super irritating pop-up EVERY time I change screens on DU (on all my comps & phones)

[Celerity]

[Agschmid]

1. Browser? System?

[Celerity]

3. Chrome, OS: Windows 11 and Android 12L (API 32) , DU is the only site this is occurring on

[Agschmid]

5. Every time you visit? Have you reset your internet settings and tried again?

[Celerity]

10. Yes, every time, on many different devices. DU is the only site doing this. It does it for my wife

as well.

[48656c6c6f20]

36. Do you sync your Chrome settings and or your device settings?

That would account for all having the same issue. Now what's causing it.. Deeper dive.

[Random Boomer]

2. That's malware or a virus

You need to clean out your systems.

[Celerity]

4. its not a virus or malware, all of my phones and comps react the same, and zero chance they are all

infected

[Tetrachloride]

6. Ad blockers and anti-trackers are my built in

technique.

Ghostery and Ka -Block

Turning off Javascript is what advertising and malware fears. Drastic but i do it a LOT.

[Celerity]

7. it does it on every device I have, w/ ad blockers both on & off, and DU is the only site doing this

[EarlG]

8. It's nothing nefarious

Well, depending on your view of tracking cookies.

Sites that work with ad partners which use tracking cookies — as DU does — are required to display a notice like that to users visiting from certain locations (eg. California or Europe) due to local laws. You can see notices like this on sites all over the Internet — the one in your screenshot is put there by DU’s ad provider.

Clicking continue should make it go away, although I’m going to look into this further since you are a Star Member and aren’t being served any ads, so I’m not sure you should see that notice in the first place. Are you logged in when you see it?

If it doesn’t go away please let me know. Feel free to contact me directly via DU Mail.

[Celerity]

9. I always click allow cookies, long before this, and I click allow every time now on the pop-up

and yet it keeps appearing every time I switch screens on DU. DU is the only site doing this, and DU has never done this before, usually one click to allow and the pop-up ceases to appear. Not so now.

[LeftInTX]

13. Weird

It could be a setting in your computer...

[Celerity]

14. Counting my wife's phones, laptop and tablet, it's happening on 9 devices

and it only started a few hours ago.

[EarlG]

15. My suggestion would be to try

deleting your currently existing DU cookies and letting them reset. Here are some instructions on how to do that:

https://www.lifewire.com/clear-cookies-for-one-site-4587347

Although, it’s odd that this is happening on multiple devices. Try the above instructions for one device first and see if it helps on that device. If it does, try resetting your cookies on the other devices. If it doesn’t work, I’ll have to look into this further tomorrow.

[Celerity]

19. I sorted it. We had updated Chrome and it auto selected a Beta privacy feature. My wife had one last

device with no updated Chrome. It did not have the issue with DU, so we reversed engineered and found the issue (and reported the bug to Chrome).

Thanks for all the help.

Cheers,

Cel

[EarlG]

23. Did that fix work on all devices?

[muriel_volestrangler]

18. I'm getting it too (from the UK); clicking continue does not make it go away

and 'manage settings' does not allow me to manage any settings at all - I just get a rotating circle "wait..." symbol, that I gave up on after a couple of minutes.

This started some time in the last 2 hours or so for me. Not a Star Member. I did have "block third party cookies" enabled in this browser.

[EarlG]

20. Ok this sounds like a bug then

Give me a few minutes and I’ll see if I can shut the whole thing off temporarily.

Edit: I haven’t shut it off yet after reading about Celerity’s fix. Can you check that first?

[muriel_volestrangler]

25. My 'Privacy Sandbox' setting was already 'Trial features are off'

I will try turning it on, and then off again, in time-honoured (if reversed) form.

OK, the popup has now gone - whether that was the on/off again, or something you've done, I don't know.

[Celerity]

26. it is back on the desktops and laptops, but not the mobile phones

[Emrys]

29. I'm also in the UK, and I'm constantly getting the popup today.

Star member, I run Firefox 104.0.2 (64-bit) with Ghostery. Ghostery's set to trust DU cookies.

It makes using the site miserable.

[EarlG]

30. Ok this must be a bug related to European/UK consent management settings

This is an issue for my ad provider. My guess is that they will be able to get it cleared up quickly — I’ll contact them tonight and hopefully we can get it fixed tomorrow.

[Emrys]

32. Thanks - it's stopped doing it now! n/t

[Celerity]

21. Check your privacy settings, when we updated Chrome it automatically defaulted to a Beta test

setting.

Privacy Sandbox Trials.

We unchecked that on all devices and DU now works normally.

[muriel_volestrangler]

24. I already have Privacy Sandbox "Trial features are off"

A moment ago, I thought the problem had gone away (after I deleted democraticunderground.com cookies), but then it was back a couple of pages later.

