Vast error occurs

When your site serves a display ad, your browser renders it using HTML, JavaScript, and CSS. With video, it’s a little bit more complicated. A video player receives and reads a VAST XML, which is a collection of data that describes an ad, to figure out which media file it should play. It sends messages back to the ad server to report on whether an ad has been watched, and how much.

When you test video ads, you can use Chrome developer tools, or any third-party software, to view network requests and responses to get information about your ads.

Network requests can be filtered by env=vp to see only video requests to the Ad Manager video ad server. Within the request, you can see things like the iu parameter, which is the Ad Manager network code, or the size parameter, which is the requested ad size. If you see something in an ad request that you don’t expect, you may need to talk to the developer of your video player to resolve any problems.

Video ad responses should be VAST XML files. There are two different types of VAST XML files, inline and redirect. You can easily see the type in the XML, with inline XML files that list actual creatives. Redirect XML files contain a VAST ad tag URI, which may either lead to an additional redirect, or ultimately to the URL of the inline version.

Creatives and media files

Within a VAST XML file, you should see a <Creatives> element, which should contain different <MediaFiles>, which are available for your player to choose. If your player cannot play any of the available media files, it won’t be able to play the ad to the user. In these instances, you should reach out to the trafficker or whoever supplied the creative and ask for a version of the file that your player can play.

Track events

Ad Manager has no way of knowing if the user interacts with the ad unless the player is sending back messages to Ad Manager using the events that are defined in the XML. When you troubleshoot, you need to be sure that the events you try to track are actually defined in your VAST XML. If you want to know if users have completed the ad, but there is no «complete» tracking event defined, there’s no way Ad Manager is going to be able to track that the user has completed the ad.

Empty VAST XML

If your response is an empty VAST tag, it’s usually an indication that there were no creatives available in your ad server to satisfy the ad request, or there were no ads targeted at this sort of request. If your player receives empty VAST XMLs, you need to double check the ad request that’s going out from your player to be sure that the right key-values, ad unit, and sizes are being requested. You can also check targeting in Ad Manager to confirm that the line items you expect to serve match the request.

Severity levels of video errors

A video player can trigger some errors, but still play the ad. These errors are considered «potentially non-fatal» errors. Other «fatal» errors often cause the video player to stop the request for the failed ad and either request another ad, or resume playback of the video content. Behavior varies by player implementation.

Expand all Collapse all

VAST errors

    100     VAST XML parsing error

    101     VAST schema validation error

    102     VAST response version not supported

    200    Video player expected different ad type

    201     Video player expected different linearity

    202     Video player expected different duration

    203     Video player expected different size

    300     Wrapper error

    301     VAST redirect timeout reached

    302     Wrapper limit reached

    303     Empty VAST response returned

    400     General linear error

    401     MediaFile not found

    402     Unable to download or timeout of MediaFile URI

    403     VAST response declared unsupported MIME types for all MediaFiles

    405     MediaFile display error

    406     Missing required mezzanine file

    407     Mezzanine file downloaded for the first time

    408     Rejected ad in VAST response

    409     Creative defined in the InteractiveCreativeFile node did not execute

    410     Code referenced in the Verification node did not execute

    500     General NonLinearAds error

    501     Non-linear ad creative dimensions do not align with creative display area

    502     Unable to fetch NonLinearAds/NonLinear resource

    503     Could not find NonLinear resource with supported type

    600     General CompanionAds error

    601     Companion creative dimensions did not align with companion display area

    602     Unable to display required companion

    603     Unable to fetch CompanionAds/Companion resource

    604     Could not find Companion resource with supported type

    900     VAST 2 error

    900     Undefined VAST 3 error

    901     General VPAID error

 1009   The VAST response document is empty

IMA SDK errors

These errors are not part of the VAST specification.

  1005     URL malformed

VAST (Video Ad Serving Template) is a script that allows communication between video players and ad servers. Publishers can give details to the video player about the necessary parameters of ads and how they should be displayed.

VAST has been a standard for serving and tracking video ads, but VAST errors signal about problems in these ads and can bring extra hassle for publishers when dealing with them.

Read this article to learn about all of the most common VAST errors and how to prevent or solve them!

Table of Contents:

• What are VAST Errors?
• How Can I Create a VAST Error Report?
• VAST Error Code Types And How To Fix Them
• Fatal Error Codes
• Potentially Non-fatal Error Codes
• Best Practices to Follow to Avoid VAST Errors

What are VAST Errors?

VAST errors indicate malfunctions between the ad server and video player communication due to wrong ad sizes, missing information, or other technical issues. 

They can be divided into “fatal” and “potentially non-fatal” errors.

How Can I Create a VAST Error Report?

Here are 8 steps on how to create a VAST error report through Google Ad Manager: 

1. First, navigate to Reporting → Report and click “New report”.

1. Set the type of report to Historical with a date range. 

1. Click on Filters (optional): 
   • Click on the Request type.
   • Select is any of. 
   • In the search field, type or select Video Tag. 
   • Click Apply.

1. Add the following report dimensions:
   • The type of line item associated with the creative that serves the ad slot request.
   • The name of the line item.
   • The name of the ad unit (top-level). 

1. Select the following metrics from the “Total” section:
   • Total code served count–number of times Google Ad platforms (Google Ad Manager, AdSense, etc.), as well as third-party networks, responded to an ad request. 
   • Total impressions.

1. Select Total error count from the “Video viewership” section.

1. Select all error codes in the “Video errors” section.

1. Run your report.

It’s important to note that VAST error reporting is available for VAST 3 and up.

Fatal Error Codes

Fatal error codes most likely have stopped the ad from being served, leading to another ad being requested or the repeating of video content playback. 

100 – XML parsing error

VAST error 100 indicates a problem with the XML document or a failed VAST ad tag URL redirect. It can be the result of a faulty buyer’s response or an invalid XML document.

XML documents are text files that contain any form of structured data, which is necessary for data transport. VAST ad tag URL is used by a player to retrieve video and audio ads. 

How to solve it?

Publishers should alert the buyer to verify that the VAST XML is correctly formatted according to the IAB guidelines.

101 – VAST schema validation error

VAST error 101 indicates that the buyer’s response lacks XML’s attributes or contains unknown elements.

Some of the possible causes are shown in the image below, such as missing Ad node or MediaFile node, Duration missing, etc. 

Source: IAB Tech lab 

How to solve it?

