ads and the other does.
I know this is frustrating, but please avoid the straw man arguments of accusing ours and Ezoic’s devs of being incompetent – they definitely are far from it.
Keep reporting your issues here as that way we can gauge our success at fixing the bugs. They don’t affect everyone. As far as we can tell they affect a minority at any particular time, but are moving around so some get the issues then don’t.
Perhaps an obvious plan would be to switch off access entirely and fix it behind closed doors. But we aren’t doing that because it’s working for us most of the time and we only know of the issues when there’s thousands of users on the site every hour. So right now we are like a hotel that’s got builders in to fix things while the guests are still coming and going. And again, I do apologise for that. We are working as hard as we can.
Mark
@mark A genuine question
Why then is this this only site this happens to me and others it seems. Of the many other site I frequent, some paid some free this is the ONLY one do I have to re login frequently I gives me regular pop ups sometime adverts etc etc. Other sites just seem to work quietly away without these constant issues, why is this one so troublesome?
I'm getting it every page load on my phone (android/chrome). Had lots on desktop this morning (macos/chrome) but it stopped after about 25 page loads.
Also getting a lot more ads than before and some full screen ones between page loads
Is the GDPR Consent popup (not ours, but a legal requirement) still happening on each page load for everyone?
It seems to have stopped doing it on my phone (android/ Chrome) but is doing it on every page load on my laptop (W10/ Edge).
If I had to guess I would investigate this error message on my chrome browser:
Exoic CMP detected consent from another CMP stored in the euconsent-v2 cookie. If another CMP is active on the page this can lead to inconsistent behaviour. Ezoic CMP must consider the existing consent invalid and re-establish.
From:
https://g.ezodn.com/cmp/v2/cmp.js?v=45
Which is presumably the euconsent-v2 cookie, which I don't have afaics.
Hope this helps.
Note that several other requests to https://go.ezodn.com URLS are marked net::ERR_BLOCKED_BY_CLIENT in chrome.
Ok, looking into it a bit futher, I do have two euconsent-v2 cookies.
Todays one has the domain 'singletrackworld.com', and the older one has the domain '.singletrackworld.com'.
Both are probably being sent to the site, and the code is confused and conflicted over the domain.
I used chrome to go
Settings -> Privacy and Security -> Cookies and other site data -> see all cookies and site data.
Search box: singletrackworld
Scroll down the list, look for 'euconsent-v2', and expand the details.
Look for any that are not today and use the X box to delete them.
It should in theory also be enough to clear all your cookies for singletrackworld
This works for me.
Enjoy.
@haloric you have homed in on the issue. euconsent-v2 cookie is the old CMP from Quantcast that we discovered didn't work quite correctly/legally. Ads would appear before consent was approved. The new Ezoic CMP you may now notice, does not display any ads at all until you have given consent - that's how it's supposed to work. However, we need to try and ensure that no one has the old cookie left on their system.
Why then is this this only site this happens to me and others it seems.
Because they have 1.5 million visitors a month and can only afford two developers?
OTOH if you can only afford two developers, why try to implement something so complex?
I guess the question I'd ask Mark over a(well deserved) beer would be "if you'd known what would be required, would you do it differently?"
While we're talking about issues with the site, magazine downloads aren't working
Yup. Downloads are being fixed now. Again, 3rd party software (Downloads Manager) that seems to periodically glitch. For this though, we have a solution in the works. But in the meantime I've already made a start of reattaching the files to the posts.
Just cleared all browser history and cookies and seems to have fixed the consent popup for every page
Just logged out and back in again and seems to have fixed it for me. (Firefox)
Well, I can certainly admire the problem. Changing the domain but not the cookie name does introduce difficulty in historical data.
Unless you plan to have everyone clear their cookies then some user/browser combinations are going to be sending you one or two copies of euconsent-v2, depending on how they are feeling.
