Elements block reappear after refresh or a few days later

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BlockproductsIOwn
Posts: 4
Joined: Sun Feb 05, 2023 11:44 pm

Elements block reappear after refresh or a few days later

Post by BlockproductsIOwn »

I have used adblock plus in two ways. The obvious is blocking an ad image that never changes and is always in the same spot and then sites that make a graphic image that uses the same .jpg and same location stored and so on the page they simply link the graphic to the image (for example jpg).

Lately however I have seen that what I tell adblock plus to block will sometimes allow the graphics to reappear on refresh or when I click Ctrl P on a webpage and in the print preview (print to pdf) and none of the graphics are blocked.

This problem occurs in both Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox (latest versions as of 2/7/2023). So its not isolated to one browser design.
Example of Page: https://www.gog.com/en/games?order=asc:title&page=8
(this is a site that sells games that they have license to fix and sell, all legit in case you haven't heard of GOG (aka Good Old Games). No piracy, not torrents or anything that is illegal/grey area or questionable (feel free to look up what gog is if you aren't a gamer.

Now here in this first image I have blocked out items that I don't want, in this case game titles.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/TZnbMqjo7yQJQpwFA (the first image on the left)

I right click on a the image for the game (which doesn't change), then block element and a pop up appears with the option to preview or block. I select block (can use your left mouse button to click on block or use the ENTER key on keyboard - however the keyboard use of the ENTER key seems to cause more issues then left clickiing with the mouse).

Now I hit F5 (not F 5 keys, the function key F5 or refresh/reload page)
https://photos.app.goo.gl/TZnbMqjo7yQJQpwFA
Now on the same album in google photos the right image shows how they have now returned. Hitting F5 one or two more times they still are now showing. I checked the list of blocks and the .jpg being blocked in the list of things blocked in the program (Adblock Plus) and are the same graphic name on the image when you look at the properties.

Why is this happening. Is there a memory limit for blacklist or non-whitelisted items one selects. I am frustrated because over a few days almost everything has reappeared. It isn't an issue of the titles changing the .jpg name or where the image comes from and the page doesn't change more than maybe 1-2 titles a month but rarely will an entire page have all the titles moved to the next page (for example page 7, they add titles in alphabetical order A-Z on pages before page 7, and everything shifts down 1 "slot". I know the program worked in the past but now it is failing, any ideas.
blockheadplus
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Feb 17, 2023 3:45 am

Re: Elements block reappear after refresh or a few days later

Post by blockheadplus »

I'm noticing the same issue. Blocked elements reappear after a refresh. This feature used to work so it may be a bug. :|
BlockproductsIOwn
Posts: 4
Joined: Sun Feb 05, 2023 11:44 pm

Re: Elements block reappear after refresh or a few days later

Post by BlockproductsIOwn »

blockheadplus wrote: Fri Feb 17, 2023 3:52 am I'm noticing the same issue. Blocked elements reappear after a refresh. This feature used to work so it may be a bug. :|
It use to work great for me, however about 6-8 months ago the feature started to fail. What is ironic is in the list of items being blocked rest the exact items I want blocked that now are not blocked. It is almost like they store the information in volatile memory, meaning it is held in a cache and once you leave that page or refresh it, then it loses the information of what you blocked. However I have seen at least 2 other chrome extensions that supposedly block images and if you hit refresh or go to the next page they also forget everything about what you blocked (except their extension information doesn't say if it is a one time block or a lifetime block, and they sound more like they will hide images that show up that you don't want to see, sounds like NSFW type blocking).

Firefox which I have adblock plus on also fails to block images even though it also like chrome has them in that list of items blocked. I wonder why it happens here as well. It would then seem to indicate that it is a adblock plus issue rather than a browser only because the two browsers use different engines and designs so if there was a change in one that prevents the adblock, you wouldn't think it also carries over to the other browser.

The only other thing I can think of is do they only remember lets say the last 30 element/image blocks on the free version and you need to buy the full version to have them remembered. If so would be nice if they said that. Otherwise I cannot seem to find any extension - Chrome or Firefox that does this. I would think this is a common need for many for example going through google images searching for lets say "roses" and you block images of those things that either aren't roses, are repeats or you have already seen them (the rose was the first thing that came to my mind).
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greiner
ABP Developer
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Joined: Mon Sep 03, 2012 5:29 pm
Location: Cologne, Germany

Re: Elements block reappear after refresh or a few days later

Post by greiner »

BlockproductsIOwn wrote: Sat Feb 25, 2023 12:41 pmWhy is this happening. Is there a memory limit for blacklist or non-whitelisted items one selects. I am frustrated because over a few days almost everything has reappeared.
Adblock Plus doesn't have any limits on the number of rules you can add to block/unblock images or other resources. You can see and manage all the rules that you've added in the settings page under "Advanced > My filter list" to verify that none of the rules have gone missing.

In general, there is a difference between blocking before and blocking after reloading the page. Before you reload the page, the elements are blocked using some custom logic that tries to predict what the page will look like after a reload, when the rules you added become active. Therefore the real behavior is only seen after a reload (or after you close the tab and open the page again later).

