Frequently Asked Questions - Technical

It is possible to disable the OpenX User Interface.

To disable the User Interface you must have administrator privileges.

NOTE:
In certain situations an administrator can disable the OpenX user interface to prevent users from logging into the system. The OpenX server is then only used to deliver ads which have been configured. Read more here.

If you have disabled your OpenX user interface by mistake in 'Global settings -> User interface' and submitted your changes, then you cannot login to your system to re-enable it.

To rollback your changes you need to edit the OpenX configuration file manually. Follow these steps:

1. Go to OpenX '\var' folder,
2. Find configuration file 'www.mysite.com.conf.php',
3. Edit this file and find line with:

[ui]
enabled=false

4. Change it to:

[ui]
enabled=true

5. Save file changes.

Following the steps above you can enable the User Interface in your OpenX installation.

When running major upgrades which require database changes it is recommended to disable maintenance.

For Scheduled Maintenance:
You will want to edit your maintenance cron job so that it does not trigger. Depending on your system, you can most likely comment-out the command by placing a # character in front of the line.
More information on cron jobs for maintenance:
http://www.openx.org/en/docs/2.6/adminguide/Running+maintenance

For Automatic Maintenance:

• For 2.4+ you can edit your openx/var/example.com.conf.php configuration file directly by setting 'autoMaintenance' to 0 instead of 1
• For 2.0 you want to edit your config.inc.php configuration file and modify "$phpAds_config['auto_maintenance'] = true;" so that it equals false instead of true.

Any table in your database starting with z_ and followed by a 'hash' (a large number of random characters) is a backup table created by the upgrader. If you have successfuly upgraded and no longer have to worry about rolling back to a previous installation, you can safely delete these tables.

You can do it in the UI by going to the Product Updates admin tab and then choosing "Manage Past Updates and Backups' in the dropdown. This will let you review past updates and you can click the 'Delete Artifacts' button to remove old backup tables and backed up files.

The 'n' variable is a random string generated for naming cookies. You'll notice that each time you hit 'generate' on the invocation tag page, the 'n' value will be different even for the same zone.

Every invocation tag on a single page should have a unique 'n' value as the cookies contain information for the banner that was displayed. It ensures that if the user clicks on the banner they are redirected to the correct destination.
The 'n' value should be the same within a single invocation tag - so for an IMG tag, the link href and img src should both use the same 'n' value.

If you are wanting to generate invocation tags yourself, there are no strict requirements on the value of the variable. It is generated as an 8 character alphanumeric value - special characters should be avoided because of possible encoding issues.

Yes, with 2.4 you are able to have seperate configuration files for different domain names.

In the openx/var folder will be your main www.example.com.conf.php configuration file.

If using 2.4.2 and above, you will also have a default.conf.php file which has the content:
realConfig=www.example.com

This means that any time you load the OpenX files from a domain which is not www.example.com, it will use the www.example.com.conf.php config file by default.

If you wish for a domain to use a different config file, you can create a file called 'test.example.com' or 'ads.example2.net'
This will let you define seperate settings to use for this domain. You can either take a complete copy of the main config file, edit the settings as needed and place the content in test.example.com.conf.php, or you can tell it to use a default config file except for a few settings. To do this, follow default.conf.php's example and use:

realConfig=www.example.com
[database]
name=openads_2024
[webpath]
admin=test.example.com/admin
delivery=test.example.com/delivery


This will use all values from the defined 'realConfig' except for ones which you define.
Note: realConfig uses only the domain name, do not place 'conf.php' after the domain
Note 2: You must use a [heading] for the settings to take affect. Any setting under the wrong heading or without a heading will not be used. Note the use of [database] and [webpath]

Sorry, but you can't! The setting 'safe_mode' has to be disabled to install OpenX, as it is not compatible with certain functions and requirements of OpenX. If your website is hosted, you can ask your host to disable the safe_mode setting.

The safe_mode setting is not supported in newer versions of PHP. We suggest exploring other options for security settings within PHP. For instance, the 'open_basedir' setting.

Yes, in OpenX 2.4. However, your server needs to have the GD extension for PHP loaded first.

