Broken Ad Loop - Forge of Empires - Tab S9 FE / Android 16

Additional update and new observations:

5. Billboard Timeline & Asset Misrouting Hypothesis:

To be absolutely precise regarding the timeline: The unclosable full-screen ads actually started  appearing while the second billboards were still active. Later on, these billboards went completely dark/inactive. However, when I reinstalled the game due to the recent Railroad update, the billboards suddenly became active again for exactly one day before going dark again.

My strong suspicion is that these two issues are directly connected: The unclosable ads appear  to be campaigns originally intended and optimized for the 3D billboards. Because there aren't enough standard video ads available, the game seems to forcefully pull these billboard assets into the full-screen reward video-player. Since they lack the proper close-button ('X') code for a full-screen player, they freeze at the end. The reinstallation clue suggests that a fresh local cache temporarily handles this layout, but server-syncing quickly breaks both systems again, heavily disrupting Contest of Mayors (CoM) milestones and season currency progression.

6. Situation Worsened (Workaround no longer effective):

Unfortunately, the situation has worsened over the last few hours. Now, even the very first ad  after a fresh 'Force Stop' is mostly unclosable. Whatever server-side adjustments or cached data conflicts are causing this, the previous workaround of turning off targeted ads is unfortunately no longer reliable, and the ad system remains mostly broken at this point.

EDIT / Additional crucial detail:

I realized an important fact regarding the timeline: Most of the video ads that are now  unclosable used to work perfectly fine before the second billboards were introduced to the game. The other broken ads were added as brand-new campaigns after that change. This proves that the ad files themselves aren't inherently broken, but rather that the server-side restructuring of the billboard system completely corrupted the delivery and layout of these existing campaigns.

EDIT 2 / Frustrating Impact on Playtime & Premium Boosters:

Just to emphasize how incredibly annoying this broken ad system is right now: The 85 available  ads offer a base total of about 28,900 seasonal currency (85 x 340). It is important to note that this is without purchasing a premium booster! For players who bought a booster, this amount increases by 50% or even 100%.

Dealing with these unclosable ads—constantly force-stopping the app, reloading, and wasting  time on frozen screens—is extremely frustrating. The effort required to navigate this broken system stands in no relation to our limited playtime. It turns gathering this currency into a massive, time-consuming headache, which is especially unacceptable for paying players who bought a booster to progress faster. 

I totally agree with the battery consumption. My iPad is struggling to charge despite being plugged in all the time. Had to stop playing to let it recharge.

Hello to the moderation team,

Since my usual contact person is currently away, I wanted to drop this highly critical update here  so it doesn't get lost. A lot has happened over the last 8 days regarding both the ad issues and a major new synchronization bug following the recent patch:

1. Railroad Update (May 27th) & Sync Bug:

With the start of the new CoM season on May 27th, the update allowing railroad items to  be sold in the HQ went live. After this, a train car I had unlocked refused to appear in the railway shop for days. I decided to reinstall the game on my tablet. Upon launching, it prompted me to restore an internet connection to download missing data. Afterward, my entire Event Track was missing, and the app storage shrunk to about 200 MB. The Fix: I opened the game on my phone, updated it, and fortunately, the Event Track was visible there. I claimed my rewards and closed the app. When I reopened the game on my tablet, the Event Track was successfully resynced and restored.

2. Current Ad Behavior & Billboards:

Right after this sync process, the in-game billboards were temporarily active, and ads ran  with the previously known issues. However, over the following days, the billboards went inactive again. During these past 8 days, I encountered around 30 diferent unclosable ads. Only occasionally did I get a 'usable' black screen ad that allowed me to close it.

3. Breakthrough via In-Game Settings (Targeted Ads):

Yesterday, I went into the game settings and turned off 'Targeted Ads' (personalized  advertising).

 The Result: Now, whenever I fully restart the game, the first ad works perfectly as a normal, correct ad—and interestingly, this first ad is never one of those 30 broken, unclosable campaigns! However, any subsequent ads following the first one pull from the bad ad pool again and become unclosable. Also, the 'No ads available' message has stopped appearing entirely since making this change.

This provides a massive clue for the dev team: Turning off targeted ads forces a clean, working campaign on the first slot after a fresh start. The issue is heavily tied to the tracking/privacy protocols of personalized ads, which completely break the ad-player interface on all consecutive loads.

Update:

4.  Background Battery Consumption: 

For the past two days, my device system has been alerting me that SimCity is causing  unusually high battery consumption in the background. This strongly suggests that the unclosable ads are running into an infinite loop or keeping a wakelock active, draining CPU resources in the background even after the game is minimized.

Hi, I have an extremely important and revealing update regarding the ad issues since the start of  the new CoM season:

Wednesday (Season start until approx. 11:00 PM CET):

The video ads suddenly ran completely without any problems! I noticed that the in-game billboards around the city were completely empty/out of service. Also, I frequently got the message 'no ads available at the moment'. This clearly proves that when the in-game billboard assets were deactivated, the video ad system worked flawlessly!

