1775099 - Error occurs when loading the page on themighty.com with ETP - Strict enabled

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Core :: Privacy: Anti-Tracking, defect, P3)

Description

[Oana Arbuzov [:oanaarbuzov]]

Attachment: StrictVsStandard.png

Environment:
Browser / Version: Firefox Nightly 103.0a1 (🦎 102.0-20220614185842), Firefox Focus Release 101.2.0 (🦎 101.0.1-20220608170832), Firefox Focus Nightly 103.0a1 (🦎 103.0a1-20220619065701)
Operating System: Google Pixel 5 (Android 12) - 1080 x 2340 pixels, 19.5:9 ratio (~432 ppi density), Samsung Galaxy S8 (Android 9) - 1440 x 2960 pixels, 18.5:9 ratio (~570 ppi density)

Prerequisites:
ETP - Strict enabled
Steps to reproduce:

1. Navigate to https://themighty.com/2017/09/difficulties-sitting-chronic-pain-fibromyalgia/
2. Observe the page.

Expected behavior:
Page content loads correctly.

Actual behavior:
An error message is displayed.

Notes:

1. The issue is not reproducible on with ETP - Standard.
2. Screenshot attached.

Comment 1

[Thomas Wisniewski [:twisniewski]]

This has to do with the Google Publisher Tags SmartBlock shim somehow not working well with the site. I'm investigating a fix.

Comment 2

[Thomas Wisniewski [:twisniewski]]

Ah, it turns out that we need to define HTML attribute width and height on the iframes that our GPT shim adds. That fixes the site, but leaves behind empty "Advertisement" sections. Those can be avoided by claiming that the slots are indeed empty, but to fix bug 1762851 we changed it to pretend they aren't as Carousell.sg was badly broken without that fix. However, after a little more digging around, I've found that the problem on Carousell isn't that it needs us to claim the slot isn't empty; it's just erroneously trying to use the same HTML element for multiple slots, which GPT normally throws an exception for, but our shim does not. This leads to Carousell's site getting into an endless loop. That's an easy fix, and doesn't seem to break other sites, so I'll fix all of these here.

Comment 3

[Thomas Wisniewski [:twisniewski]]

Attachment: WIP: Bug 1775099 - Fix the SmartBlock GPT shim to better-match website expectations

Comment 4

[Thomas Wisniewski [:twisniewski]]

The candidate patch here landed as part of bug 1752990, and the page seems to work fine now for me in the latest nightly.

Comment 5

[Oana Arbuzov [:oanaarbuzov]]

I can confirm it is working now, the page loads without error with ETP - Strict.
https://prnt.sc/uSkjVxNaDPgn

Tested with:
Browser / Version: Firefox Nightly 104.0a1 (🦎 104.0a1-20220630095519)
Operating System: Google Pixel 5 (Android 12) - 1080 x 2340 pixels, 19.5:9 ratio (~432 ppi density), Samsung Galaxy S8 (Android 9) - 1440 x 2960 pixels, 18.5:9 ratio (~570 ppi density)