Hey everyone! If you’re a member of the site, you know one of the perks is usually that you don’t see ads. While that’s partially the case today, our video player was swapped with a new one yesterday and in the process it is no longer recognizing member logins. (If you’re not a member, you can become one and get rid of the ads, usually).
Right off the bat, apologies for the confusion and the disruption. I sent out an email to members yesterday to address this and I believe many of you saw it, but not everyone reads those emails. You shouldn’t be seeing any banner ads, just the video player (until we get this fixed).
I don’t have a specific timeline for when it’ll be fixed, though I’ve told our partners to turn off the sticky player if it’s not fixed by EOD and wait to turn it back on until it’s fully functioning.
Why was this change made?
Our overall advertising package was swapped earlier this year to a European company that’s just breaking into the market, and they offered us a great deal, a little more specific attention, and a promise of better performance. So far, that’s all been true.
The same company made basically the same offer for our video services and, by bringing it into one service, it’ll allow us in the future to hopefully better coordinate ads on the page so that people who aren’t members don’t get hit with overlap, slow load times, et cetera.
For whatever reason, when the video player went from our staging site to our production site a few things didn’t work. I want to thank everyone who pointed out the small rendering issues, which were immediately fixed.
Our partner is based in Europe, so they’ve been up all morning their time working to fix this issue. Once it’s resolved that should be it.
Again, sorry for the disruption.
[Update: Addressing the problem turned out to be a little more difficult than planned so we attempted to revert back to the old player. Unfortunately, this caused an issue with page formatting. I am sorry this hasn’t been resolved yet. The video player tech team is in Europe and our tech team is in California, which has made the process a little asynchronous. We are going to attempt to revert back to the old player again in the European morning. – MH]
Top photo: DepositPhotos.com
“Ya can’t park here, mate”
–tech team to video player
Within the last few hours I can’t see or make comments. The text is weird and over to the right side. But I can come back to this older story.
Thank you for the update and the transparency. That sort of communication is what breeds trust and patience. Hope you guys get it sorted soon!
I see the player (I’m using Chrome) but it’s just a grey box in the middle of the article. No video is playing.
I’m reading an article about ads, with ads, and I’m really enjoying it.
I think the new ad provider has helped, on mobile my phone no longer gets too hot to touch.
This is crazy, I didn’t know Ford did websites.
Just as an update, still seeing the Autopian TV window autoplaying videos and ads in the middle of the article, and another video player autoplaying ads and videos in the lower right corner of the window.
Not upset as I know you are working it, but the problems do appear to be persisting.
And as soon as I gripe about the Gateway errors, it suddenly settled down and pages, dare I say it (touch wood) are loading at a rate something bordering on almost snappy.
I’m retired from IT coming up on three years and the stuff I knew has either leaked out of my brain onto the garage floor or been rendered obsolete.
Good luck hunting down the gremlins.
One team in Europe, another in California? What, did you contract out to mid-60s Shelby American? Given how epic the results will be, I can be patient!
Almost like a Chrysler TC by Maserati!
Oh that’s even better – you win! Or maybe…I hope they’re flying Matt back and forth from Italy.
I’m okay with a draw.
I’m getting a lot of 502 Bad Gateway and 504 Gateway Timeout errors. Windows 11, Edge and Firefox browsers. I empathize with mobile phone users. I tried visiting the site with Safari and my iPhone and decided I’d rather doom scroll other sites and save visits to the Autopian on my laptop or desktop machines and enjoy the much larger real estate.
I tried submitting a comment earlier this afternoon and it timed out. Fortunately, it wasn’t one of my War and Peace length ramblings.
Thank you for the update. I’m getting ads on my Android phone, but not my Windows laptop, if that’s any help.
…so you’re going to issue a recall on the website?
Hah, yes!
That’s no fun, can you email me? I can work to fix it on my end.
Those videos flashing away in the corner of the screen and the dynamic banners while I’m trying to read really are really annoying. Kind of like a modern giant infotainment screen in my periphery vision when I’m just trying to drive. There must be a better way to present sponsors. At the very least make the ads static. That seems like a fair compromise.
The more annoying the presentation, the less likely I am to click through. Just sayin’
Hitting pause on the video helps.
Thanks that helps a lot since we don’t get an x
I am glad that works for you, too! Since I am not a member, I watch the ad long enough to see if I am interested. But, I have to pause the video afterwards, or the video is so distracting that I cannot focus on the article.
I’m getting ads in the videos.
Saw the email but I was offline most of Mon and Tues so I never had any issues. Stuff happens, I’m not going to get my boxers in a twist over a few ads. You guys and gals are doing the work of Giotto Bizzarrini!
This is what I love about this site. I read the Miata article, and am like hey I’m a paying member, how dare they show me a popup video ad. Then 2 articles down I find this post and I’m like oh well love these people and sometimes sh*t happens. As you were, carry on, I for one can deal with the occasional f’up ????
Matt, the fact that you’ve spent an appreciable part of your day communicating about this issue, which wasn’t part of your busy schedule when Monday started, is certainly a part of why this is the only website I pay for. You guys are doing just swell.
While we’re here – I have never been able to see the notifications on mobile. I’m on Chrome on Android. When I click on the bubble it just highlights and nothing else occurs. I don’t have any particular ad blocker or anything. Any insight?
Thanks! Nope. I will look into it.
Same…they do work for me on DuckDuckGo but not Chrome for some reason…so a separate browser would work even if temporarily
Glad the team saw the issue and is working on a fix. No hard feelings.
Any reason it doesn’t have a X so we don’t see it the entire time we are on the site and so it doesn’t block the link to get back to the index of stories?
I’m just glad you’re trying to fix it rather than let go off into oblivion
I can’t close the Autopian TV video window like I used to be, there simply isn’t the small x to click. Is this a malfunction or is this intended? Browsing with Android phone, Chrome browser.
Same. And it sometimes blocks the main header, so I can’t click it to go back to the main page.