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Since yesterday (Feb 01 2018) we are getting crash reports from our apps, all similar to this one:

Fatal Exception: java.lang.SecurityException
Permission Denial: starting Intent { act=android.intent.action.VIEW dat=https://www.googleadservices.com/... flg=0x10000000 cmp=com.ss.android.article.topbuzzvideo.en/com.ss.android.application.app.browser.BrowserActivity } from ProcessRecord{39eb913 7605:*.*.*/u0a218} (pid=7605, uid=10218) not exported from uid 10173

and this one:

Fatal Exception: java.lang.RuntimeException
Unable to start activity ComponentInfo{*.*.*/com.google.android.gms.ads.AdActivity}: java.lang.SecurityException: Permission Denial: starting Intent { act=android.intent.action.VIEW dat=https://www.googleadservices.com/... flg=0x10000000 cmp=com.ss.android.article.master/com.ss.android.application.app.browser.BrowserActivity launchParam=MultiScreenLaunchParams { mDisplayId=0 mFlags=0 } } from ProcessRecord{7fcc9ec 27476:*.*.*/u0a300} (pid=27476, uid=10300) not exported from uid 10272

After searching for information, I found this question. This crash is not related to the alibaba app. But it is similar to the one described there. It is caused by a new update in the TopBuzz apps. I tried to contact the developers, but still haven't got a reply from them. What's really frustrating is that it seems the crash occurs when someone tries to click an ad. So not only the revenue is lost, but people perceive it as a problem in our apps. Now my question is how exactly can i locate and block these ads in my admob account.

mvh
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1 Answers1

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I don't think this is anything you can block, as it seems that developer/publisher of TopBuzz has registered a URL for their app that they simply should not have. This makes ads that people click go to their app and then of course fail to launch. They need to fix their app. Report their app to Google as well if you have already tried to contact them directly.

Josh
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  • Thank you for the information. However I saw a comment in the mentioned question regarding the alibaba app crashes, where the affected person stated that he disabled those ads in his admob account. Don't you think that is possible? I mean I don't know when the developers would fix that issue, and even when they do, everyone needs to update their app, so i figured if i'm able to block such ads it will be the safest route to go to. – mvh Feb 02 '18 at 23:24
  • @mvh, I really don't think you can reliably do that without blocking every AdMob ad. It could be a whole set of ads causing the problem, and in fact could be every single ad on the impacted devices as the data in the stack trace seems to indicate it is simply trying to open the URL that starts with: https://www.googleadservices.com/ I support a large app with a lot of users, and we log a lot of data about what is going on with ads and crashing. From what I can see, this is just a user clicking on an AdMob ad, and nothing special about the ads in question. – Josh Feb 03 '18 at 01:18
  • thanks again. I'm wondering, have you experienced these same crashes then? Or have you ever had the same type of crashes? And if so what did you do? Just reporting the app and waiting to be resolved? I really would hate to do that. – mvh Feb 03 '18 at 04:33
  • @mvh, Yes, we have a few of these exact same stack traces. We have reported the app. I suggest you do the same. It's not ideal, but as developers we have a responsibility to report these things. – Josh Feb 04 '18 at 04:53