If you do not have GD (which is used for creating images) then you won't be able to view the graphs. Please talk with your hosting company about having GD enabled for PHP (it is usually standard).

Openads does not generate reports based on the originating URL, but the information is available in the data_raw_tables. You can get this information from the data_raw_tables using the following query:

----------

SELECT

GROUP BY url

-----------

Adjust the WHERE clause to match your requirements.

To move banners from storage in a local SQL database to local webserver directories, in the Settings -> Maintenance tab, select the Storage option from the Choose section: menu. When the page refreshes, click the "Move images stored inside the database to a directory" link.

SQL banners are stored in the Openads database. Web server banners are stored in a file directory on the server or on an FTP directory. Banners take up space on the database which will operate faster if you use a web server to store and serve banners.

When you generate invocation code for a zone, you have two options which can help you in this regard:

1) Don't show the banner again on the same page
2) Don't show a banner from the same campaign again on the same page

These options are below the main invocation tag. Set either of these options to true, depending exactly on which options you wish for, and then presh Refresh to generate new invocation tag.

Place this new invocation tag on your website.

This will depend on the volume and type of ads you will be serving so it is difficult to give an exact answer here. The simple way to find out is to run some experiments based on the load you are expecting: OpenX is free to download and easy to install so experiments can be setup easily.

By way of rough guidelines: Websites running up to 50 million impressions each month will probably find that they can comfortably use their existing webserver for ad serving. On the other end of the scale, serving billions of ads each month are likley to require several dedicated servers configured using distributed statistics.

You might find that the statistics within OpenX might not match the statistics you see when counting your websites' page impressions or the statistics listed in a 3rd party application for a banner that you are displaying within OpenX as a 3rd party banner.

There are many variables involved in comparing statistics:

1) Are you viewing the same Time Period of statistics in both softwares?

2) Does one software not count certain impressions or clicks due to different rules? For instance, in one software a click might not be counted if it comes from the same session or IP as another recent click.

3) If you are placing a 3rd party ad tag inside OpenX, it might take longer for the 3rd party to record an impression or click. When a user views your website with an OpenX tag on it, OpenX counts an impression when a banner has been chosen and returned to them. If the banner is a 3rd party ad tag, it may then take additional time for the 3rd party to choose a banner, deliver it, and count an impression. OpenX has no way of knowing when this '2nd impression' actually occurs, because it relies on 3rd party scripts. The same can be said for a click.

4) If you are comparing banner impressions versus page impressions, this number can have many variables which will change the results. As with #3, a page impression script might load faster or slower than the OpenX banner impressions. Also, you may have more more than 1 banner on each page or no banners on some pages. Some page impression scripts, like awstats, might let you look at impressions everytime a certain file is called, rather than everytime a page is loaded: So OpenX' ajs.php would be counted to load 4x as normal if you have 4 banners on each page, and not all of those 4 loads would result in a banner impression. Don't confuse a file impression with a page impression.

5) Ad Blocking software: Such software is quite popular, but won't necessarily block OpenX' ad tags. In OpenX, the banners server from your chosen domain rather than a common domain which is known as an ad network, hence your domain won't be listed as disallowed by common Ad Blocking software. You are also are able to customize OpenX and the delivery file names, making it again less likely that the banners might be blocked. However, if you are delivering a 3rd party banner it is quite common that the 3rd party's domain or ad tag will be known by the Ad Blocking software. Hence, OpenX will count an impression but will not be able to tell that the 3rd party was unable to count an impression, similar to #3.

6) You might use the 3rd party ad tags in OpenX, but also outside of OpenX. If you are seeing more impressions and clicks in a 3rd party statistics page than within OpenX, it may be due to the fact that you, or someone else, uses the 3rd party ad tag outside of OpenX.

7) You may have not properly setup the 3rd party ad tag to track impressions and clicks.

These factors can be known to add up to about a 10-15% difference. The difference will vary greatly depending on items like your user audience, website server, and the 3rd party software. However, most cases will see less than 10% difference and in general will find the statistics to be extremely similar. OpenX has been successfully audited for statistical accuracy. If you are finding a difference above 10-15%, please consult this list carefully to rule out all possibilities. You may find that the difference is largely due to one of the items on the list.

