Tag Archives: ima_sdk

Deprecating Flash in the IMA SDKs

On June 1, 2017, Google will cease development of Flash in the IMA SDKs. This will end support for the IMA SDK for Flash, as well as support for Flash VPAID ads in the HTML5 SDK. We strongly encourage all publishers still using the Flash SDK to migrate to the HTML5 SDK. We also strongly encourage advertisers still trafficking Flash VPAID ads to migrate those ads to JavaScript VPAID.

What does this mean for the Flash SDK?

We will not actively prevent ad serving to the Flash SDK. However, new releases will stop after June 1st and we will no longer fix bugs or answer support questions. If ad serving or playback stops working after this date for the Flash SDK, it will not be fixed. We strongly encourage you to migrate to the HTML5 SDK.

What does this mean for the HTML5 SDK?

We will no longer support Flash VPAID ads in the HTML5 SDK. Flash VPAID ads served to the HTML5 SDK will not be rendered and the SDK will fire an error. We strongly encourage you to migrate your Flash VPAID ads to JavaScript VPAID.

As always, if you have any questions, feel free to contact us via the support forum.

 - , IMA SDK Team

Announcing a deprecation policy for older versions of the iOS and Android IMA SDKs

On February 1, 2017, we will implement a new deprecation policy for the IMA SDKs for iOS and Android. The Flash and HTML5 SDKs are unaffected by this policy because they are downloaded at runtime, so all developers are always using the latest version.

Each release will be deprecated 12 months after its successor is released.

As of February 1, 2017, the following SDK versions will no longer be supported:

  • IMA Android prior to version 3.1.3
  • IMA iOS prior to version 3.1.0

If you are currently on one of these versions, we strongly suggest upgrading to the latest version before the new policy takes effect.

Once an SDK version is deprecated, we cannot guarantee that version will continue to work. If we receive reports of crashes related to a deprecated version of the IMA SDK, we may discontinue serving ads to that version. We will also no longer field support requests for these versions on the IMA SDK support forum.

To maintain support, publishers on the latest version of an SDK will have 12 months to move to a new version once its successor is released. To "support" an SDK means we will investigate bugs in that SDK version and work on fixes. If a bug fix requires a change to the library itself, the fix will be applied to the newest version.

For a list of supported SDK versions and their deprecation dates, see the new deprecation schedule pages for iOSand Android. As always, if you have any questions, feel free to contact us via the support forum.

 - , IMA SDK Team

IMA SDK-owned ad playback for Android is here

Integrating with the IMA SDK for Android has historically meant implementing the VideoAdPlayerinterface and playing video ads in your content player. While this approach offers maximum flexibility, it also requires a lot of extra work to get up and running. In our mission to make developers' lives easier, we are proud to offer an alternative: SDK-owned ad playback, added in our newest release, v3.5.2.

Using SDK-owned ad playback, the SDK takes care of playing ads in its own player, allowing you to focus on content playback and the normal ad request flow in your player. With SDK-owned playback, you no longer have to implement a VideoAdPlayer, or worry about VideoAdPlayerCallbacks. Enabling SDK-owned playback is straightforward: simply omit the setAdPlayer call on your AdDisplayContainer.

With the new, simplified integration flow using SDK-owned playback, integrating with the IMA SDK for Android is easier than ever! For a step-by-step guide, head over to our revamped Get Started guide or download the BasicExampleproject from GitHub and try it out.

SDK-owned ad playback allows publishers to simplify their IMA implementation, but using it is not required. If you already have a VideoAdPlayerimplementation or want to use a single video player for both ads and content, you can keep using custom playback. SDK-owned playback merely gives you the option to let the SDK handle some of the implementation complexity for you.

If you have any questions about SDK-owned playback, feel free to contact us via the support forum.

 - , IMA SDK Team

Introducing IMA SDK and Google Cast examples

Have you ever asked yourself, Can I use the IMA SDK and Google Cast together to display videos with ads on a cast-enabled device? The answer is, yes you can!

We’ve put together a new section of guides and examples that show you how to add cast support to your IMA SDK implementation. They also explain the logic behind requesting ads on the sender and receiver devices. We’ve included both Androidand iOSexample sender apps, and an example HTML5receiver.

We recommend familiarizing yourself with the Google Cast SDK as well as the IMA SDKs for Android, iOSand HTML5before diving into these examples.

If you have any questions about these examples, feel free to contact us via the support forum.

 - , IMA SDK Team

Fatal versus non-fatal errors in the IMA SDKs

We’ve seen an increase in support questions recently on fatal and non-fatal errors in the IMA SDKs, so we’re here to explain when and why each is fired, and how you should handle one versus the other.

When are fatal and non-fatal errors fired?

Simply put, a fatal error is fired by the SDK when there is no chance for the SDK to play an ad for the remainder of the current video. There are two common scenarios for fatal ad errors. The first is when the SDK itself fails to load. The second (and more common) is when you are requesting one and only one ad, and that ad request fails to return a valid ad.

