Adverts Covering the Whole Screen

robinbowes

digitalscream said:

Ohhh...holy shit. I've always used a variant of Chrome called Thorium (it's faster and more memory-efficient) which is always based on the most recent Chrome. Just installed vanilla Chrome 142.07444.59, and the image layout is completely broken.

WTF.

Reproducing the problem is 99% of the work, right?  

digitalscream

Also, I've just tried the latest version of Chrome in the dev channel, and it's still totally broken, and a quick test of the CSS attributes shows that nothing helps. @Jonathangus is totally right, in that the browser thinks it's displaying the images in the correct place and is then shoving them all off to the left.

This is not encouraging.

I'll carry on trying to come up with a fix, but for now I'd advise using anything other than Chrome, since it's clearly something that they've broken with today's release.

I'd imagine that the usual will happen - I'll spend my weekend trying to fix it, and then they'll silently release a new version on Monday without even a sniff of an apology for the bullshit.

</webdevgrumbles>

digitalscream

robinbowes said:

digitalscream said:

Ohhh...holy shit. I've always used a variant of Chrome called Thorium (it's faster and more memory-efficient) which is always based on the most recent Chrome. Just installed vanilla Chrome 142.07444.59, and the image layout is completely broken.

WTF.

Reproducing the problem is 99% of the work, right?  

In my experience, it usually represents the start of 99% of the nightmare.

andyp

I didn’t mean to create work here, sorry. But it’s reassuring in a way that it’s not just me.

 

TTony

digitalscream said:

robinbowes said:

digitalscream said:

Ohhh...holy shit. I've always used a variant of Chrome called Thorium (it's faster and more memory-efficient) which is always based on the most recent Chrome. Just installed vanilla Chrome 142.07444.59, and the image layout is completely broken.

WTF.

Reproducing the problem is 99% of the work, right?  

In my experience, it usually represents the start of 99% of the nightmare.

Lucky for us that you just love a challenge  

digitalscream

andyp said:

I didn’t mean to create work here, sorry. But it’s reassuring in a way that it’s not just me.

 

Worth noting that I'm not talking about the sidebar ads, that's low priority on the grounds that almost nobody uses desktop view on a mobile phone and it's never been supported.

It's the fact that all images are broken on Chrome desktop that most concerns me, even though I'm sure they'll fix it next week.

digitalscream

OK, I've figured out the problem. Basically, the latest version of Chrome goes horribly wrong when using combinations of relative and absolute positioning - essentially, it no longer renders according to the CSS3 spec.

I've managed to fix it for images within posts, so everything should be readable. I haven't managed to do anything about the site header, because it's a lot more complex and I don't want to be mucking around while people are using the site. It's not going to be a simple CSS fix, I need to change the layout itself and I don't have a dev copy of the site handy so I'll have to do it live. Which...should be interesting.

digitalscream

In fact, with some insanely lucky guesswork, I've fixed it.

Suck it, Google and your amateur-hour bullshit.

andyp

Thanks man. Appreciate you looking at this.

Andy

DiscoStu

I've been having the massive sidebar ad covering the topics list for a few weeks now in full site mode. I really don't like mobile view but have had to use it to get rid of the ad problem. 
I still really don't like it. 

Anyhoo, I tried the site just now using Ecosia browser rather than Chrome and full site works fine. Ecosia looks just like Chrome anyway so it's easy enough to use.

digitalscream

Also, fine. I fixed the sidebar ad, because I'm sleep-deprived and grumpy at all the nagging.

More lucky guesswork, because of - surprise surprise - Google's undocumented ad behaviour.

I should probably do this as a job, or something.

DiscoStu

Side ad still there on Chrome.

I've cleared my cache. I use Full Site mode from the bottom of the screen, NOT desktop site from the three dots top right.


 

andyp

It turns out that I do exactly the same as DiscoStu. I’ll see how I get on, but I’m trying to persevere with the mobile site.

Thanks again for looking into this.

Andy

DiscoStu

FWIW, using Ecosia there is no side ad at all due to its in-built ad-blocker.
Ecosia is based on Chromium.

andyp

Cheers, I’ll try it out.

digitalscream

OK, try it now. If that fixes it, it was a combination of CSS and AdSense introducing a new option in the ads which breaks layouts. Argh.

bluechargeboy

bluechargeboy said:

Happening for me since today on Brave 1.84.132 with Chromium 142.0.7444.60

NOT happening on Firefox 144.0.2

NOT happening on Safari 26.0.1

This appears to be sorted for me on Brave version above (Mac OS 15.7.1).

Whatever you did, good work!!  

Sporky

I've got some weird artifacts.

Brave 1.84.132 (Official Build) (64-bit)

Chromium: 142.0.7444.60
Self-built Windows 11 desktop
Left half of a 3840x2160 monitor
Cleared the cache

The yellow is my highlighting.

digitalscream

@Sporky - I don't believe that's related to this change. I also can't reproduce it; I downloaded the exact version of Brave you've got, and...

That's not signed in, but it's the same whether I am or not. Baffling. Does it happen to you in other browsers?

Sporky

I went back in and it looks fine now.

Let's assume a temporary glitch and my apologies for (probably) a false alarm.