CASInterstitial / fullscreen: onAdShowed + onAdClicked but late or missing onAdDismissed; load fails with ALREADY_DISPLAYED (12) Interstitial fullscreen: intermittent black screen or missing close button — users force-close app

[zahidkhan677]

Summary

We sometimes see interstitials that report onAdShowed and onAdClicked correctly, but onAdDismissed is very late or never arrives while the user still sees a black screen, missing close control, or a playable that won’t finish. In parallel, subsequent load() calls can return AdError code 12 (ALREADY_DISPLAYED / “a screen ad is still being displayed”) for a long time, as if CAS still believes a fullscreen is visible.

What users see (production)

In normal sessions several interstitials in a row work fine. Then sometimes:
We are not calling show() in a loop. This appears to be mediation / network WebView or creative behavior, but we need guidance on whether CAS can:

• improve detection / timeout on the mediation side, or
• document a supported recovery when onAdDismissed is missing (e.g. instance lifecycle, destroy() rules, known adapter issues).

1. Black fullscreen — nothing renders; no way to close the ad from the UI.
2. Ad appears (creative loads) but there is no close / dismiss control, or it only appears after a very long time, so the screen feels stuck.
3. In those cases users cannot return to the app through the ad UI and often force-close the app from the system Recents screen, which is bad for retention and reviews.

Representative log sequence (filter: CASInterstitialManager)

1. initialized → loaded <NetworkA> → showed <NetworkA> → clicked
2. Optional: returned after click-through, short watchdog (user returned from browser/store)
3. Either dismissed soon, OR no dismissed for minutes while UI appears stuck
4. After app-side watchdog clears our session state (when SDK never dismisses), we may see:
   load fail 12 Ad load requested, but a screen ad is still being displayed
5. Sometimes dismissed only after the user leaves the app from Recents — suggests the network Activity was still alive.
   The problem is intermittent — not every impression — but when it happens it is severe for UX.
   Networks frequently mentioned in logs: DSPExchange (CAS Exchange), AppLovin, Mintegral, LiftoffMonetize.

What we need from CAS

1. Is this a known class of issues with specific adapters (e.g. DT Exchange / playables) in 4.6.x?
2. Recommended SDK + adapter versions or mediation settings to reduce stuck fullscreens?
3. Official guidance when onAdDismissed never fires but onAdShowed did — is destroy() on CASInterstitial and a new instance the intended recovery, or is there a better API?
4. Any open issues / changelog entries** we should track for “ALREADY_DISPLAYED” after a stuck impression?
5. Is this a known issue with certain mediated networks or creative types (e.g. HTML5 / playable / exchange demand) on recent CAS SDK builds?
6. Recommended mitigations on the mediation or dashboard side (network order, caps, blocking problematic demand).
7. Any SDK or adapter updates you recommend for apps seeing missing close or blank WebView fullscreens.
8. Whether we should open this with specific adapter vendors (and how you prefer we reference CAS ID / placement in that report).

Sample code alignment

We follow the public guide: https://docs.page/cleveradssolutions/docs/Android/Interstitial-Ads
If you need a minimal repro, we can strip down to a single-Activity sample matching javaSample and still reproduce with production traffic.
We can provide CAS ID, SDK version, and device/OS details privately if your team needs them for investigation.

Contact

Happy to share full logcat, Creative ID from AdContentInfo when available, and exact timestamps if your team wants to correlate with server-side events.
Thank you.

[Str4tos]

Hi @zahidkhan677, thanks for creating this issue!

We don't have enough information to identify the root cause of this problem. Please share a log file filtered by CAS.AI, and if possible, screenshots of the black screen.

You don't need to open issues with specific adapter vendors. We will investigate the cause ourselves and reach out to the relevant ads SDK developers if necessary.

[zahidkhan677]

We tested again with the latest app-side safeguards and collected structured logs from CASInterstitialManager.

What we see

AppLovin interstitials behave normally (showed then dismissed in ~11–12s).
A LiftoffMonetize interstitial gets onAdShowed but then no onAdDismissed (stuck full-screen case).