Publishers should inform the buyer to assure that the VAST XML formatting contains all of the required information.

102 – VAST version of response not supported

VAST error 102 indicates that there are possible issues with the VAST version–the video player doesn’t support the bid request’s VAST version, or the exchange sends the wrong one.

There’s a possibility that the VAST doesn’t contain a version, and then it can be considered as a schema validation issue–the file is missing or has invalid information.

How to solve it?

Publishers should inform the buyer to ensure only supported VAST versions.

204 – Required ad category is missing

VAST error 204 occurs when an ad category was required but not provided.

How to solve it?

Make sure to include an ad category if it’s necessary. 

300 – General Wrapper error

VAST error 300 is considered to be a general wrapper error, which occurs when the wrapper limit is reached and it isn’t actionable.

How to prevent it?

There are steps you can take beforehand to avoid this error, like conducting a review of all VAST URIs (Uniform Resource Identifier) to ensure that they’re not timing out and remain reachable. 

301 – Timeout of VAST URI

VAST error 301 indicates a timeout of an unresponsive or broken URI inside a VAST creative. This could also be the fault of poor internet connection, non-optimized page, or HTTP serving to HTTPS. 

How to solve it?

To solve this error publishers can check the validity of the VAST URI to make sure that it’s reachable and without any faults, and increase the video player’s timeout limit.

Also, it’s important to check the internet connection to avoid request time-out, and check if there are no protocol issues.

302 – Wrapper limit reached

VAST error 302 is displayed when the wrapper limit has exceeded. Meaning, each video player often has a specific wrapper limit, and when it’s reached, this error is likely to occur. 

This error can also appear if there are too many wrapper responses received without an inline response. It might also be the cause of too many wrappers or daisy chaining–a loop of  networks bouncing to one another.

How to solve it?

• Increase the wrapper limit of your video player.
• Avoid daisy chaining, as that can cause too many redirects from a video player and cancel any ad request.

303 – No ads VAST response after one or more Wrappers

VAST error 303 appears when an empty VAST response is returned. It can happen when the ad request is contained in a third-party wrapper.

If you work with third-party networks, the offered fill rate is less than 100%, and the remaining percentage portrays the chance of an error occurring. 

For example, if the third-party promises 70% fill rate, then there’s a 30% chance of an error occurring.

How to solve it?

Publishers can resolve this by enabling fallback in Google Ad Manager with these 3 steps:

• Click on Admin, navigate to Video, and then click Video Settings.
• Enable Video Fallback.
• Save these settings.

To avoid this error you should ensure that the bids being returned don’t have an empty VAST.

304 – Fetch timeout 

VAST error 304 indicates that an InLine response returned ad unit failed to result in ad display within the defined time limit

How to solve it?

VAST Wrappers should be limited to five or within the defined time limit before resulting in an InLine response.

400 – General linear error

VAST error 400 indicates that the video player can’t display a linear ad (an ad that appears before, during, or after a pre-existing video content) due to an invalid MediaFile format, the browser’s autoplay restriction, or a different unknown reason.  

Linear ad example

How to solve it?

Publishers can try one of these 3 steps:

• Check if the video player has any issues.
• Enable video player detection for restricted autoplay.
• Contact the buyer, who must check that the VAST response is returning a valid creative. 

401 – File not found

VAST error 401 indicates that a file can’t be found from the MediaFile URI.

How to solve it?

Publishers should alert the buyer, who should ensure that all MediaFile URIs in the VAST response return a valid creative.

402 – Timeout of MediaFile URI

VAST error 402 resembles a timeout that can occur with a problematic media file. If the ad creative takes a lot more time to load, then there’s a high chance that this error might appear. 

VAST ad unit contains a creative that could have problems like large size and platform incompatibility. This error can be caused by low bandwidth or poor website ad implementation. 

How to solve it?

Publishers can optimize their website layouts to increase their page loading speed. You can ease this process by partnering with a monetization platform, like Setupad.

More possible solutions are increasing the video player’s timeout limit, and adjusting the bitrate serving specifically for mobile devices.

403 – Unsupported MIME types for all MediaFiles

VAST error 403 indicates that there have been unsupported MIME types for all available MediaFiles (e.g. WebM on iOS). This error is more common on mobile devices. 

It can also indicate that the wrong creative type attempted to play.

How to solve it?

Publishers should ensure that the creative format is supported by the video player, and buyers should ensure that all returned creatives approve the video format in the bid request.

405 – Problem displaying MediaFile

VAST error 405 occurs when a problematic creative is returned. Creatives can fail because of transcoding-related reasons, such as a mismatch between the MIME type and the video file type, or a CORS issue on the creative’s CDN.

How to solve it?

Publishers should alert the buyer, who must ensure accurate creative MIME types and CDN configurations.

406 – Missing required mezzanine file

VAST error 406 occurs when a VAST response is returned without the required mezzanine file. 

Publishers that rely on SSAI (server-side ad insertion) or ad-stitching require mezzanine files to generate higher-quality videos. 

How to solve it?

Publishers should alert the buyer to check if the mezzanine file is included in the response.

407 – Mezzanine is in the process of being downloaded for the first time

VAST error 407 indicates that mezzanine is in the process of being downloaded, which can take up to several hours. Until then the ad will not be served.

How to solve it?

This error will automatically stop once the mezzanine download and transcoding is finished.

408 – Conditional ad rejected

VAST error 408 occurs when the ad returned in the VAST response is rejected. 

How to solve it?

Publishers should alert the buyer, who must ensure that the VAST response only has approved creatives. Ad creative hosts (advertisers or agencies) should be aware of rejections.

409 – Interactive unit in the InteractiveCreativeFile node was not executed

VAST error 409 indicates that a creative defined in the InteractiveCreativeFile node doesn’t execute. 

How to solve it?

Publishers should alert the buyer, who must ensure that the returned interactive creatives play successfully when requested.

410 – The verification unit in the Verification node was not executed

VAST error 410 occurs when the code in the AdVerification  node (a feature of VAST 4) doesn’t execute.

How to solve it?

Publishers have to alert the buyer, who should check that the code is implemented according to the verification vendor’s specifications.

500 – General NonLinearAds error

VAST error 500 indicates that the video player is unable to display a non-linear ad for an unknown reason. 

Non-linear ad example

How to solve it?

Publishers should check for any video player issues, or alert the buyer, who must ensure that the VAST response returns a valid creative.

