1944830 - [Experiment] The "Billboard" banner is not displayed even client is enrolled in the "IAB Billboard Banners - New tab" experiment

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Firefox :: New Tab Page, defect)

Description

[Marius Coman [:mcoman], Ecosystem QA]

Attachment: rec of the issue.gif

[Notes]:

• This issue might be due to the fact that the "Unified API for spocs and top sites - controlled rollout for release 133+" rollout is not added as required in the "IAB Billboard Banners - New tab" experiment's targeting as it was done for the "IAB Leaderboard Banners - New tab" one.

[Affected versions]:

• Firefox RC 135.0 - Build ID: 20250127201358

[Affected Platforms]:

• Windows 10
• macOS 15.1.1
• Ubuntu 24.04

[Prerequisites]:

• Have a Firefox profile created with the browser.search.region pref set to US in the "about:config" page.
• Have this user.js file saved to your PC.

[Steps to reproduce]:

1. Navigate to the profile folder and paste the user.js file from the prerequisites.
2. Open the browser using the above-mentioned profile.
3. Open a New Tab and observe the page content.

[Expected result]:

• The "Billboard" banner is displayed in the "Thought-provoking stories" section.

[Actual result]:

• The "Billboard" banner is not displayed at all.

[Additional Notes]:

• This issue is reproducible on all the branches of the "IAB Billboard Banners - New tab" experiment.
• Attached a screen recording of the issue.

Comment 1

[Nathan Barrett [:nbarrett]]

Updated the branches to enable the unifiedAds API and made a note about testing in the JIRA ticket

Comment 2

[Marius Coman [:mcoman], Ecosystem QA]

I have verified that this issue is no longer reproducible using the latest Firefox RC 135.0 (Build ID: 20250127201358) and Firefox Nightly 136.0a1 (Build ID: 20250203095240) installed on Windows 10 x64, macOS 15.0, and Ubuntu 24.04 x64. I can confirm the Billboard banners are successfully displayed on all the experiment's branches.
Considering this I am closing this issue as Resolved - Fixed.

Comment 3

[Marius Coman [:mcoman], Ecosystem QA]

Based on my last comment I am marking this issue as Verified - Fixed.