Update: The issue has been fixed, the IMA team has reverted the changes.
This is an update that could affect your video advertising integration. Recently, the Google Interactive Media Ads (IMA) SDK published an update that essentially broke compatibility with older browser versions. This post provides technical information about the update, and offers suggestions on how to mitigate the impact.
Details of the Update
On July 29, 2024, version 3.655.0 of the IMA HTML5 SDK was published, with the release notes only mentioning “Service Release. No new features.”
Since this version, the SDK is using the document.elementsFromPoint browser API, which is not supported on older browsers: Document API: elementsFromPoint | Can I use... Support tables for HTML5, CSS3, etc As a result, the IMA SDK is no longer usable and no ads will be played. Unfortunately, because the IMA SDK needs to be side-loaded, this change affects production deployments of the IMA SDK and the Bitmovin Player SDK using the IMA advertising module.
The issue has been reported on the Interactive Media Ads SDK group and acknowledged by the IMA team. As of now, we are still awaiting a proper solution.
Affected Devices
We have seen the issue on the following devices:
- Tizen 2.4 TVs (from 2016)
- WebOS 3.4 TVs (from 2016)
- WebOS 3.9 TVs (from 2017)
Any other device running a browser based on a Chromium version below 43, or an older WebKit version, is most likely going to be affected as well.
I am affected by the Change, what can I do?
Customers using the Bitmovin Web Player SDK can use the Bitmovin Advertising Module, where those devices are fully supported (see Advertising Support and our Advertising Tutorial).
If you have any further questions, please let us know in the comments.