cnn, abcnews, and si Display In Plain Text Mode

brucet · Post by **brucet** » Sat Mar 24, 2007 10:47 pm

Thank you very much for Adblock Plus! I've been using it for a month or two now, and it's terrific! I seem to have run into a problem once Firefox updated itself to version 2.0.0.3 a few days ago, though: Now when I go to a handful of my favorite sites: cnn.com, abcnews.com, and si.com, they show up in plain text mode. Just those three sites. Further investigation showed that if I disabled ABP, that they would then show correctly. I'm working around the problem by disabling ABP on those three sites, but I wanted to report the problem and see if there was a solution for it. I'm using Adblock Plus 0.7.2.4, Firefox 2.0.0.3, and Windows XP SP2, in English. I don't think I've altered any settings or added anything to Adblock Plus; all settings are default.

Thanks!

rick752 · Post by **rick752** » Sun Mar 25, 2007 12:03 am

They all look fine here. Some filter may be blocking a *.css* file. The only thing that I can see that the sites would have in common to block css on all three of them would be something like:

Code: Select all

*a.*.css*
...or... 
*a.*$stylesheet

See if any *.css files are blocked there.

You can try entering a whitelist string to check and see if it is a css file that causes it. Add:

Code: Select all

@@$stylesheet

... if it is a css rule that is the problem, that string will fix it ... but the filter causing it needs to be removed if it is an error.

Are you using any filter subscriptions? (this is not a problem with the EasyList or the EasyElement subscriptions). Are you using CyberSitter?

brucet · Post by **brucet** » Sun Mar 25, 2007 7:24 am

I've not really worked with ABP filters before, but a look at Preferences shows the following filters in play:

(Adblock Plus 0.6.1.2 or higher required) [Adblock]
@@|http://www.mozilla.org/
@@|http://www.cnn.com/
@@|http://abcnews.go.com/
@@|http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/
*/adbanner/*
*/advertisements/*
http://*.adserver.example.com/*

I have a filter subscription to EasyList(USA). It says here it updated automatically on 22Mar07 at 19:37pm. I don't see anything in the list that appears to refer to either css or stylesheets. Is there more information I can furnish you?

brucet · Post by **brucet** » Sun Mar 25, 2007 7:37 am

Interesting: I added the @@$stylesheet string you had mentioned as a new filter and applied it, then I enabled ABP on cnn.com, and now I'm seeing most of the page but not all of it: the top banner with CNN's logo, for example, has been blocked. So I took the @@$stylesheet filter back.

rick752 · Post by **rick752** » Sun Mar 25, 2007 7:37 am

***remove ... double post

rick752 · Post by **rick752** » Sun Mar 25, 2007 7:53 am

---
Are you using ONLY the EasyList subscription and NOT using a 'content removing' program like CyberSitter or NetNanny? (because it is starting to sound like that kind of problem)

brucet wrote:
Code: Select all
@@|http://www.mozilla.org/
@@|http://www.cnn.com/
@@|http://abcnews.go.com/
@@|http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/
*/adbanner/*
*/advertisements/*
http://*.adserver.example.com/*
I have a filter subscription to EasyList(USA). It says here it updated automatically on 22Mar07 at 19:37pm. I don't see anything in the list that appears to refer to either css or stylesheets. Is there more information I can furnish you?

The filters that you listed above are the ones in your "Exception rules' and 'Advertisement filters' sections. They are not the ones in play, they are just YOUR added rules. Some in those sections just come as examples ... and you added the 3 whitelisting for SI, CNN, ABC. (ps: you can delete the other ones added in those 2 places if you want).

Now that you have whitelisted those sites, the only way you can see what is being blocked there again is to turn off one of those @@whitelistings you added by clicking the green bullet after it and saying "OK".
Then go to that site and see if there is a ".css" file being blocked in ABP's "blockable items' list.

The EasyList is not causing this problem (it is my filterset and everything is fine on all 3 of those sites). If you are using another program like CyberSitter we can fix it easy ... so are you?

brucet · Post by **brucet** » Sun Mar 25, 2007 10:54 pm

Hi, Rick:

I've never heard of CyberSitter or NetNanny and I'm the only user of this PC, so no, they're not on this machine unless someone managed to hit me with a drive-by installation of one of those two, which would make no sense at all.

I re-enabled ABP on cnn.com just to see what was knocking off all of the page's stuff. I'm looking at the blockable items window and I'll assume that the items in red are the ones that got blocked. Almost everything on the page got killed off, and a look at 'Filter In Effect' indicates that in all cases, the filter in play is the last one in the EasyList subscription, .a

More information: almost everything got blocked: most but not all of the images, all of the scripts, all of the styles, and the background. And I notice that the majority of the things that got blocked have names like http://i.a.cnn.net/something...

