Troubleshooting ad-free
Table of Contents
1 About
- This page describes common steps how to troubleshoot ad-free in case ad blocking does not work.
- Pictures below are based on version v2.0. They may slightly change in later versions.
- https://github.com/abertschi/ad-free
2 Reinstall ad-free
Remove and reinstall ad-free. Upon first usage you are asked to grant notification access. Whether the notification service successfully connected can be seen in settings (three dots in about fragment) in the version segment. You can touch the notification service is connected / notification service is disconnected text to launch notification access settings to re-grant access.
Figure 1: Notification service status
3 Enable autostart
Some flavors of Android support an autostart option. Go to Android app info and enable auto start.
Figure 2: App info activity
4 Disable battery saver
Remove ad-free from the list of battery saved apps. This option can be found in Android app info.
Figure 3: Battery saver options
5 Enable always-on notifications
On some flavors of Android ad-free is being killed if the activity runs in background. Go to ad-free settings (three dots in about fragment) and enable always-on option. A foreground notification should now appear in the notification drawer. This notification appears as soon as the notification listener is connected an running.
Figure 4: Always On Notification
6 Advanced steps
6.1 Check if notification listener works
Enable developer mode in ad-free by clicking multiple times on the title in the ad detectors screen. Go to ad-free settings (three dots) / ad detectors. Enable the detector Dummy global which flags each incoming notification as advertisement. If audio is not being blocked then there is an issue with the notification listener. File an issue on Github; https://github.com/abertschi/ad-free/issues.
6.2 Record notifications for a new detector.
Unlock developer mode as described above. Enable Spotify tracer and submit the recording file as an issue on Github. The notification dump can help adding support for new devices.