501 – Unable to display NonLinear Ad

VAST error 501 occurs when a non-linear ad fails to play because the creative’s dimensions are larger than the creative display area. It can also be the result of using CSS styles to set the video content’s dimensions.

How to solve it?

Publishers should ensure that the set width and height match the display area. Instead of CSS styles, use HTML attributes to set video content’s dimensions.

502 – Unable to fetch NonLinearAds/NonLinear resource

VAST error 502 occurs when the buyer’s response returns a non-linear ad that fails to return a valid creative.

How to solve it?

Publishers should alert the buyer, who must ensure that valid creatives are returned in the non-linear ad response. 

503 – Could not find NonLinearresource with a supported type

VAST error 503 occurs when a creative size is bigger than the player size, or it indicates an improper media type. 

How to solve it?

Publishers should check if the video player accepts requested creative sizes and media types.

900 – Undefined VAST 3 error

VAST error 900 is the result of an unknown VAST 3 error, which can stop the ad request.

How to solve it?

Publishers should alert the buyer, and work together to troubleshoot the exact issue.

901 – General VPAID error

VAST error 901 can be the result of:

• SSP VPAID wrapper timeout;
• SSP VPAID wrapper not buying;
• VPAID creatives required insecure mode;
• An Authorized Buyers “IMA adapter” tag is used with IMA SDK, and a VPAID ad is returned. 

How to solve it?

Publishers should ensure that any VPAID requests are supported for devices and players. Use video creative profiles to control and adjust which creatives are eligible to serve.

Potentially Non-fatal Error Codes

Potentially non-fatal errors may allow the ad to continue playing, as they indicate a problem in the application but don’t result in a crash.

200 – Video player expected different ad type

VAST error 200 can occur if a video player doesn’t expect or support an ad type requested in a bid request.

For example, the player supports linear ads but receives a skippable ad.  

How to solve it?

Publishers should check for trafficking errors, or alert the buyer, who should ensure that only specified ad types are sent in a response. 

201 – Video player expecting different linearity

VAST error 201 can occur when the linearity in the buyer’s response doesn’t match the video player’s request. 

For example, a linear ad was requested but a non-linear ad was sent in response.

How to solve it?

Publishers should ensure that the correct linearity is specified in the ad request.

202 – Video player expecting different duration

VAST error 202 can occur when the creative is returned with a different duration than specified.

For example, the actual MediaFile duration is 30 seconds, but a creative is sent with a 15 second duration.

How to solve it?

Publishers should ensure that the creative duration is set properly in Google Ad Manager.

203 – Video player expecting different size

VAST error 203 can occur when returned MediaFiles aren’t compatible with the device from which the bid request is sent. It can be the result of returning high bitrate creatives to mobile devices, which would be slow or impossible to load.

How to solve it?

Publishers should alert the buyer, who must ensure that the response includes MediaFiles compatible with different devices and technologies.

600 – General CompanionAds error

VAST error 600 occurs when a publisher is unable to display a companion ad. A companion ad is a display ad that appears around the video player and usually has a clear call to action.

Companion ad example

How to solve it?

Publishers should check for ad serving issues, or alert the buyer, who must ensure that the VAST response returns a valid creative.

601 – Unable to display companion because creative dimensions do not fit within Companion display area (i.e., no available space)

VAST error 601 occurs when the companion creative dimensions don’t fit within the companion display area. 

How to solve it?

Publishers should ensure that the requested companion ad size fits within the dimension of the ad unit.

602 – Unable to display Required Companion

VAST error 602 occurs when the publisher is unable to render the companion ad creative returned in the VAST response.

How to solve it?

Publishers should check for ad serving issues, or inform the buyer, who must ensure that the VAST response returns a valid creative. 

603 – Unable to fetch CompanionAds/Companion resource

VAST error 603 occurs when the buyer’s response returns a companion ad that fails to return a valid creative. 

How to solve it?

Publishers should inform the buyer, who must ensure that valid creatives are returned in the companion ad response.

604 – Could not find a Companion resource with a supported type

VAST error 604 occurs when a publisher requests an unsupported creative type for the companion ad slot. 

How to solve it?

Publishers should ensure that specific creative types are supported for the companion ad slot.

Best Practices to Follow to Avoid VAST Errors

To avoid possible VAST errors follow these 3 practices: 

• Ensure that DSPs scan all creatives before serving the ad to save time and resolve possible issues and errors.

• Collaborate with your SSPs, DSPs, ad network, and ad servers to improve the performance of your VAST creatives or partner with a monetization platform who will take care of this.

• Implement multiple media files with varying bitrates, so the video player can choose the best one for different network connection speeds.

Conclusion 

This guide includes all popular VAST errors and actionable tips to solve them. If you’re not technically savvy enough or don’t have a dedicated AdOps team, you can partner with a trusted ad provider that has video ad offering and who will solve any errors for you. 

Setupad offers in-stream video ads for publishers with existing video content and a video player. If publishers don’t have video content, we offer a video player that includes demand from all our partner SSPs (Google Adx, Rubicon, etc.) If there are any errors with the player, we immediately contact the video player provider to solve these issues.  

VAST error codes have disrupted video ad serving and left publishers with important time lost. Here are some common VAST errors and their resolution.

VAST error codes continue to disrupt publishers’ experience as they try to leverage video advertising for increasing revenue.

Whether or not to experiment with video advertising  has almost become an outdated question for a publisher. In order to maximise their revenue, publishers must focus on experimenting with programmatic video advertising, 

According to Cisco, 82% of the entire consumer internet traffic will be online videos by the end of 2022. It is evident that users consume video content more than other forms, giving publishers the opportunity to insert ads in between. 

But video advertising comes with its own set of challenges. Despite the technological advancements made in measuring a video ad’s performance, publishers still face error messages in VAST. These VAST error codes are mostly cryptic in nature and render publishers with important time lost. 

If publishers want their video advertising campaigns to succeed, understanding how to interpret and resolve VAST errors is important. 

What is a VAST error?

A VAST error can occur due to a number of reasons and is reported back in case any issue takes place. Ideally, after the code is served for a video ad, the user should be served with that particular ad. However, if the code served request leads to a VAST error, the issue is reported with a numerical code. 

On the basis of the type of VAST error that is reported, the video ad may or may not be served to the user. If the error reported back comes under the ‘non-fatal’ category, then the video player may still play the ad. On the other hand, a ‘fatal’ error will cause the video player to either request for another ad or abort the failed ad request. 