If I use "My Posts" and click on the bit to show the replies to a post of mine, the popup won't even go away after clicking on "Continue with Recommended Cookies".

[Celerity]

27. it is back on the desktops and laptops, but not the mobile phones, very frustrating

[EarlG]

28. Checking my ad provider's consent management settings...

The GDPR settings (relevant to visitors from Europe and as far as I can tell, also to visitors from the UK) are defaulted on and there’s no way to manually turn them off. So it looks like I’m going to need some additional tech support to fix this tomorrow.

I may be able to completely disable all consent management, but I’m a bit worried about trying that in case something gets messed up.

Hopefully I can get this cleared up tomorrow.

[muriel_volestrangler]

31. At the moment, it's not happening for me, but Celerity and Emrys's posts imply it can come back

and it's also not just a Chrome problem.

I'll post in this thread tomorrow with what it's doing.

[EarlG]

33. I sent a tech support request out

Hopefully they will get on this asap. Sorry for the inconvenience.

[muriel_volestrangler]

37. It's fixed for me so far today (nt)

[EarlG]

38. Good to hear

We're still working on it but hopefully will have it solved for everyone shortly.

[Celerity]

41. when I use a VPN set to the USA, it stops the popups, but they come back when I set to an EU nation

or I turn the VPN off

[EarlG]

42. We've attempted a potential fix but

I'd like to know if the problem is continuing -- is it still happening for you now without the VPN, even if you delete your current cookies?

[Celerity]

43. yes, I cleared all cookies again, and it still happens if we are NOT on the VPN set to the USA

the problem with staying on that is that I cannot access a lot of EU and UK things then, lol

so catch-22

[Celerity]

44. So, I did a deeper dive and set the VPN for many different countries, and the only ones affected are

the EU, UK, and the EEA

Outside of those all work, no popups that I could find

Switzerland is not affected (but the the UK is, even though both are non EU and non EEA (Norway, in the EEA only, IS affected)

Serbia is NOT affected (non EU and non EEA)

European Economic Area

[EarlG]

45. I'm getting reports from other UK/EU visitors that the issue has cleared up

If this is still a problem for you, you may have an old version of updated code cached in your browser. Did you try clearing your cache when you cleared your cookies? If not, I'd recommend trying that first. My guess is that you know how to do it, but just in case, there are instructions for all browsers here:

https://kinsta.com/knowledgebase/how-to-clear-browser-cache/#how-to-clear-browser-cache-for-google-chrome

If that doesn't work, I could use some more troubleshooting information.

If you can, please right-click on any page where this is happening and select "Inspect" from the pop-up menu. A new window should appear showing a bunch of code, and at the top there should be a tab which says "Console" -- click that tab, take a screenshot of the window, and email it to me at [e-mail]

Hopefully that will help us figure out what errors might be occurring.

[Celerity]

46. the clearing of cache seems to have finally fixed it

[Ms. Toad]

11. I get something similar on perhaps 25% of the websites I visit.

Laws in many countries and some states require websites to inform you and get your permission to store cookies. Apparently I visit a lot of sites aimed at those states and/or countries. I always go in and manage the settings - turning off as many cookies as permitted. Generally I get the notice once per site, as long as I respond by setting the cookies (either to the default or as I prefer - which is without tracking).

[Celerity]

16. Yes, here in the EU we get the privacy notices all the time. This is different.

It's on 9 devices now and it literally pops up on every screen change and refuses to go away no matter how many times we consent.

[Ms. Toad]

17. I've only encountered one or two like that.

Have you tried going into the manage cookies option, rather than just pressing continue?

[Celerity]

40. it just spins and spins, and it is likely an EU thing, as when I set VPN to the US the popups stop

going into the manage cookies option

[empedocles]

12. I get ads from, Ad Blocker, and Malware Bytes?

Every time I first sit down at my desktop.

[sl8]

22. Do you have the ability to view the site via VPN?

So far, it seems to be happening to one person in Sweden and one in the UK.

It would be interesting to see what happens if you connect via a VPN with an endpoint in the US, maybe Canada.

[RocRizzo55]

34. VPN seems to do the trick

With VPN endpoint set to US, no annoying screen. No VPN, and it's right back.
So that eliminates adblocker, password manager, malware/virus detection, and other security features installed. It has to do with the advertiser on DU's end when opening in the EU, I would imagine. This seems to be part of the EU privacy thing, but this buggy screen is ridiculous.

[sl8]

35. Interesting, thanks. I think that you're right about the nature of the problem. nt

[Celerity]

39. yes, VPN set to the USA stopped the pop-ups