About a week ago, I started hearing what seems to be a narration for a video when I open some feeds - often an ad for BP. The problem consistently occurs when I open the feed for Fast Company. It’s also occurred once of twice with others.
The only way to stop the audio is to close Newsblur. Any idea what’s causing this?
I upgraded my feedparser, and the result is that the ads that the feed publisher sticks in their feeds are now correctly parsing and displaying.
Thanks for the info and great tool Samuel.
The challenge from the user is side is that I suddenly hear audio without the video context with which it should be associated. Of course, the audio is also intrusive. It interrupts my work leaving me with one option, shutting down Newsblur and staying away from offending feeds.
Is there a way I stop the behavior? A fix in the works?
Sounds like everything’s doing what it’s supposed to do; if websites want to put ads in their feed, it’s not Samuel’s job to break them.
I would suggest installing an ad blocker if it bothers you.
Sounds like I haven’t clearly described the problem.
The problem is not ads being served when I visit a page. That’s understandable, I don’t mind them, and yes an ad blocker would stop them - but again, that’s not the problem.
The issue is audio coming from a page which I’m not visiting. How is this a desirable behavior for the advertiser or Newsblur?
The audio, in every case, is meant to narrate a video. Why would the advertiser want to serve up audio without the video context? Video and audio ads are triggered by visiting a page and visitors have a way to shut them off. My only choice is to close Newsblur.
As you noted, this behavior is new. “parsing and displaying” correctly, that’s great! Thanks! Auto-triggering video ads that a Newblur user can’t see, not great.
Please address or suggest. Thanks!
Additional info:
The issue goes beyond ads. When I visit the Fast Company feed a video starts. I have no idea to which story it’s related, but it’s clearly narration from a video post, not an ad.
I’ve noticed it’s Fast Company’s feed. I suggest either unsubscribing from them, or switching to List view, which only loads stories when you have them actively selected.
Same issue here, but with ads in Dutch language, I have no idea where the sound comes from. However it’s really annoyong because when using my computer I usually play music and mixes with sound of the advertisement.
Samuel, Just after my last post here I switched to list view and that’s a good solution - at least for me. I consider the problem solved.
Additional info: I sampled a few other feeds and quickly found another one with an issue: MedGadget. I’d previously encountered one or two more but didn’t make note of them.
As noted, I’m happy with the settings change as a solution. Other users could still be wondering why they’re hearing unexpected voices 
Thanks for the attention to this.
Eric, You’re right, it’s disconcerting to not know where the sound is coming from. I switched to loading stories on demand. That solution works for me.