Cordova build and admob

How do I...?
1

Hi all.
I’m using the locally installed cordova (v10.0.0) to build my app and I noticed that the admob doesn’t seem to work. When I use the online service through GDevelop the ads are working fine, when I build by hand, they don’t. This is the list of the plugins installed for the project:

steliosm@debian:~/SoccerBoard$ cordova plugin list
cordova-admob-sdk 0.24.1 “AdMob SDK”
cordova-plugin-admob-free 0.27.0 “Cordova AdMob Plugin”
cordova-plugin-screen-orientation 3.0.2 “Screen Orientation”
cordova-plugin-vibration 3.1.1 “Vibration”
cordova-plugin-whitelist 1.3.4 “Whitelist”
cordova-promise-polyfill 0.0.2 “cordova-promise-polyfill”
es6-promise-plugin 4.2.2 “Promise”

Any ideas what I could do?

2

Have you tried test ads?

3

No, I haven’t tried this with test ads. The app ID and ad unit ID are working fine and I get to see ads when exported through the online tool but not through my cordova installation. DO you think test ads will help debug this?

4

Just tried the test mode in the ads and still getting no ads displayed on the app.
@4ian can you share the cordova /android platform versions you are using for the online build server?

5

This is equivalent to exporting your game and then doing a cordova platform add android - so it will be the latest Cordova version.

6

Thank you 4ian for clarifying that. I moved back to cordova cli 10 and did a few test builds (which took quite some time after having to uninstall and re-install cordova and plugins to make it work as it should). I still get no ad banners actually, except for test banners and that not always. This lead me to try to see what is going on using chrome inspect tools. What I noticed is that for the exact same built of the app, I don’t have the same behavior. In the first screen when the game start, I get an iframe which is trying to load the code:

Screenshot%20at%202020-12-18%2011-31-23
Screenshot%20at%202020-12-18%2011-31-231001×627 70.8 KB

Quitting the game and starting again, I don’t get the iframe this time:

Screenshot%20at%202020-12-18%2011-34-15
Screenshot%20at%202020-12-18%2011-34-151001×627 58 KB

Restarting the game a few times, doesn’t bring the iframe back also.

Some additional notes about how I load the banner:

I am using 3 scenes in the game: Start, Game, End. The banner is loaded and displayed on the ‘Game’ scene, after you hit ‘Start’ on the ‘Start’ scene. Moving the banner loading to the first scene didn’t change much.

Anyway, I might try downgrading the admob plugin and giving it another go at some point.

Thank you.
Stelios