Depending on your code framework, you may only get access to one of them. They have different domains, and the one you want has singletrackworld.com, and the one you don't have .singletrackworld.com, and since that is not in the cookie, you don't know which one you have got.
Several approaches spring to mind, no doubt you have a plan
a) just rename the cookie 'haloricwashere' and all users will have to consent again, but no-one will ever be troubled again. Might not be possible, depending on your 3rd party package I guess.
b) check if you have more than one euconsent-v2 cookie, and if so clear/expire the .singletrackworld.com one, or even both, and redirect to a refresh.
c) looks like the cookies has a 25 days or so expiry anyway, the one you don't want should go away soon - i no longer have one for reference to check
something else, looks like there is quite a lot of overlap in cookies with the same name being sent to different paths, and different domains, eg ezCMPCookieConsent goes to the same two different domains but the same path, wheres but also to three different paths /, /forum and /forum/topic/ etc.
Anyway, I'll stop being interested now, clearing the cookie manually fixes it all for me.
@STW towers, have you checked the legality of your system, or asked the ICO? Logging in via Chrome here and I'm getting pre-ticked legitimate interests prompts, even after I've signed in (rejecting all the pre-ticked legitimate interests). I can't see how this is not breaking the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR). As you'll know, legitimate interests are a valid way of obtaining consent and ensuring smooth service, but not for serving ads.
same problems for me, this site used to be my go to daily site been using less and less over the last 6+ months. It is looking like an unsuccessful attempt to monetise a forum with bloody awful ads everyone and terrible UX. Terrible UX doesn't not intice customers to pay £2 to get a slightly less shit UX, it makes them leave, which puts more pressure on your revenue, which means you appear to be trying to shove more ads on the screen, which creates an even worse UX...see which direction this spiral is going?
the value here is the content, created mostly by the community who do so for free and just want to chat and debate stuff with a tenuous link to bikes (I think!)
replace the site with something super cheap to run plenty of people run on their own which seem better functionally than this one, ditch the ads, and provide something truely inspiring for premium users to pay their subs.
anyway thats my advice, you'll ignore it, and when I pop back in a week or so's time to see how you are progressing I suspect it'll be slightly further down the toilet. Real shame. Thanks for the cookies.
Have you tried our cookie killer? The issue seems to be related to the transition from our old CMP to the new one. We plan to build a 'flush' into the pages of the site to clear out the old consent cookie that is conflicting with our current consent.
https://singletrackmag.com/login-problems/
To answer @saxabar yes, we are confident we are fully compliant with GDPR. The confusion I imagine is around what is a legitimate cookie. Legitimate is what we as the publisher define as legitimate. We have a legitimate interest in running advertising on our site which means all cookies related to that are permitted, even if as a user you would rather not see them. GDPR gives you as a user the option to consent to third part tracking cookies but not all ads use tracking cookies. Many ads don't use tracking cookies at all - they are just targeting the site they appear on. For example one of the current ads is for BMC. This ad is. direct sold ad in that BMC send us the ad (animated gif) and we run it on our site through our ad server. That ad does not track you but cookies are still required to enable it to appear in your browser. That cookie is part of our legitimate interests and is defined as such in our consent management.
When you choose to opt out of certain cookies through the CMP (Consent popup) you are stating that you do not want any of the ad providers to use tracking cookies that involve using your personal information, like an IP address. That does not mean that you won't see ads. It just means that you won't have a tracking cookie left in your browser.
There are pros and cons to this and what is a pro and a con is down to the user to define. But, for example, my view is that where I'm going to see ads I would rather see ads that are relevant to me rather than random ads that I may have no interest in at all. So I generally am ok with giving my consent in a site's CMP. I also know how the system works intimately and what is sent and how it gets used in the system, and in general I'm not worried about it. So I'm happy to consent in most cases.