Timeline from logs

13:49:53 evt=initialized ... req=0 active=0
13:50:25 evt=loaded ... network=AppLovin

14:00:02 evt=show_request req=1 active=1 loaded=true showing=true
14:00:02 evt=showed req=1 active=1 ... network=AppLovin
14:00:14 evt=dismissed req=1 active=0 ... network=AppLovin

14:00:28 evt=show_skip req=2 ... reason=not_ready
14:00:44 evt=loaded req=2 ... network=AppLovin

14:00:58 evt=show_request req=3 active=3 loaded=true showing=true
14:00:58 evt=showed req=3 active=3 ... network=AppLovin
14:01:09 evt=dismissed req=3 active=0 ... network=AppLovin

14:01:39 evt=loaded req=3 ... network=LiftoffMonetize
14:01:42 evt=show_request req=4 active=4 loaded=true showing=true
14:01:42 evt=showed req=4 active=4 ... network=LiftoffMonetize

After the Liftoff showed event, we do not receive dismiss callback (this is the problematic behavior users report as black/stuck fullscreen without close).

Important context

We use a singleton CAS interstitial manager (no per-Activity destroy).
We already added app-side watchdog/recovery and code-12 handling, but root symptom is still “showed without dismiss” on mediated network fills.

Request to CAS team

Please investigate mediation/adapter behavior for this pattern (especially LiftoffMonetize fills):

onAdShowed fired
no onAdDismissed/onAdFailedToShow callback
fullscreen remains stuck for user

Details

[Str4tos]

Logs from CASInterstitialManager are not helpful here, as this is not a class from our SDK. Please share the full log file filtered by CAS.AI, or without any filters at all.

If you have trouble collecting logs, please provide the following details:

• CAS ID
• CAS Version
• Country where the issue occurs
• Creative ID (if available)

[zahidkhan677]

cas_full_unfiltered.log

Hi, sharing a fresh full unfiltered log as requested: cas_full_unfiltered.log.

Requested details from this run:

1. CAS ID: com.v4andro.videocall.videochat.livevideocall
2. CAS Version: 4.6.6
3. Country: SA
4. Creative ID (interstitial): 5caf77f1e04ca66a2d4bcd7c_1863875672592434
5. Network: LiftoffMonetize
6. Device: samsung SM-A346E (API 36)

Relevant CAS impression line from log: Interstitial Ad Impression LiftoffMonetize | ... | CreativeId: 5caf77f1e04ca66a2d4bcd7c_1863875672592434 | ... | Country: SA | CAS: 4.6.6

Also observed repeated SDK message: Please set theme of AdActivity to @android:style/Theme.Translucent to enable transparent background interstitial ad.

Please review the attached full log and advise if this AdActivity theme requirement can contribute to the black/stuck fullscreen behavior, and whether additional CAS-side identifiers are needed.

[Str4tos]

Thanks for the details!

We've looked into this and can see that the ad is not closing correctly within the LiftoffMonetize SDK. Unfortunately, we are unable to interrupt ad playback on our side. We can only wait for the signal from the ad SDK itself.

It looks like you encountered corrupted creatives. We will reach out to LiftoffMonetize with the provided Creative ID for further investigation.

If you come across any other problematic creatives, please share their details here.

[zahidkhan677]

Thanks for the update and for escalating the LiftoffMonetize creative.

We also want to report that we have seen the same stuck/black fullscreen behavior in AppLovin interstitial sessions (not only Liftoff).

From our logs/history, problematic creatives we can share now:

LiftoffMonetize (interstitial)
CreativeId: 5caf77f1e04ca66a2d4bcd7c_1863875672592434
Country: SA, CAS: 4.6.6

AppLovin (interstitial)
CreativeId: 1017658240
Country: PK, CAS: 4.6.6

In AppLovin affected runs, flow is typically: showed -> long stuck period/black fullscreen -> delayed clicked/returned/dismissed.

Please also investigate this AppLovin creative path similarly.