A non-fatal error is fired by the SDK when something goes wrong with an ad, but the SDK could potentially play other ads. The most common scenario for a non-fatal error occurs when you’re requesting a pod or playlist of ads, and one ad fails to load. Because it could still play other ads in that pod or playlist, the SDK fires a non-fatal error and moves on to attempt the next ad.

How can I tell the difference between a fatal and a non-fatal error?

Fatal errors are what we call “top-level” errors. They trigger one of the following events, depending on your particular SDK:

SDK Triggered event or delegates
HTML5 onAdError(AdErrorEvent)
Android AdErrorEvent.AdErrorListener.onAdError(AdErrorEvent)
iOS adsLoader:failedWithErrorData
adsManager:didReceiveAdError
Flash adsLoadErrorHandler(AdErrorEvent)
adsManagerPlayErrorHandler(AdErrorEvent)

Non-fatal errors are wrapped in a LOG type AdEvent. That event is sent to your AdsManager event listener or delegate. You can access the error message from the LOG event as follows:

SDK Error Data
HTML5 AdEvent.getAdData()[‘adError’].getMessage()
Android AdEvent.getAdData()[‘errorMessage’]
iOS IMAAdEvent.adData[@”logData”]
Flash Error(Event.adData.error).message

How should I handle fatal and non-fatal errors?

When you get a fatal error, you should destroy your AdsManager and play your content video. When you get a non-fatal error, you are not obliged to do anything for video and ad playback to continue - you can log the error message using the snippets shown in the table above for informational purposes.

As always, if you have any questions, feel free to contact us via the support forum.

 - , IMA SDK Team

IMA SDK for Android now available on JCenter

In our ongoing efforts to make developing with the IMA SDK easier, we’re pleased to announce that as of version 3.2.1, the IMA SDK for Android is now available on JCenter.

With this release, it's now quicker than ever to integrate with the IMA SDK. Simply make sure you include JCenter in your list of repositories:


repositories {
   jcenter()
}

Then, in your build.gradle's dependencies, include the following compile directive:


compile 'com.google.ads.interactivemedia.v3:interactivemedia:3.2.1'

If you're modifying an existing sample, make sure to remove the IMA SDK JAR file from your libs folder. This directive includes the SDK, and if you already have the SDK JAR in libs, you’ll get errors for having two copies of the same library.

If you have any questions about these changes, feel free to contact us via the support forum.

 - , IMA SDK Team

IMA SDK for iOS now supports bitcode

We’re pleased to announce that the latest version of the IMA SDK for iOS, 3.2.0, supports compiling with bitcode enabled.

To enable/disable bitcode, go into Build Settings in your XCode project and toggle the 'Enable Bitcode' build option. For more information on bitcode, please see the developer documentation.

If you have any questions about these changes, feel free to contact us via the support forum.

 - , IMA SDK Team

In-browser code snippet execution now available in the IMA HTML5 docs

Have you ever wished you could experiment with IMA HTML5 SDK features without having to download our samples, modify them for the feature, and host them on your own webserver? Now you can with our new Codepen snippets!

We’ve added codepen snippets to several HTML5 guides. These snippets allow you to modify and execute Javascript right in your browser. To test different aspects of a new feature, you can simply modify the Javascript and re-run the sample, without having to download the files or host them yourself. Codepen snippets are now available for the following guides:

For more information, check out the guides above. We’ll continue to add codepen snippets to new guides as they are released, so keep an eye out! As always, if you have any questions, feel free to contact us via the support forum.

 - , IMA SDK Team

IMA SDK for HTML5 now supports VPAID Flash creatives

We are pleased to announce that the IMA SDK for HTML5 now supports VPAID Flash creatives. When Flash is available on the running platform, the SDK is able to play these creatives in addition to existing formats. This feature allows video publishers added flexibility in their adoption of the SDK as they can continue to accept advertiser VPAID Flash creatives using the HTML5 SDK.

As an example, take a look at a sample ad running in our Video Suite Inspector tool.

If you have any questions about these changes, feel free to contact us via the support forum.

 - , IMA SDK Team

Announcing IMA SDK for iOS v3.1.0

We are pleased to announce the release of the IMA SDK for iOS v3.1.0. This release contains support for Picture in Picture in iOS 9 and HTML5 companion ads. It also introduces a new API, [IMAAdsManager discardAdBreak], for discarding ad breaks. In addition, we have changed where IMAContentPlayhead is passed to the SDK.

Picture in Picture (PiP) is a feature that was introduced in iOS 9, and now IMA publishers can add it to their existing IMA implementation. For more information, please see our PiP guide.

The IMA SDK now supports HTML5 companion ads. There is no implementation change required to use HTML5 companion ads. The SDK uses the same companion ad slot classes and delegates as before.

We have also introduced a new API for discarding ad breaks. Publishers can use [IMAAdsManager discardAdBreak] to implement timeout policies for their apps and to have more control over ad playback.

IMAContentPlayhead is now passed into IMAAdsRequest instead of the IMAAdsManager. This change will require an update to existing implementations.

If you have any questions about these changes, feel free to contact us via the support forum.

 - , IMA SDK Team