Our consent mechanism provided by Ezoic is used in over 10k publishers websites around the world. The consent mechanism is approved by ICO and complies fully to all GDPR regs in the EU. The issues we are all seeing is related to the handover from one system to this new one. If you consented in the old system (That's the CMP popup that appeared with a white background along the bottom of the screen) then you will likely have a consent cookie on your machine from that. The new system requires we get your consent again and that is causing the confusion. The cookie killer has fixed the problem for the majority of people, but not everyone. We are working on a way to automatically flush the old cookie as soon as anyone visits the site. That should clean up the remainder.
I'll keep you all updated here on developments.
Thanks Mark
Just deleted all cookies on my phone and its gone away.
Thanks for that report @orena45 I’d be interested in hearing from you if it comes back.
@mark Just went on to the front page, again on my work computer (Chrome browser, logged in to STW), for the first time since yesterday lunchtime, and got the privacy pop-up again. Clicked ok and then the forum link and have not had it whilst clicking on any other links since...so just that one time again on the front page.
Thanks Mark, the point about first-party ads (from BMC) rather than third-party ads and their trackers is a good thing (i.e. targeted to STW demography rather than my online behaviour). If you're gradually moving back to contextual ads, this (for me at least) is welcome. I still don't see why a personalised ads profile is required though under legitimate interests. Likely the confusion is at my end, but as 'personalised ads' are typically 'interest-based ads,' which are behavioural ads (which require affirmative rather than pre-ticked consent), you can see where the confusion is.
Still no change for me, no matter how many times I use the cookie killer. Chrome/Windows 10.
I'll try again in a few days, but it really is reducing my number of visits and time spent on the forum. OK, I'd probably be no great loss as an occasional poster who has never bought anything related to the site, but I'm sure there are lots like me.
@malgrey sorry for the ongoing issues. We are developing our own specific cookie 'flush' and building it into the site so that the old cookie (THAT WON'T DIE!) will be flushed as soon as you open any page. A bit like building in the cookie killer to every page but for a specific cookie only. Hopefully when you are back that will clear things up for you.
Mark
Interesting about the legitimate interest thing, and how it's interpreted.
BBC is another that pre-checks that not only for the service they provide but also for all the individual advertisers (although that may be more of an issue for those of us outside UK).
To me the immediate site I visit has a legitimate interest, but any other provider behind that does not. No ad agencies, no ad companies, no cross-site tracking companies. I have no contract with them. I would have no issue with relevant first party direct advertisers (BMC sounds relevant enough to me), but it's the cross site tracking that irks me most, and in particular use of cross site tracking companies to handle EU consent.
BBC in particular I always view incognito, accept everything to shut it up, view a maximum of 3 pages before closing and deleting everything. Their legitimate interest list is a good 10 minutes' worth of effort to un-check, and even if you did waste 10 minutes of your life, on the very next page click it'll set a different set of pre-checked cookies. It probably does nothing but it makes me feel happier. I could more than happily view everything incognito.
Deleting cookies is often a suggestion in cases like these where there are issues, but I really don't like recommending that, mainly cos there's other sites where you've got cookies set just right, and you then screw them up. Deleting all cookies for 1 site, no problem at all, but all cookies no way. I use a cookie addon in the browser which helps select say all cookies with singletrack in the URL, then zap them if necessary (although I ain't doing that, cos everything is working perfectly for me 🙂 )
BBC in particular I always view incognito, accept everything to shut it up, view a maximum of 3 pages before closing and deleting everything.
Why?
Why not put your source code/bugs on GitHub and see if any of the forum members want to contribute, your 2 devs can review the pull requests..
Why?
Because BBC.com by default wants to send their advertisers all your data, and it's basically impossible to disable.
At least their pop up is actually truthful/honest...
BBC.com would like permission to share your personal data with our ad partners to allow them to show ads tailored to your interests
If only every other site that says "we value your privacy" said the same thing.
At least they also have the consent and manage options buttons equally prominent, unlike numerous sites out there that make the consent to everything prominent, and the privacy options anything from less promninent to virtually invisible (German Weather site being one where someone with bad eyesight probably can't even see that option!)