Since Wednesday 11:00 PM CET and today (Thursday): 

Around 11 PM, the first unclosable ad suddenly popped up again. Today, on Thursday, the issue is fully back: I am getting numerous ads that simply cannot be closed at the end, resulting in zero rewards. Even though the physical billboards in the city still appear to be out of service visually, the broken code or faulty campaign synchronization seems to have been re-activated in the background since the nightly reset.

This definitively proves the direct technical conflict between the in-game billboard system and the video ad-player crashing!

Hello EA_LANNA,  I would like to provide an important update, as the behavior has shifted with today's daily update, but the main issue unfortunately persists depending on how the ad is triggered:

What I noticed before today's update:

1. Conflict with In-Game Billboards: Some of the brands that consistently caused the  frozen ads (like June’s Journey, Gossip Harbor, or TikTok) started appearing directly on the in-game billboards around the city. It seems there is a code conflict within the game when the same ad campaign tries to load as an in-game asset and in the video ad-player at the same time. This would perfectly explain why the player used to cut out at the 21-28% mark.

2. The Temu Phenomenon: With the Temu ads the screen stayed completely white  for about 3 seconds until the 'X' appeared, showing only a tiny text at the bottom saying 'Spare bei Temu' with an arrow (Screenshot attached).

 Behavior after today's Daily Update (Important distinction based on trigger):

● Via the Prize Wheel (Partial success): The two ads I watched through the prize wheel  feature remained completely black, but the timer bar kept running normally. The ad (TikTok) ran 'blindly' in the background, the end-screen appeared, the 'X' worked, and I received my reward.

● Via City Pop-ups (The issue persists): However, when I clicked on an ad pop-up directly  inside my city (June’s Journey and Gossip Harbor), the videos actually played through, but they could not be closed at the end. Consequently, I received no reward for them.

It looks like the bug behaves differently depending on how the ad is triggered. While the prize  wheel system seems to handle the workaround better, the city pop-up system remains highly unstable and completely blocks rewards at the end—especially with brands that share in-game billboard assets.

Hi, I would like to share another technical observation and an update on the current situation:

I noticed that I can only open the Gaming Hub overlay (showing the %-loading bar) when an ad  is already frozen. On ads that function correctly, the game maintains full control of the screen, a nd the overlay cannot be opened at all. This strongly suggests that at the 21-28% mark, the ad-player loses its connection or 'focus' within the game, causing it to crash and allowing the system tools to overlap.

To clarify the scale of the issue: Today, I had to trigger 20 ads just to get 3 successful  completions. This high failure rate makes time-limited bonus tasks extremely frustrating and  stressful, as I lose precious time constantly having to restart the app. It is nearly impossible to enjoy or complete these challenges under these conditions.

Hi, I wanted to circle back and let you know I passed this along, and it's being looked into. Thanks for sharing those updates and the images

Hello EA_Lanna,

I want to provide a quick update: After my last post 9 days ago, things were much better for a few days with almost no issues. However, since the new CoM season started on Wednesday, the problems have been increasing again significantly.

It was especially bad today while I was trying to use some of the 85 ads for Music Tokens in the shop. Practically every 2nd or 3rd ad failed to close. I’ve taken screenshots showing that the ads consistently freeze right at the beginning, between 21% and 28%. This happened with a wide range of brands (Amazon, Tchibo, Payback, Temu, Royal Kingdom, Goods Puzzle, Match Villains, June’s Journey).

Since my capital city and regions have been running perfectly smooth since the reinstall, this is clearly a technical failure of the internal ad-player, struggling with the current season's load."

I have exactly the same issue with iPhone running the latest iOS. Watch the Ad it plays, the x detects that I’m attempting to use it,  but doesn’t close the Ad. Google Ads are the worst and never work/close.  But other cheaply made Ads are the same. Apple TV and the gaming Ads are usually fine.
As a result you don’t get the reward especially frustrating since watching Ads is now part of the weekly challenge and all the Ads since change to the weekly game seem to be non working google Ads.

Hi EA Lanna,

Ithank you for the follow-up. I have attached the requested screenshots of the DJI Avata 360 ad.

I want to clarify a specific point: I can see the 'X' button, but it is completely unresponsive. When I tap it, nothing happens. The ad effectively freezes the UI, /forcing me to restart the game to continue.

I’ve attached two versions of the screenshot:

• 1. With RAM Monitor: This clearly shows the high memory load during this specific ad.
• 2. Standard View: Showing the ad and the 'X' button that fails to close the window.

This confirms it is a functional freeze caused by these specific 'heavy' ads interacting with the game's RAM management. Please forward these to the technical team so they can investigate the interaction between these ad-scripts and the game's UI responsiveness.

Thank you Ifor your help!