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After implementing google UMP SDK to get consent for EU users I faced following error on AdMob (iOS and Android apps):

IAB TCF v2.0 errors detected We've detected an issue on your IAB TC string on one or more of your sites or apps. These errors may affect your ability to serve ads to European users. A detailed report is available for you on the EU user consent page.

In downloadable .csv file I see the following:

csv content

In official documentation troubleshooting guide looks following: troubleshooting guide

But there is no info how to do this through SDK.

Do you know how to fix this? As it looks like I loosing all traffic for EU users in this case.

Thank you.

Sergey Pekar
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    Did you find a solution? I have exactly the same issue. Added SDK to show consent dialog and have this 1.2 problem – user924 Dec 03 '20 at 17:21
  • Unfortunately no. Still looking – Sergey Pekar Dec 04 '20 at 13:25
  • My personal experience is that after 8 days or something error message disappears from Admob console page. – Chaitanya Karmarkar Dec 10 '20 at 11:43
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    @ChaitanyaKarmarkar unfortunately I see this message more than a month – Sergey Pekar Dec 10 '20 at 11:59
  • Yep, In my case, message appears, then disappears automatically after 8 days or something, then again after some days similar error message appears in Admob console. I don't know how to fix it. – Chaitanya Karmarkar Dec 11 '20 at 06:02
  • Apparently this happens because of missing consents on user end. Considering the implementation is correct, pressing "Accept and Continue" on UMP popup causes consents to be enabled, while using "Options --> Submit" without opening anything causes all consents to be disabled, which also causes ads failing to load with "NO_FILL: No ad config" error message from Admob. – Furkan Yurdakul Jan 07 '21 at 08:33
  • What matters is that the ratio of this error: check your impressions from EU users and find the percentage of the total error ratio. Ours came up to be roughly 15% which is possible that 15% of the users may have followed that route. At this point, this is the UMP popup's fault since after clicking "Options" they all get marked as disabled which causes this problem. At least, these are my findings. – Furkan Yurdakul Jan 07 '21 at 08:35
  • My total number of impression is now 1/2 of what it was since I updated both my Android and iOS Apps with the latest Google AdMob libs. At the same time I've had this "IAB TCF Errors Detected" message at the top of my AdMon admin panel. Error in the CSV is 1.2 and number of erros remains consistent. I've been hoping to find a solution to this as it has made a very significant impact to my earnings and is not just an annoying warning message that will go away, it doesn't. It's been there for more than a month now. – Seoras Jan 22 '21 at 21:57
  • @Seoras does your warning disappear now? I am testing it and it show the warning too with test device. Also facing no ads display for EU/UK user if they choose "Manage options" and just "Submit" – DzungPV Feb 05 '21 at 12:21
  • @DzungPV no, warning message is still there and the tcf CSV errors file still shows the same size of errors even though I updated my app with j2esu's solution of using a clearTcfData() function to reset things. I suspect that this is just Google flagging the number of users refusing to give consent to we know where to place blame for our falling income, which for me has been significant. I'm hoping that things improve so I'm just biding my time for now. – Seoras Feb 07 '21 at 22:15
  • @Seoras,Yes, i also found some bugs of their SDK, reported on the forum. I don't know why they spent so much time to fix some simple bug – DzungPV Feb 08 '21 at 03:59

2 Answers2

2

DISCLAIMER: this is just my experience "AS IS", maybe I'm missing some important details, then please let me know!

Also had this error after app update, and finally after few attempts it has disappeared. I'm not an expert in GDPR, just want to share my experience, maybe (hope) there is a better solution.

What I've tried (don't do this, it didn't removes AdMob error):

  • Disable personalize ads in AdMob console
  • Remove UMP lib and release an update
  • Remove ad units with errors and release an update

After every of this attempts I still got error message. I know it requires time to disappear, if no new errors comes, but after few days errors count was increasing, and even newly added ad units were in report, but I added them in app version without UMP lib. After reading some TCF strings docs, I realized that TCF strings still exist on user devices and AdMob uses them. After logging all default shared prefs I've got something like:

enter image description here

So, next I released an app update, with TCF strings cleanup on app launch:

private fun clearTcfData(context: Context) {
    val prefs = PreferenceManager.getDefaultSharedPreferences(context)
    val tcfKeys = prefs.all.keys.toList().filter { it.startsWith("IABTCF", true) }
    if (tcfKeys.isNotEmpty()) {
        prefs.edit {
            tcfKeys.forEach { remove(it) }
        }
    }
}