And no, BBC can bog off. They are there to provide me news. Advertisers are entitled to advertise on their site and pay BBC to do so. Advertisers are more than welcome to pay me to use my data.
anyway thats my advice, you’ll ignore it, and when I pop back in a week or so’s time to see how you are progressing I suspect it’ll be slightly further down the toilet. Real shame. Thanks for the cookies.
@DT78. Incredible prose. I might make this into one of those inspirational posters. Top top comment!
@DT78. Incredible prose. I might make this into one of those inspirational posters. Top top comment!
Yup, sums up my thoughts, sadly.
Allegedly no one understands just how complicated the STW set up is but I think anyone who has seen a Heath Robinson cartoon probably does 😀
Ok.
We have not finished yet, but....
Ads.. Anyone still seeing them logged in?
The cookie popup may still be appearing on every page for a few. We are soon rolling out a fix for that.
`The cookie pop up has just reappeared for me. Not loggod out, just not used the site for an hour or so.
cookie popup started again 10 mins ago ish. Just came back on and got though the 2 x 10 mouse clicks to post in here.
not seeing ads apart from the STW sidebar ones. but I'm not going to be clicking around to look anywhere else. can't imagine anyone else feeling like doing anything on here either.
Ok.
We have not finished yet, but….
Ads.. Anyone still seeing them logged in?
I don't know about ads (because...) but the cookie prompt has just gone away for me now
I wasn't seeing ads or the cookie message but now I'm seeing the cookie message on every single page...also done the cookie killer and logged back in and still seeing it.
Wasn't an issue before as I had none of the issues, but clearly I haven't avoided it and I can see how annoying this is going to be...hopefully the fix is quick to be implemented.
Every page now. Only started recently.
Getting beyond a joke. It can't be rocket science to fix this.
Starting about 20mins ago I've been getting the cookie popup on all pages.
I logged out and went to the following link. Then after logging back in it seems to be back to normal.
Excuse me previous smugness, I now get it every time I change page.
The only possible explanation is that the CBI and government are now funding ST Towers to do this to improve our productivity and boost the economy?
Still fine for me here. And I don't have an iPad.
Excuse me previous smugness, I now get it every time I change page.
Have you tried the technique on page 3 of this discussion, re the euconsent-v2 cookie ?.
This was all that was necessary for me. Your browser may have a different way of getting to it. I looked at the cookie killer page, but that doesn't reset this particular cookie, so its not going to affect it - at least for me.
@haloric is correct here. Our cookie killer doesn't clear that particular cookie. If you can't kill that particular cookie yourself don't despair. Tom is building a new page that will auto kill it and also provide us with diagnostic info on your particular browser that we can use to help fix this issue and others.
Seems to be working fine for me now, so hopefully I'm back to being good with the solutions and site.
Still fine for me here. And I don’t have an iPad.
Give it time 🙃
I've also had the cookie pop up bombard me, but I also couldn't muster up the energy to be that arsed - it's a bit of an occasional annoyance, but I can't see how it's more than that to anyone - and certainly less annoying than opening a link to the local online 'newspaper' which is basically a guaranteed privacy/can we send you notifications frenzy and ads of Russian babes seeking men over 40 in my area.
Boils my piss.
None of them are in my area.
Tried the cookie killer link at least twice and this doesn't fix the issue. Still get a prompt at least every minute which eats my bandwidth and it even pops up so fast you don't get a chance to log in either. Bloody useless
@Mark, yes, still seeing ads logged in. I've tried clearing cookies, etc., but to no avail. I'm not complaining, just responding to your question. I've got food in the cupboard and beer in the fridge, so I'm happy. 🙂
good to see its fixed
Sorry, I forgot to say I was using Chrome 93.0.4577.82 on Android 11. I also get ads using Edge on Windows 10.
