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.
Top photo: DepositPhotos.com
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’
I’m getting ads in the videos.
Hey Matt, I haven’t been able to log in to the site on Windows Edge for about two weeks. Tried deleting cookies, whitelisting tracking (including memberful), turning off uBlock Origin, all multiple times. Sign in works fine on mobile only for me. In the past log in worked when I clicked on the sign-in link. Now it takes me to memberful, where I’m signed in, but the main site stays signed out. The code to sign in has never worked for me going back years, including back when the sign-in link worked. It says, “The code you entered isn’t valid. Try again.”
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?
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.