Wladimir Palant · Post by **Wladimir Palant** » Mon Mar 26, 2007 12:35 am

There is no such filter in EasyList - if you press Ctrl+T (update) on this subscription, do you still have this filter? And do you see it if you go to http://easylist.adblockplus.org/adblock_rick752.txt? I think Rick is correct with his suspicion - some software on your computer corrupted the download of the list. If it isn't CyberSitter, maybe a firewall or antivirus?

rick752 · Post by **rick752** » Mon Mar 26, 2007 1:32 am

brucet wrote: I re-enabled ABP on cnn.com just to see what was knocking off all of the page's stuff. I'm looking at the blockable items window and I'll assume that the items in red are the ones that got blocked. Almost everything on the page got killed off, and a look at 'Filter In Effect' indicates that in all cases, the filter in play is the last one in the EasyList subscription, .a

More information: almost everything got blocked: most but not all of the images, all of the scripts, all of the styles, and the background. And I notice that the majority of the things that got blocked have names like http://i.a.cnn.net/something...

OK ... as Wladimir says (and like I thought before), it is just simply:

Code: Select all

a.

... that is causing that problem in the blocking filters. If it is showing up in my list like that, then something on your end is "stripping" certain text out of the filter when it is downloaded and/or viewed. That string (.a) 'is not' or 'never was' in my list ... so something is corrupting it when you download it.

CyberSitter and NetNanny (and other programs like it) are very reputable programs that block undesirable content from showing up on pages ... like an 'internet babysitter' for people who's kids use the computer. There would have been no "drive-by" of this program ... it was either installed in your computer by itself or part of a package (maybe something installed on your server to block bad content through certain words?). The bad thing is that it will strip certain parts of the EasyList filter of the text that matches their own blacklistings and leave the rest of the filter info. So instead of a filter called "badworda.", the program might just strip out "badword" leaving only the "a." in the filter. This causes a total corruption of the filterlist and causes immense false-positives in Adblock Plus. The fix is to just "allow" the site that the filters are imported from on the program that is corrupting them. Are you using ANYTHING that prevents foul language or bad links from being displayed on a web page?

I am telling you this because I suspect there is something similar stripping my filters on your end when you download them. Use the link that Wladimir posted and see if the ".a" is on a line all by itself there. If it is, then it is being corrupted on YOUR end somehow .... because that filter string is not in my list.

***EDIT. Is this a computer on a business network? Something like this could also be implemented on your main server to block the viewing of undesirable info.

brucet · Post by **brucet** » Mon Mar 26, 2007 8:25 am

Hi, guys:

You know what bothered me from the first time I saw my EasyList list was that it appeared to be an alphabetically sorted list, but my list ended while it was still in the a's. The last three guys in my list were:

.adpark.
.adserver.
.a

...so I'm thinking that this is not a case of something else altering your file, I suspect that it's a case of the entire .txt file not getting downloaded in the first place - maybe the download got interrupted or something. A look at the correct .txt file in Wladimir's link appears to verify this. I then compared my partial .txt file with the one in the link and, although mine had */touchclarity/* and the good one didn't, the other entries seemed to match, so it appears that nothing was altered. So I copy/pasted a copy of my .txt file just to stash, and updated all of my subscriptions. Sure enough, now everything from a to Wikipedia is now on my machine, and now all three of those sites, along with a fourth site that I had discovered yesterday, now all display correctly. I exited/entered Firefox just to be sure, and everything appears to be in working order. Success!

Thank you very much for all of your help, Adblock Plus is just stellar!

Bruce

rick752 · Post by **rick752** » Tue Mar 27, 2007 12:44 am

Wow!
This time is actually WAS a corrupt download!

The last time there was a problem like this, I told the user it was probably just a corrupt download ... but that one turned out to be CyberSitter stipping the filters.

This time ... the complete reversal. Glad everything turned out ok, brucet ... enjoy

Wladimir Palant · Post by **Wladimir Palant** » Tue Mar 27, 2007 1:15 am

Interesting, I would assume that an incomplete download will be detected (unless there is a malfunctioning proxy or similar in between). Need to test whether this is really the case.

rick752 · Post by **rick752** » Tue Mar 27, 2007 2:03 am

Wladimir Palant wrote:Interesting, I would assume that an incomplete download will be detected

I wouldn't worry too much about it Wladimir. It IS a computer and the internet .... sometimes things just get corrupt sometimes without explanation.

Don't lose any sleep over it unless brucet comes back in a couple of days with the same problem again

Wladimir Palant · Post by **Wladimir Palant** » Tue Mar 27, 2007 2:06 am

Rick, TCP connections aren't supposed to corrupt data.

rick752 · Post by **rick752** » Tue Mar 27, 2007 2:11 am

No, but many things could happen.

What would happen if he closed his browser exactly during the automatic update? (y'know .. stuff like that)