The table below classifies which VAST errors are fatal and which are non-fatal.

Here are some common VAST errors and how publishers can resolve them:

Common VAST Error Codes and Their Resolution

VAST Error 301

This error stands for Timeout of VAST URI. This VAST error normally indicates timeout of an unresponsive or faulty URI inside a VAST creative. However, ad tech experts have often associated a poor network connection or a very high level of latency as the primary causes for this error. 

VAST Error 302

This VAST error is displayed when the wrapper limit has been exceeded. The video player of the ad often has a pre-defined wrapper limit. Whenever that limit is reached, this error is likely to occur. This can happen if there are too many wrapper responses that have been received, but there is no inline response. Some other possible causes are the existence of daisy chaining (explained in the resolution for this error), empty VAST responses, and others. 

Publishers can possibly resolve this by the following solutions:

• To accommodate the creatives, buyers can work with SSPs or publishers to increase the wrapper limit. 
• Avoid daisy chaining which is the process in which ad calls are passed from one network to another. This can cause too many redirects from a video player before an actual media file makes a return, making the video player abort any ad request. 

VAST Error 303

This error generally occurs when an empty VAST response is returned. It is a common error when the ad request is generally contained within a third-party wrapper. Here’s how to resolve this:

Third-party networks often offer a fill rate of less than 100%. To assume the percentage of times that this error can occur, just consider the leftover % of the fill rate. For example, if the fill-rate promised by your third-party network is 60%, there is a 40% chance of this error occurring. The best way for publishers to resolve this is by enabling fallback in Google Ad Manager. This can be enabled by:

• Sign in to your Google Ad Manager account. 
• Click on Admin >> Video >> Video Settings. 
• Enable Video Fallback. 
• Click on Save. 

VAST Error 402

This error generally stands for a timeout that occurs when a media file is problematic. When the ad creative takes a lot more time than usual to load, then this error occurs. Normally the VAST ad unit contains a creative that has issues such as large size, incompatibility of the platform it is trying to serve at. This can be resolved in the following ways:

• Publishers can increase their page load speed by optimizing their website layouts. This can be done by partnering with an ad network (like AdPushup). 
• Another possible solution is increasing the video player’s timeout limit. 
• Adjusting the bitrate for serving on mobile can also solve this error.

Bonus: General VPAID Error

While this is a VPAID error, if video advertising is being considered, this is one of the most common errors that publishers come across. It is also known as Error 901 and often leaves publishers confused because it can have many different causes. Some of the possible causes are:

• An IMA Adapter Tag in Ad Exchange is used with the IMA SDK, but a VPAID ad is returned instead. Error 901 will be a fatal error here.
• VPAID wrapper timeout.
• VPAID wrapper is not buying video files.

Though the causes can be more than the above listed ones, there are some solutions on how to resolve this error. Publishers need to make sure that whichever VPAID creatives they are using are supported across all devices and video players. Whether or not a VPAID creative is eligible to serve can be checked in Google Ad Manager. Here’s how to do it:

• Sign in to your Google Ad Manager account.
• Click on Video >> Video Creative Profiles >> New Video Creative Profile.
• Configuration for the video creative profile is required. The criteria for this include Name, Restrictions, Bitrate, and Resolution. Setting bitrate is optional. Additionally, under Restrictions, if publishers are allowing VPAID, and a VPAID creative is served, setting a bitrate becomes redundant as ads at any possible bitrate can serve.
• Click on Save. 

Also Read: What is Log Level Data and Why Publishers Would Need It?

A List of All the VAST Error Codes

Even though we have already covered the most commonly occurring VAST error codes, there are a plethora of others as well. Here’s a list of all VAST errors and what they mean:

VAST Error Code	Code Description	Possibility of Fatability
100	XML Parsing Error	Yes
101	VAST Schema Validation Error	Yes
1o2	VAST version of response not supported	Yes
200	Trafficking Error	Maybe
201	Video player expecting different linearity	Maybe
202	Video player expecting different duration	Maybe
203	Video player expecting different size	Maybe
300	General Wrapper error	Yes
301	Timeout of VAST URI	Yes
302	Wrapper limit reached	Yes
303	Empty VAST response	Yes
400	General linear error. Video player is unable to display the linear ad.	Yes
401	Unable to find Linear/MediaFile from URI	Yes
402	Timeout of MediaFile URI	Yes
405	Problem displaying MediaFile	Yes
500	General NonLinearAds error	Yes
501	Unable to display NonLinear Ad because creative dimensions do not align with creative display area (i.e., creative dimension too large)	Yes
502	Unable to fetch NonLinearAds/NonLinear resource	Yes
503	Could not find NonLinearresource with supported type	Yes
600	General CompanionAds error	Maybe
601	Unable to display companion because creative dimensions do not fit within Companion display area	Maybe
602	Unable to display Required Companion	Maybe
603	Unable to fetch CompanionAds/Companion resource	Maybe
604	Could not find Companion resource with supported type	Maybe
900	Undefined Error	Yes
901	General VPAID Error	Yes

We have picked this information directly from the IAB’s wiki for VAST error codes. For more information, you can read here. 

Best Practices for Publishers to Follow

While publishers can individually do VAST troubleshooting for these errors whenever they occur, the best solution would be to make sure that these errors never occur. Here are some best practices that publishers can follow:

• Collaborate with your SSPs, DSPs, ad network, and other partners to consistently improve the performance of your VAST creatives. An ideal scenario would be for the VAST error codes to never occur. This will allow seamless ad serving, resulting in increased revenue. Work with your partners to understand the problems that are incessantly causing these errors. 
• Always make sure that the DSPs scan the creatives beforehand. This will also benefit them and resolve error-causing issues prior to ad serving.

FAQs

Video has become an important part of global business strategies because of the innate benefits it offers as a marketing channel, including engagement, trust building and improved conversion rates. As consumers spend an increasing amount of time with digital video content across devices, the advertising ecosystem, as a whole, is adapting to accommodate the increased interest and budgets to this channel.

We are seeing content producers creating engaging video creatives in response to the growing demand which, in turn, is creating a robust, scaled advertising environment. It is in the publishers’ best interest to capitalize on this trend by providing an optimal viewable environment – resulting in higher CPMs. At the same time, it is recommended agencies and advertisers continue to focus on protecting brand reputation by blocking unsafe impressions for their brands.