The support section of the OpenX website provides lots of information to help you get the most from your OpenX.

Visit the getting help section of the FAQ for more information about where you can go for free and paid support.

The OpenX upgrade wizard (from v2.4 and above) will make a copy of every table that will be affected by the changes. If the upgrade wizard detects the file "/var/NOBACKUPS" then no tables will be backed up during upgrade.

Please note that although the new upgrade system backs up your database as required, this feature is no substitute for making a full backup of your system before upgrading!

More tips can be found at:
http://www.openx.org/docs/tips-for-large-database-upgrades

In previous versions of OpenX, you used to be able to specify "Site:Source" limitations using a wild card-like matching system, where "foo" would match if the site source was equal to "foo", and "*foo*" would match if the site source contained "foo". However, this system lacked power for people who wanted to do very complex matching.

To address this, OpenX 2.4 now supports "Site:Source" matching where the site source value "is equal to", "contains", or matches a "regular expression". To ensure that your "Site:Source" limitations work in OpenX 2.4 like they used to, the limitations have been converted to the "regex" format.

Openads 2.4 now supports the full range of MaxMind geotargeting databases . As a result, some of the geotargeting options in Openads 2.0 are no longer compatible with the new targeting options. On upgrading to Openads 2.4, the following targeting options may need to be modified:

• US/CA State
• Region (Africa)
• Region (Asia)
• Region (Australia/Oceania)
• Region (Caribbean)
• Region (Europe)
• Region (North America)
• Region (South America)
• Region (Unknown)

Any banner using a delivery limitation of these types may have its delivery limitations modified on upgrade. A delivery limitation of the above type will only be modified in the event that the limitation targets the banner to more than one regions, and where there are at least two regions in different countries, within that single limitation. For example:

In this example, the single "Region (Europe)" geotargeting limitation targets regions in more than one country. As a result, this single delivery limitation would be updated to be two separate delivery limitations - one where "Region (Europe)" is equal to "Bosnia and Herzegovina, Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina", and another where "Region (Europe)" is equal to "Belgium, Antwerpen OR Belgium, Brabant". These two delivery limitations will be joined together with an "OR" operator.

While this works in most situations, if you have a delivery limitation that needs to be converted, and it is combined with another limitation using the "AND" operator, then the delivery limitations for that banner after the upgrade may not be the same as before.

It is recommended that, if you receive the warning that some limitations may be modified, you check the "openads_upgrade_2.0.11_to_2.3.32_beta_XXXX_XX_XX_XX_XX.log" file (in the Openads var/ directory) after upgrading. It will contain the details of all banners (if any) that were modified which you should check to ensure the targeting is correct. (Simply search the log file for "Upgraded incompatible region geotargeting limitation." to find the appropriate section. If you can't find it, no banners needed modification, and your delivery limitations have been updated without modification.)

There are several possible error messages you might be seeing here depending on the type of geotargetting database you are using, these include:
MaxMind

• "A GeoIP database is not readable."
• "A GeoIP database malformed."
• "A GeoIP database was not found."

If you see any of these messages, for whatever reason, your MaxMind geotargeting database cannot be correctly read by Openads 2.4. You can safely proceed with the upgrade, however, once the upgrade is completed, you must log in as the admin user, and go to Settings, Main Settings, Geotargeting Settings, and re-configure the path(s) to your MaxMind geotargeting database(s).
Ip2Country

• "The Ip2Country geotargeting database is no longer supported."

Unfortunately, Openads 2.4 no longer supports the Ip2Country geotargeting database. You can safely proceed with the upgrade, however, once the upgrade is completed, you will not have any geotargeting support. If you wish to have geotargeting support, you will need to obtain a copy of the MaxMind country geotargeting database. MaxMind have both a free and paid for version of this database.

Please note that in both of the above cases, any banners that you have targeted to geotargeting data (for example, if you have a banner set to deliver only when the country is equal to the USA), will not deliver after you have upgraded until you re-configure the geotargeting database(s).