Then soon I saw less errors in TCF error report, and after about 10 days TCF error banner has disappeared. Also I enabled personalized ads again, cause this doesn't cause a problem. To sum up, solution that works for me is:

  • Replace UMP lib with old EU consent lib
  • Clear remaining TCF strings on app launch
  • Release and wait
j2esu
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    well.. removing UMP is not a solution – user924 Jan 04 '21 at 11:21
  • and it should be related to personal ads, has to be tested again, don't disable them:) – user924 Jan 04 '21 at 11:22
  • @user924 why it can't be a temp solution while ump 1.0.0 gives TCF string errors when implemented according to official docs? We can respect EU privacy using any framework. Also I wrote that disabling personalize ads don't removes admob error and that I enable it again then – j2esu Jan 04 '21 at 15:15
  • this error doesn't cause any issues, it's just a message, 1.2 - the error for which you don't need to take any actions, seems it's when a user unselected something or didn't consent in that dialog – user924 Jan 04 '21 at 15:46
  • well it doesn't mean that toggling the option will remove the errors fast – user924 Jan 04 '21 at 15:47
  • @user924 It would be nice, but do you have any proofs that this is just a message? It tells that "These errors may affect your ability to serve ads to European users"? – j2esu Jan 04 '21 at 19:06
  • @user924 I didn't say that toggling personalize ads helps to fix this, quite the opposite, I said that this didn't work, please read answer – j2esu Jan 04 '21 at 19:11
  • 1 week today that I implemented this and it didn't work for me... the numbers only increase – Bruno Jan 17 '21 at 22:59
  • @Bruno Have you checked your update stats in Play Console? How many of your users installed update? Users with old version with wrong TCF strings still causing errors – j2esu Jan 18 '21 at 09:08
  • I have a method to force my users to update the app, otherwise they won't be able to use it... that resulted in a few 1 star review... but anyway, yesterday I had ~7000 errors and today ~9000. Did yours decrease? – Bruno Jan 18 '21 at 13:09
  • @Bruno wow, very hard action :) yes, after some time after update I've noticed decreasing numbers, and after 7 days with no errors console message has gone. Have you completely removed UMP lib from your app? As I understand, it manages TCF strings in shared prefs, and Admob uses them if they're present. So you need to clear current TCF strings and don't create new ones. But this is just my experience, as mentioned in answer, maybe I'm missing some important details. – j2esu Jan 18 '21 at 19:39
  • hi @j2esu no I didn't remove UMP lib, I just added a code on app launch that compares the current app version with the value stored in shared prefs, if it's different, it means it was updated or a new install, and in this case I run the code above. I just saw that you updated your answer to use the old consent lib, is that what we're supposed to do? ps: force updates is a nice feature to have, just in case... =) – Bruno Jan 18 '21 at 21:50
  • @Bruno I've added a link, but text about old consent lib already was there, cause without removing UMP lib all TCF strings will be added again, so probably your update had no effect, unfortunately. but force updates is cool anyway :) my problem was that after removing UMP I still got an errors, so I have to do some investigations and found that Admob uses existing strings from shared prefs (added by ump), so I had to do some cleanup, as mentioned in answer. But we still have to respect EU privacy, so I just use old consent lib, cause decided that is better than nothing or errors :) – j2esu Jan 19 '21 at 00:05
  • @j2esu ah ok I think I missed it then... I will use the old lib in the next release then and see how it goes, thanks! – Bruno Jan 19 '21 at 04:15
  • Do you happen to know more in the meantime? If I take the outdated framework, this one doesn't support multilingualism. With the new framework, if the user manages their options and doesn't agree, no ads are displayed at all. I would have expected that the user only chooses whether to see personalized or non-personalized ads. – kuzdu May 25 '21 at 14:37
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So think i found a problem with error 1.2. If user deselect grants Google consent to: Store and/or access information on a device (Purpose 1)

Ads will not display and that's the error. App will work without serving any ads.

"If consent is missing for Google for Purpose 1 in the TC string, Google will drop the ad request and no ads will be served."

https://support.google.com/admob/answer/9760862?hl=en

MArio
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