Per eMarketer, the US video advertising market, comprised of both TV and digital video, is expected to grow from $91 billion in 2018 to $127 billion in 2023. As US video advertising continues to scale, it’s more important than ever for marketers, publishers and buyers to follow best practices for video advertising.

Current Challenges for Video in Ad Tech

As the video ad tech ecosystem has matured, so has the problem of lost ad impressions. One key contributor to this problem is the video ad tech infrastructure based on VPAID tag performing ad auctions on the client-side, within the publisher’s video player. This can lead to delayed loading speeds and ads timing out — ultimately resulting in lost ad impressions.

It is very important for buyers to not lose out on any of the video ad serving opportunities due to errors or broken creative. Video ads can fail to serve for a variety of reasons including incompatibility with the video player, latency, non-secure creatives, misconfigured campaigns on the DSP, serving VPAID measurement (i.e. Moat, IAS, etc.) in an environment that does not support it, and more.  The subsequent video creative errors result in a poor experience for publishers, buyers and the user. For a detailed list of VAST video ad error codes, along with the causes and possible solutions, please refer IAB doc IAB VAST error codes.

To avoid lost impressions, we are going to discuss the common reasons why video players throw different errors and their respective solutions.

Why Video Creative Breaks

VAST error codes enable the player to communicate back to the ad server, exchanges, SSPs, and DSPs to explain why a video tag didn’t serve an impression. This is helpful to pinpoint and resolve issues when you understand the exact error code.

We will spend some time here talking about the most common VAST errors buyers see and possible resolutions:

• XML Parsing Error (Code 100): This often occurs when the buyer’s response is malformed, or due to an invalid XML code or a redirect URL that fails to resolve successfully.

CORRECTION: Buyers need to verify that the VAST XML is correctly formatted and contains all the required elements and attributes in it to address this error. 

• Timeout of VAST URI (Error 301): This error indicates that a URI within the VAST or VPAID creative timed out. This could be due to errors on requests, such as an invalid or unreachable URI, or security exceptions related to HTTP/HTTPS. The most common reason for Error 301 is a poor network connection or heavy latency.

CORRECTION: First, check the URI within the VAST/VPAID creative to make sure that it is valid and reachable. Next, check the timeout limit of your player to ensure that this isn’t being reached. Finally, buyers should make sure their VAST URI is HTTPS as this can sometimes cause errors on HTTP sites.

• Wrapper Limit Reached (Code 302): This error happens when the wrapper limit defined by the player is reached. Either too many wrapper responses are received without an inline response, a circular loop of daisy chaining exists (one network bouncing to another and another), or due to too many empty VAST responses.

CORRECTION: Buyers should work with their publisher or SSP to increase the wrapper limit of the player to accommodate these creatives. It is also helpful to verify that any VAST redirects are not redirecting again to another network. When too many redirects are called from a video player before a valid MediaFile is returned, the player might abort the ad request.

• Timeout of Media File URI (Error 402): This particular error is caused by the ad creative taking longer to load than your current timeout setting. It is directly related to the type or size of media file used within the VAST or VPAID ad unit. The error implies that the file is either too large, the bitrate is too high, or it is incompatible with the platform on which it is attempting to render.

CORRECTION: Try increasing the request timeout, optimizing the publisher’s website to increase load speed, and most importantly, setting bitrate and size restrictions on creatives serving on mobile.

• General VPAID Error (Error 901): This is the most generic of all VAST error codes as it can be caused by a plethora of issues. For example, there may be a VPAID creative inside a VPAID wrapper, which may cause unacceptable latency. The player may not correctly check that the mime type of the VPAID is acceptable.

CORRECTION: Ensure VAST responses that return Javascript VPAID wrappers from IAS/DV/MOAT include an MP4 asset as a fallback mechanism for the player. Alternatively, make sure that the vendor’s VPAID is not aborting playback. Also, be careful to not bid on impressions without a determined advertiser/buyer or attempt to initiate a client-side resale.

Additional Video Best Practices

As a best practice, in addition to troubleshooting video errors based on the VAST error code, we recommend buyers proactively work with their ad servers, DSPs, and SSPs to get regular reporting of the creatives with high error rates to identify the root causes. We also recommend DSPs scan all creatives to block and resolve specific issues, as this will directly impact their win-rates and efficiency of video buying.

Buyers should also ensure that the campaign end date on their DSP is the same as in the ad server to avoid generating empty VAST errors. In other words, the third-party video tag set up in the DSP should have a valid running creative in the agency’s ad server.

Additionally, buyers should not expect VPAID to run on most mobile app impressions, since most of mobile app inventory does not support VPAID. This includes VPAID tags from Moat, IAS, and other vendors.

DSPs and buyers should make sure their creatives have multiple media files with varying bitrates so the video player can choose the best one for different network connection speeds.

Finally, buyers should test their VPAID creatives on slow, medium, and strong network connections on both mobile web and desktop web environments to make sure the creatives load within acceptable timeout settings for different video players (1-2 seconds). Video players usually have waterfall tags set up so more than one ad may have already attempted to play before your ad. Any delays in your creative may degrade the user’s experience or reach timeout limits.

What’s Next?

PubMatic is committed to making video advertising experiences better for publishers and buyers. Through technology and the support of adoption of industry standards, we aim to deliver innovative solutions, improved campaign ROI for advertisers and a cleaner advertising ecosystem. To learn more about our video products, check out our solutions page or contact us.

Laivan ferro vast error

Your name is LAIVAN FERROO.

You were born with a RARE AND QUITE SEVERE LUNG CONDITION, due to a mishap in your REDUPLICATION PROCESS — your lungs are a few sizes TOO SMALL, which makes it hard for you to string long sentences together or partake in any sort of intense physical activity.

ACUTE LACK OF BREATH is a very serious issue to you.

Not that this stops you from giving those ventures a shot regardless. In fact, you spend a majority of your time hunting BIG GAME with your trusty custodian, MUTT. You like to think of yourself as quite the SHARPSHOOTER, when it comes down to it — if not in terms of raw gun-toting skills, then at least in the total positive net-worth of your firing attempts.

Which is to say, you’ve had a number of HORRIBLE ACCIDENTS involving your RIFLE and stray BULLETS, but one of those incidents ended up changing your life for the better — significantly so, considering it led to you meeting a very SPECIAL SOMEONE, and you’re both far happier for it. Or so her preferred method of framing the situation goes.