This separation was introduced in Adblock Plus 3.13, which contained the first set of major changes in preparation for Manifest v3, that every extension has to upgrade to. We could potentially revisit this issue to see whether we can somehow find a way that's compatible with Manifest v3 to apply the actual behavior immediately, rather than only after reload.

That being said, it sounds like the problem here is the behavior after the reload, so this may indeed be a bug with the rule generation or the blocking itself.
BlockproductsIOwn wrote: Sat Feb 25, 2023 12:41 pmIt isn't an issue of the titles changing the .jpg name or where the image comes from and the page doesn't change more than maybe 1-2 titles a month but rarely will an entire page have all the titles moved to the next page (for example page 7, they add titles in alphabetical order A-Z on pages before page 7, and everything shifts down 1 "slot". I know the program worked in the past but now it is failing, any ideas.
Unfortunately, I'm not able to reproduce the scenario you're describing. The only thing I'm seeing is that when blocking the "images.gog-statics.com/*_product_tile_80x114.webp" image, it will show the "images.gog-statics.com/*.jpg" image instead, which will have to be blocked separately. However, that doesn't seem to be the same problem you're showing.

You're saying that (a) an image has the same address as before, and (b) you have a rule in the settings page that matches that address, but that the image isn't blocked? If so, can you provide the image address and the rule text, so that we can have a look? Alternatively, you could use the "Report an issue on this page" button in the icon popup to submit all of that and more as an issue report.
BlockproductsIOwn wrote: Sat Feb 25, 2023 12:41 pmThe only other thing I can think of is do they only remember lets say the last 30 element/image blocks on the free version and you need to buy the full version to have them remembered. If so would be nice if they said that.
Just to clarify: Paying for Adblock Plus Premium has no effect on the ad blocking quality. It merely provides access to additional features.
BlockproductsIOwn
Posts: 4
Joined: Sun Feb 05, 2023 11:44 pm

Re: Elements block reappear after refresh or a few days later

Post by BlockproductsIOwn »

Thank you for your response. The block tool had become a great way to hide items you don't want or don't need when at a site that doesn't offer any sort of hide, remove, cover-up, dislike, etc.

Here is the image being blocked (Firefox - current version as of Mar 9 2023):
||images.gog-statics.com/ebb0484ac9b433c19456d17a2202e6d6a0c558e78cc508d0919976990048487a_product_tile_80x114_2x.webp

Here is the code around that area of the object:
Image

Now what I missed was when the product just updated after I blocked the item and went to the item listing, ALL entries I mean everything that I have blocked is now blank/missing. Only 2 things I was working on before the update remain now. I had not seen that behavior before. I don't know if the upgrade process in Firefox.

Now here is what my list of items to block looks like, remember I had probably 1,000 plus entries there before I saw this:
Image

You will see there are now only 2 entires in the firefox version of adblock plus, I am typing this up in chrome because my password for this site is saved only in chrome as I use Firefox for when chrome doesn't behave with a website or in testing issues.

Now here is what chrome does sometimes and I think it happens in firefox as well.
You can see images that had been blocked in the past (all those 18 wheel games) with the image missing icon then below you will see where instead of being a small thin icon others I have also blocked reappear and now are same height on page but are very wide (should be see the top of page where a normal title shows:
Image

Same result after the update of ad block plus it has removed over 95% of the images I had been blocking in chrome, but left a few in there, so that gets weird why it did in both firefox and chrome delete almost all of the blocked images from gog in this format with an update to the product but not the browser.
||images.gog-statics.com/ebb0484ac9b433c19456d17a2202e6d6a0c558e78cc508d0919976990048487a_product_tile_80x114_2x.webp

Now the question is because they are using the .webp extension if that could be causing issues at all?

Now here is the code from the page for chrome to compare to firefox
Image

Now I don't remember if they changed from using .jpg in the past or not as I don't have an older win 7 version to look at.

I went and visited another site that it also had been working on and sure enough all images which were .jpg are unblocked and missing from the adblock plus area listing all elements blocked.

I have tried other non-ad blocking extensions/add-ons for both chrome and firefox and they all seem to have issues on www.gog.com with blocking and remembering. Hide This, Block Image, Image Blocker, Image Hide, Hide that, Block images (I think one of them worked however but had no version for firefox, I can't remember at this very moment). But almost all image hiding extensions all seem to be an all or nothing, very few allow a per page block of certain images on the screen.

I know on GOG if you go to store->browse all games-> selected the windows games list, you will see the list and the various way it can be sorted from release date (not the date in many cases when GOG posted the game for sale, but when It actually previewed so a game from 1985 is listed as the older release date when GOG wasn't even a thought or website or idea), best selling, alphabetical (and of course reverse of bestselling z-a and alphabetical z-a). When you sort them by alphabet and a-z (descending) and then instead of having them show a big image (if you hover over those they bring up a mini version of that titles game, which makes it hard to block then and fewer titles are listed on a single page move), when you hover over them when they are in that listing down the left side of website they don't pop up the mini screen.
||images.gog-statics.com/ebb0484ac9b433c19456d17a2202e6d6a0c558e78cc508d0919976990048487a_product_tile_80x114_2x.webp
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