# Group-Allowed ad settings not excluding groups
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/group-allowed-ad-settings-not-excluding-groups/294686
**Category:** Bug
**Tags:** advertising
**Created:** [February 6, 2024, 8:08pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/group-allowed-ad-settings-not-excluding-groups/294686 "2024-02-06T20:08:07Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@tchristensen](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tchristensen)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2024, 8:08pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/group-allowed-ad-settings-not-excluding-groups/294686/1 "2024-02-06T20:08:07Z")
The Groups function is not working properly. We have two groups that people join through the Subscriptions plugin and they should see no ads. Ads are now showing for those enrolled in those groups.
Been through all of the settings three times. Have enabled/disabled plugin still does not solve the problem.
This was working perfectly until toward the end of 2023.
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### Author:  [@JammyDodger](https://meta.discourse.org/u/JammyDodger)
#### Post date: [February 8, 2024, 2:03pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/group-allowed-ad-settings-not-excluding-groups/294686/4 "2024-02-08T14:03:50Z")
Hello and welcome @tchristensen 🙂
I think I’ve managed to get a repro. Let me see if I can get someone to take a closer look. 👍
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### Author:  [@tchristensen](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tchristensen)
#### Post date: [February 8, 2024, 2:11pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/group-allowed-ad-settings-not-excluding-groups/294686/5 "2024-02-08T14:11:22Z")
Much appreciated thank you!!
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### Author:  [@JammyDodger](https://meta.discourse.org/u/JammyDodger)
#### Post date: [February 8, 2024, 4:17pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/group-allowed-ad-settings-not-excluding-groups/294686/6 "2024-02-08T16:17:52Z")
Just to clarify, do you also use the `no ads for groups` setting to exclude them from ads, or was it primarily based on the older trust level style settings?
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### Author:  [@tchristensen](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tchristensen)
#### Post date: [February 8, 2024, 10:20pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/group-allowed-ad-settings-not-excluding-groups/294686/7 "2024-02-08T22:20:57Z")
Thank you. I only use the “no ads for groups” setting and that is no longer working. Everyone now see ads even if they are in the groups defined in that setting.
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### Author:  [@JammyDodger](https://meta.discourse.org/u/JammyDodger)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2024, 9:05am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/group-allowed-ad-settings-not-excluding-groups/294686/8 "2024-02-09T09:05:59Z")
Could you update your site to pick up the latest changes? There have been some fixes to the main groups-allowed settings for each ad platform and we’re hoping this improves things for your situation as well.
Could you see if this has fixed it for you and let us know what you find?
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### Author:  [@tchristensen](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tchristensen)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2024, 2:15pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/group-allowed-ad-settings-not-excluding-groups/294686/9 "2024-02-09T14:15:33Z")
Hello, we are up-to-date with 3.2.0.beta5. Assuming this is what you mean.
A gentleman who is active on this forum, Bhanu, administers our site. We started having this problem in November/December and he told us to wait for the last update which was beginning of January as he thought it would fix the problem but unfortunately it didn’t.
Thank you for your help.
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### Author:  [@JammyDodger](https://meta.discourse.org/u/JammyDodger)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2024, 2:32pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/group-allowed-ad-settings-not-excluding-groups/294686/10 "2024-02-09T14:32:07Z")
The fix was only added last night, so you would need to update your site from your `/admin/upgrade` page to pick it up.
Though if the issue has been present since November/December then it might be a different one than we thought.
But if you can update and see if it’s helped then we can go from there. 🙂
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### Author:  [@tchristensen](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tchristensen)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2024, 4:25pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/group-allowed-ad-settings-not-excluding-groups/294686/11 "2024-02-09T16:25:23Z")
Will do. I really appreciate your quick help on this!
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### Author:  [@tchristensen](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tchristensen)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2024, 7:45pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/group-allowed-ad-settings-not-excluding-groups/294686/12 "2024-02-09T19:45:57Z")
We have applied the update and all ads are still showing for the groups that we have defined as not to see ads.
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### Author:  [@JammyDodger](https://meta.discourse.org/u/JammyDodger)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2024, 7:48pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/group-allowed-ad-settings-not-excluding-groups/294686/14 "2024-02-09T19:48:38Z")
Hmmm. That’s unfortunate. 🤔
I wonder if it’s a group visibility thing? What are those groups visibilities set as on their `/manage/interactions` page?