You also enjoy performing TAXIDERMY on the animals you take home, turning them into STATUES, TROPHIES and ASSORTED KNICK KNACKS which you then SELL ONLINE FOR A LIVING. You’re not sure why anyone is interested in buying the stuff you make — it’s all just for fun — but hey, you’re not going to say no to financial compensation. Especially when you’re always running out of glue.

Oh, and you’re pretty avidly into KNOT TYING, you guess. Just as a fun pastime. You’re TERRIBLY BAD AT IT and just end up leaving a majority of the tangles you make lying in the corner over there.

Other than that, you enjoy GAMING with your friends. You’re personally more into the classic titles than any of the fancy new releases that have been consistently pumped out in recent sweeps — call you old school, but the notion of a virtual simulation WARPING REALITY AROUND YOU kind of freaks you out a little. As such, even though you DID rank at the top of the leaderboards in a game of this nature with an OLD FRIEND, the aging ANTHROPORMUNICIPALITY remains a big guilty pleasure of yours to this day.

The message it tries to hammer into everyone’s skulls doesn’t really stick the landing when it’s coupled with a polygonal mess of multicolored, vaguely lusii-like player avatars glitching all over the place.

And that’s exactly why you love it so much. The hamfisted, poor presentation has a certain lo-fi charm to it, you think.

Your trolltag is windlessArtificer and you Speak in a measured way that lets you breathe- when it’s needed-

Источник

Vast Error: Act 1

	Please, bear with the gaps until it is time for them to be appropriately filled.
This page has missing content or no content at all! Beef it up with some information before it is lost to the void.

This young troll stands in his respiteblock. It just so happens that today, the 22nd bi-lunar perigee of the 3rd dark season’s equinox, is the day of this indicated troll’s larval awakening, also known as his wriggling day. A night that stands out in infamy among the rest of the litter, mainly just because of the fact that it really doesn’t need to exist.

The first act of Vast Error is titled Slow, Yet Infinite. The act is an introduction to half of the main twelve trolls with a primary focus on Arcjec Voorat. It begins the world building of the planet Repiton, while setting up the idea of what major actions are needed to enter The Game and what importance the cast will hold in the future.

Click the » » to open the page from Vast Error.

• The first troll is introduced as Arcjec Voorat and goes with the troll tag animatedHumorist.
• Someone threw a rock on Arcjec’s respiteblock, presumably trying to get his attention.
• Arcjec investigates the sound and panics after he didn’t see anything or anyone suspicious on the outside of his respiteblock.
• Arcjec tries to hide under his desk when he suddenly gets a message from WA.
• Skorpe, a major means of communication Vast Error, is introduced. Arcjec’s friends are seen in his contact list as it follows: sanguineAllegory, gigantisDebilitation, furbishFacilitated, existereOracle, demiugreQuantified, pliableDecadence, windlessArtificer, macabreExude, perniciousOverkill, unclapsedKahuna and grandioseSaturation.
• WA messages Arcjecs and asked him for two things: if he wanted to join Anthromunicipality with him and UK and if he has any spare glue. Arcjec declines the offer and tells him that he doesn’t have any glue.
• Arcjec investigates the surroundings when he suddenly fell out of the window and wallows in a pool of mud. The perspective tries to change to WA, but is busy as of the moment.
• The perspective changes to PO, introduced as Taz. Just Taz.
• Taz is suddenly messaged by UK and explains to her about the Game and wanting all of his friends including her ,to play with. UK also explains that to play the game, she has to contact Arcjec, which she refuses and then ceases messaging UK.
• Taz investigates the sound coming from the outside of her hive and sees that her lusus had killed a troll and is impaled on stalactite peaking out of the ocean neighboring the hive.
• Arcjec wakes up from his dream with another drawing in his hand
• The perspective switches to DQ, introduced as Albion Shukra.
• Albion suddenly gets a message from her moirail, which happens to be Taz. She opens her Spirograph Modus, retrieved her Astral Projector and activates it using her spirit powers. It can also electronically access The Cell.
• She activates the Skorpe and answers Taz, who was explaining about her previous conversations with UK. Albion tells her she doesn’t have an idea about it and instead mentions that she has big plans today.
• Albion tells her that she’ll be the one to save her and her friends and that the world is ending, which Taz accepts. She then ends the conversation and calls out to her lusus, ready to merge with it.
• The Star Guardian, Albion’s lusus, tells her that their planet was meant for destruction and not for salvation.
• The perspective changes to GD, who is introduced as Dismas Mersiv.
• Dismas receives a message from his «partner-in-crime», which happens to be UK, who tells him to need to go outside and tonight was important as UK tries to save his friends from an impending doom and bring the Game into light.
• Dismas encounters one of UK’s remote surveillance robots, Boobdrone, and is underwhelmed by it.
• Dismas still doesn’t believe in UK until he points out to the sky, a falling meteor heading to the planet.
• The perspective switches back to Albion for a moment before switching back to Dismas, who looks up to his lusus who had recently escaped as he prepares to attack.
• UK is introduced as Murrit Turkin.
• Murrit fondly regards of his past self.
• The narrator vaguely mentions the concept of Quadrants, which depicts four types of romance with their own symbol as it follows:
  • Matespritships/Flushed Quadrant ( )
  • Moirallegiances/Pale Quadrant ( <> )
  • Kismesissitudes/Caliginous Quadrant ( )
  • Auspisticisms/Ashen Quadrant ( c3 )

The shiloutte of The Vivifier and The Unknown/The Forgiven appears.

