New ad issues on my forum

I started getting member complaints on Monday morning, April 28, about ads showing up on our forum.  We have not had  ads before when we are logged in.  It's happening in IE, FF, Chrome, and Safari.  Deleting cookies, clearing cache, re-booting, and changing browsers haven't helped.

For other members, including myself, there has been no change from what has been the norm for the last couple years: We see ads as a guest, and no ads when logged in.  

I've removed adblock from my computer, but I can't duplicate their problem.  It's still 'normal' for me: I see ads as a guest, and no ads when logged in.

The ads that members were seeing were in the expected place.
 
Now a member has posted a picture, and the ad is out of place.

Out of place ad:

Just minutes after he posted that pic, I logged out to look at the same page:

Normal ad for guests:

Then, I logged back in to look at the same page:

Normal look when logged in:

I don't know if there's a connection, but I just posted about an underlined link from viglink.
https://help.forumotion.com/t132720-viglink-added-to-the-forum-by-forumotion#891956

Any ideas what's going on?
Thanks

http://squarefoot.creatingforum.com/
created Feb 28, 2010

Hi,

If your forum is fairly new, ads might just now be showing up and this could be your problem.

If it's ticked to members and guests, you won't see it.

Ultimately to get rid of ads, just buy credits and remove them.

Is this similar - https://help.forumotion.com/t132462-google-ad-s-leaving-the-box ?

It might be similar.

Is it related to ads showing up when they didn't before?

Did you use credits to remove ads?

Also have do you have it set in the administration panel for ads?

We no longer have the option to remove ads like we used to. Now the only options are:



We used credits in 2012 to remove ads, but then the non-profit organization that started the forum didn't have the funds to continue doing so.

It's just some members that can see ads when logged in.  The rest of us don't see ads.

Is your forum version phpBB 3?

Yes

A member just posted another issue that we haven't seen before:

Above a post reply edit box:

Homepage view:

She's using FF on Win7.

Did this member press anything right before this appeared?

She appears to be logged in and active; I just PM'd her.


From the member:

I just started to post that it was gone this morning.  However when I hit the reply button, the Warning was there behind the blank reply box.  I started to respond but my computer shut down for a Windows Update.  So I guess that it was just a normal update.  But after that update and logging back on, I do not see the warning.  I do see the adds, even though I am logged in.

She also said that she never clicks on any ads.

Any insights to what's going on?

As I mentioned, I'm not getting ads displayed as others are. However, when I log in on two test accounts, I do see ads. I also have another test account that doesn't get ads.

Could you send a test account with access to the administration panel by private message?

Done.

Thanks.

I did not see any ads when I used the non-Admin account. I an using Firefox 29.0.

Did you use credits to remove ads? The reason why I ask is I believe the option which you are missing disappears when you use credits for ad removal.

Yes, we did use credits at one time. That would explain why my test forum still has the ad removal option available.

If you are not the founder, you really do not know what the founder has done.  Can you not contact the founder for help?

Maybe we've discovered a secret code: when only some members can see ads,  it means the credits to remove ads has expired.

The founder showed up this morning; he had a surplus of credits which he spent to remove ads.  Now, no one can see ads, and everyone is happy again.

I still don't understand why we all didn't see ads, but I guess it doesn't matter now.

Thanks for your help; this thread is solved.

You're welcome.

Problem solved & topic archived.