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### Author:  [@tchristensen](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tchristensen)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2024, 8:23pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/group-allowed-ad-settings-not-excluding-groups/294686/18 "2024-02-09T20:23:37Z")
Both items are set as Group Owners for both groups we are dealing with. We want it this way as we don’t want general public knowing how many paid subscriptions we have. Also, this worked perfectly fine like this when we first started using the Ads plugin when it was first released.
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### Author:  [@JammyDodger](https://meta.discourse.org/u/JammyDodger)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2024, 8:29pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/group-allowed-ad-settings-not-excluding-groups/294686/19 "2024-02-09T20:29:23Z")
No worries 🙂 It’s more to track down a repro as I think yours is different than the issue we thought we were addressing.
With the new `... exclude groups` type settings for specific ad platforms, could you add those groups to the one you’re using and see if that has better results?
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### Author:  [@tchristensen](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tchristensen)
#### Post date: [February 12, 2024, 4:04pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/group-allowed-ad-settings-not-excluding-groups/294686/20 "2024-02-12T16:04:32Z")
We are using house ads so there isn’t a designated “exclude groups” setting for that. But, I still added the groups I want to hide ads for in all of those boxes and still showing ads. Thank you.
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### Author:  [@tchristensen](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tchristensen)
#### Post date: [February 14, 2024, 2:14pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/group-allowed-ad-settings-not-excluding-groups/294686/21 "2024-02-14T14:14:14Z")
Is there any way for you guys to replicate this problem on your Discourse install? Shouldn’t this be present on your side as well? I really need to get this fixed as we have sold many subscriptions and promised these people no ads. Now, I can’t show ads to anyone due to this problem so the site is losing money every day. I am willing to pay someone to fix this. Thanks again for your help.
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### Author:  [@blake](https://meta.discourse.org/u/blake)
#### Post date: [February 14, 2024, 2:49pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/group-allowed-ad-settings-not-excluding-groups/294686/22 "2024-02-14T14:49:53Z")
Earlier I couldn’t replicate it locally in my dev environment. I’ll try again on a production site and see what I come up with.
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### Author:  [@blake](https://meta.discourse.org/u/blake)
#### Post date: [February 14, 2024, 4:23pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/group-allowed-ad-settings-not-excluding-groups/294686/23 "2024-02-14T16:23:33Z")
> [@tchristensen](#):
>
> Is there any way for you guys to replicate this problem on your Discourse install?
Trying to, but so far I’m not able to replicate your issue.
> [@tchristensen](#):
>
> We are using house ads so there isn’t a designated “exclude groups” setting for that.
Correct. There isn’t a designated exclude groups for that setting, but `no ads for groups` is the setting to use to exclude groups for house ads.
I went ahead and spun up a production discourse site to test out the ad plugin again to see if we can narrow down what the difference is between your site and see if we can get things working correctly.
You can visit [https://houseads.discourse.group/](https://houseads.discourse.group/) and see that ads are showing to anonymous users, and I’ll go ahead and invite you to the members group (check your email) so that you can check it out.
And if I’m logged in as member1 who is a member of the members group, they don’t see any ads:
As an admin I can still see the ads because I’m not in the members group.
> **More house ad settings**
>
> 
>
> 
I’ll keep looking looking and see if I see any code changes this year that would affect this. I’m hoping there is just a setting somewhere that we are missing that we need to toggle to get things working correctly.
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### Author:  [@tchristensen](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tchristensen)
#### Post date: [February 14, 2024, 5:14pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/group-allowed-ad-settings-not-excluding-groups/294686/24 "2024-02-14T17:14:53Z")
Thank you very much for your help with this. Yes, I have the same settings as you do. I will go back to Bhanu, the person who oversees my site and see if there may be some custom coding that may be throwing this off. Again, thank you very much!!!
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### Author:  [@blake](https://meta.discourse.org/u/blake)
#### Post date: [February 15, 2024, 10:41pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/group-allowed-ad-settings-not-excluding-groups/294686/25 "2024-02-15T22:41:20Z")
For anyone maybe experiencing the same issue we found and fixed the bug related to group permissions. If the group wasn’t publicly visible then the ads were still being shown to the group.
This fix resolves the issue, so if you haven’t upgraded the the latest version Discourse and the adplugin please do so.
[https://github.com/discourse/discourse-adplugin/pull/200](https://github.com/discourse/discourse-adplugin/pull/200)
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### Author:  [@blake](https://meta.discourse.org/u/blake)
#### Post date: [February 15, 2024, 10:41pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/group-allowed-ad-settings-not-excluding-groups/294686/26 "2024-02-15T22:41:27Z")