• Murrit checks back on Dismas, who was apparently still attacking his lusus and briefly checks on ME.
• Murrit receives a message from WA and GS. He answers WA first, conversing about the coming events of the night.
• Murrit answers GS next, which is about the night’s event but with a terse and unpleasant tone on it.
• The narrative switches to the Dream Self of WA (referred as «The Blue Dog», who’s doing a round of delivering news in Prospit, one of the two kingdoms in the Incipisphere. It also vaguely explains the history of the two kingdoms: Prospit and Derse.
• WA decides to visit the Dream Self of Arcjec.
• Before WA exits the premises, the perspective changes to an unknown location and a new character appears.
• WA and the new character discusses about the purpose of the Game and its existence. The new character hands him the medallion with the Green Sun on it.
• WA finds himself unable to breath and the new character uses his abilities to send him away. The television switches to the sleeping figure of WA.
• WA is introduced as Laivan Ferroo and retrieves the Green Sun on his desk.
• Laivan receives a message from PD and discusses Murrit’s plan for the night, which also happened to be their anniversary.
• Albion reaches out to Laivan, who’s unfortunately away from his computer.
• Albion receives a message from SA.
• Albion is then thrust back into her vision with her lusus and demands an explanation.
• An unknown person possessed Albion’s body and messages Dismas, who apparently retreated in a nearby hideaway by the waterfall and wasn’t aware of Albion being possessed.
• The unknown person warns Dismas to not «follow credence of the man who spins words like yarn» and to stop «the limeblooded vessel to his heart», leaving Dismas deeply confused and concerned for his friend.
• The perspective switches back to Murrit, who ventures to the Frog Temple and appears to be bloodied as a result of the traps he set beforehand.
• Murrit approaches the temple’s time capsule flower and waits for it to open
• Murrit receives a message from Laivan, who’s concerned for Albion after receiving a panicked messages from her.
• The flower opens and in a burst of light, twelve rays shoot off in a variety of directions and towards everyone’s computers, forcefully installing the game in the process.
• Taz angrily messages Murrit, saying that he tampered with her computer, which he quickly denies.
• Taz tries to figure out the game mechanics when she sees Arcjec who’s passed out on the floor covered in crumpled up parchment. She decides to message him.
• Arcjec wakes up and sees the game’s cursor, which drags him to his computer.
• Arcjec inspects the game mechanics and opens Skorpe
• Arcjec opens Taz’s messages and begins bickering with her, whilst opening Murrit’s memo.
• He dismisses the memo and Taz forces him to look out his window and look at the meteor hurtling towards his hive.
• Arcjec begrudgingly agrees to work with Taz and the two of them begin working to unravel the secrets of The Game.
• Arcjec realizes the symbols he has been writing in his sleep since he was young are connected to the game and begins inputting them.
• The television, still on Arcjec’s perspective, suddenly glitches as the unknown narrator speaks up.
• The glitching stops, as Arcjec and Taz inputs their own set of codes in the game window.
• Arcjec prints out the numeric codes.
• Arcjec grabs his scythe and allocates it as his strife specibus. He too then takes the book on top of his thermal hull and captchalogues it in his Replica Modus.
• Arcjec and Taz bickers once again and this time, it’s about their past.
• The narrator vaguely states the fate of the twelve main trolls.
• The end of Act 1 encompasses a flash animation.

Источник

Laivan Ferroo

Knight of Space

Does not use periods, suffixes every message with «-«.

Laivan Ferroo, also known by his Skorpe handle, windlessArtificer , is one of the trolls in Vast Error. His associated alchemic sigil is Zinc and his horns resemble dog ears. He is a deconstruction of the «furry» and «unoriginal» fantroll archetypes.

He was the sixth troll introduced and the final troll properly introduced in Act 1. As a Space player, he is one of the two players meant to usher The Game to its players along with the session’s Time player.

He was the third troll to enter the game.

Contents

Biography

Six Sweeps

Laivan used to play SBVRPRPG tournament games with Calder and Arcjec, and they all used to be good friends. This stopped after Arcjec started to become more depressed and distant.

At some point, Laivan met and accidentally shot Serpaz in the leg during a hunting trip. This encounter would leave Serpaz permanently disabled and reliant on a leg brace, but would also lead the two to form a strong matespritship.

It was around this time that Laivan met and made a deal with White Noise with the condition that he will return at a later date and fulfill an obligation for him. Upon making this deal, Laivan awoke on the moon of Prospit and became a well-recognized figure on the moon. Eventually spending his nights getting newspapers to give to Arcjec upon his awakening so he isn’t left in the dark about the dream planet.

Pre-Game

On the night of the game, Laivan spends much of his time goofing around and playing Anthropormuncipality with Murrit. He messages Arcjec, asking him if he wants to join in as well, which Arcjec declines. During their game, Murrit wanders off to mess with Dismas and prepare him for the coming night, before going off to the Frog Temple next to his hive to observe the Nightshade within it. Before he leaves, Murrit makes a memo regarding the game and includes everyone (except Ellsee) in it.

Meanwhile, Laivan takes a nap, waking up on Prospit, as he’s done ever since he made a contract with White Noise. He visits Arcjec, who has yet to wake up. He delivers another Prospitian newspaper to Arcjec’s dreamself, in hopes that once he wakes up, he can easily be caught up on being a Prospit dreamer. Laivan quietly wishes that Arcjec had woken up sooner, wondering if he might have been a happier person if he did. As he gives a reassuring pap to Arcjec’s dreamself, the dreamself glitches out briefly, momentarily turning into his younger, less-depressed self. Laivan is freaked out by this.

He is then intercepted by White Noise and taken into The Static. The two speak for a time and reflect on the purpose of the game and its existence, and how the trolls are destined to play it but are ultimately destined to fail to meet its purpose. Noise notes that their destined failure does not necessarily mean they will be faced with inevitable defeat. They also reflect on why Laivan took Noise’s deal, with Laivan simply stating that the deal would give him a purpose. White Noise then gives Laivan the essence of his soul: a medallion with the Green Sun contained within, telling him that he must return it to its source for the sake of the perpetuation of reality. As Laivan puts on the Green Sun medallion, he finds himself unable to breathe, and White Noise uses his abilities to send Laivan away.

Laivan is then awoken by his dog lusus: Mutt. After making sure he still has the medallion, he answers a message from his matesprit: Serpaz Helilo. The two lovers discuss Murrit’s plans for the night and the fact that it happened to be their anniversary. Serpaz light-heartedly brings up how she and Laivan first met when he accidentally shot her in the leg and left her with a permanent handicap, which makes Laivan visibly uncomfortable, despite Serpaz not being mad about the accident anymore. When the conversation ends, Laivan goes to find some glue to fix his dog’s toy. As he is away from his desk, he receives a set of panicked messages from Albion, who had recently learned a distressing truth from her lusus.

When Laivan returns, he is unable to get a hold of Albion, and messages Murrit instead, voicing his concern for Albion’s well-being and letting Murrit know he met with White Noise. After the Nightshade opens, which leads to the installation of The Game on everyone’s computers. Laivan and Murrit play more Anthropomunicipality in celebration and do a fake high five.

After Arcjec enters the game, Laivan is seen helping Taz with her entry. The two struggled to find Taz’s code set of codes while Laivan continues to play more Anthropomunicipality with Murrit, which infuriates Taz. The two are abruptly pulled into a memo made by Ellsee, who wishes to share her own knowledge of the game in response to being excluded from Murrit’s. Laivan is grateful for the prospect of help, but Taz behaves incredulously when she sees that Laivan wasting time with banter. When Taz leaves the memo in a huff, he chides her for burning bridges when they could have used the help. Suddenly, when Taz’s back is turned, Taz’s lusus succumbs to her natural instincts and jumps into the black ocean depths that neighbor Taz’s hive. The large mink monster is very swiftly eaten alive by the deadly fauna below, and its blood reveals the location of Taz’s code: in the rocks at the edge of the cliff, hidden by the murky black water. As Taz goes into a grief-driven rage, Laivan asks if Taz is okay, and Taz makes it clear that she does not want to talk about it and that they should move on.

Taz and Laivan make quick work of the entry process, and when it comes time for Taz to unleash her denizen, she has Laivan to put the rusted and locked cage, her Paragon Repository, in her Torture Fort so that she can go against it on her own terms. Despite trying everything in her power to destroy the cage, as it has a lock with no key, she is forced to ask Laivan for help to fetch her Ferocity Weaver which she left outside in the rush. Laivan obliges and gives it to her, and Taz uses it to channel the full power of her rage and chucklevoodoo to destroy the cage and unleash her denizen. The release of her frustrations on the cage calms Taz back down in the process. The denizen quickly enters the portal and Taz follows suit.

After Taz’s entry, Laivan begins preparing for his own, with Murrit as his server player. Laivan questions why Murrit left Ellsee’s memo, clearly upset about how poorly she is treated. Murrit doesn’t provide an answer, only telling Laivan that he has his reasons and he should trust him. Murrit then begins the entry process.

During the game

After Laivan entered The Game, he spoke to the denizen of Space, Haniel, about his life and asked Haniel about whether or not they know about White Noise. After the conversation, the Land of Construct and Deluge was formed as Haniel prompts Laivan to follow them. As they explore the planet, they came across a temple wherein The Cauldron was located and Haniel vaguely explained its true purpose to the Game.

Personality and traits

Laivan is a passive but sociable troll who seems to get along with just about anyone. He is generally very laid back and is somewhat easily distracted. Among Laivan’s interests are sharpshooting, taxidermy, playing video games and dogs. If trolls had a concept of furries, Laivan would be one, due to his love and frequent association with dog-like creatures. This further established by his love of drawing original characters based on dogs, he has two as far as we know; one named Figment and one named Abel.

Having a severe lung condition after a malfunction in his artificial birthing process, Laivan’s capabilities and choices with what he does in life are inherently limited. However, this doesn’t appear to bother him much and makes due with the help of his friends and his beloved dog-lusus, Mutt.

At some point in his youth, Laivan made a deal with White Noise to fulfill some sort of obligation related to the perpetuation of reality. In matters related to these obligations, Laivan tends to take things much more seriously but also gets somewhat impatient. In his conversation with White Noise, Laivan admits that he doesn’t really know what he wants out of life and that he largely took White Noise’s deal out of a desire for purpose. In the same conversation, Noise characterizes Laivan as pragmatic, caring and constantly listless.

Relationships

Serpaz Helilo

Laivan and Serpaz are matesprits and appear to be as close as two can be. The two met two sweeps prior to the night of The Game when Laivan accidentally shot Serpaz in the leg during a hunting excursion, which left Serpaz permanently unable to use that leg without a cane or brace. Apparently, they fell in love within the night due to this accident, the absurdity of which is something that does not elude them. Serpaz is evidentially more comfortable with making light of the accident than Laivan is, for obvious reasons.

Arcjec Voorat

Laivan isn’t bothered by Arcjec’s cantankerous personality and sardonic demeanor but considers him to be a generally sad person. The two appear to be good friends and their relationship appears to be one of Arcjec’s least tumultuous ones. They potentially share some sort of deeper connection, as Laivan frequently visits Arcjec’s sleeping dreamself on Prospit and Arcjec’s pants match Laivan’s blood color.

Murrit Turkin

Murrit is one of Laivan’s closest friends, with the two sharing a passion for Anthropormuncipality and a destiny in leading everyone to play the game they recovered from the Frog Temple. Laivan is one of the few trolls who aren’t put off by Murrit’s bizarre quirks and even jokingly calls him out on it. Murrit is often more honest around Laivan in turn and does not seem to harass him as harshly as some others, even though he isn’t free from it either.

Sovara Amalie

Sova is an old friend of Laivan and Serpaz, but they seem to have fallen out of touch with her prior to the events of the Game. The couple appears to be quite fond of and protective of Sova, apparently having saved her from something in the past and possibly made her a place to stay.

Albion Shukra

Although their relationship has not been elaborated on, Albion and Laivan appear to be on good terms and do message one another enough to where Albion feels comfortable in asking Laivan for help. He is visibly worried when she messages him in a panic and he is unable to get a response afterward.

Ellsee Raines

Laivan and Ellsee are longtime friends, and the two are on amicable terms. Laivan is very upset when people mistreat her and belittle her, and is willing to come to her defense when others put her down or ignore her.

Occeus Coliad

Laivan and Occeus are work colleagues; Laivan stitches up corpses that Occeus finds for the sake of his revitalization experiments.

Taz does not enjoy speaking to Laivan very much due to their naturally opposite personalities. She is put off by his simple demeanor and nonchalance, finding it frustrating especially when his attention is away from the subject at hand. She compares talking to him to talking to a brick wall.

Laivan seems to be more or less neutral towards Taz despite not having the words to describe her, but isn’t above getting frustrated with her when she is being unreasonable, as most people are.

Calder Kerian

Calder and Laivan were once friends in their youth, but that doesn’t appear to be the case anymore.

White Noise

White Noise appears to have a fatherly affinity for Laivan. White Noise tries to provide guidance and support to the young troll and has stated that Laivan and his friends are capable of much more than he might believe. Laivan appears to be comfortable with him and clearly respects his guidance, although he does think he rambles on too much.

The two have made a deal, the conditions of which leave White Noise beholden to serve and assist Laivan, while Laivan promises to help bring about The Game and care for the propagation of reality. This deal is what allowed Laivan to awaken on Prospit.

Источник