Side Rails break the XenForo forum software

ISPr

I recently enabled Side Rails to see how they work and most systems are fine, but I found that it breaks posting and CSS styles on the popular XenForo forum software. When I disable Side Rails, the issue goes away. At present, I've no idea how to fix this as it clearly conflicts with the CSS or Java that XenForo is using somehow.

In the meantime, I'd still like to keep Side Rails enabled, but just exclude XenForo's pages. So, aside from reporting that Side Rails break XenForo (in the hope there will be a fix), I'd also like to know if there's something I can add that prevents only the Side Rails from displaying on the XenForo forum pages?

Jean_Pierre_Ezoic

With regards to the side rails, are you running these through Adsense? Ezoic has floating placeholders, but they only run on the left side and work through a placeholder.

ISPr

Jean_Pierre_Ezoic No, these are Ezoic's own side rails, that you can enable on either left, right or both.

Ad Positions > Ad Types > Side Rails

Once enabled they apply across the whole site, which is problematic in this case as they break XenForo's forum software.

Jean_Pierre_Ezoic

Ah yes!
That is a newer feature that we've recently incorporated. Standalone integration can often work much differently than our other methods of integration. As of right now, when you turn on the side rails, how is the site affected? If you can provide screenshots as well, that would be very beneficial but you are not at all required to when explaining the issue.

ISPr

I'll see what I can do about screenshots, but it's tricky to demonstrate in static display as most of the bits being impacted are XenForo's dynamic CSS/Java overlays and actions that automatically adjust and respond to certain actions. A lot of this ended up being broken as soon as the Side Rails started to appear, making it impossible to post new threads via some methods or to see a selection box for smilies etc. Lots of stuff like that, it really breaks the forum software in a lot of ways as XenForo uses a lot of dynamic styling and actions.

So for example, under XenForo you can often start a new post by simply clicking into the 'thread title' box at the top of a thread summary page for a specific category. Upon doing that this, a drop-down box for post entry will normally appear when working correctly:

But when you enable Side Rails (after they start showing), then clicking into the 'Thread title' box at the top is simply unresponsive and no new post display appears. So it just looks like its default form:

Another example would be the quick reply box at the bottom of threads. With Side Rails enabled the box appears normal, until you try to use is. When you try to use it, you find that that the temporary 'Write your reply..' text no long disappears when you start typing and none of the icons (emoticons, quotes, paragraphs etc.) respond to being selected. Essentially, this whole area is broken:

I could list many other things that are broken, but there's so much that it's hard to give a simple summary. I don't have clear visibility of the additional code that Ezoic adds for siderails (CSS and Java), so I'm not sure exactly which bits are conflicting. But as I say, XenForo's forum software does use a lot of overlays and side rails are a similar sort of mechanism, so there's clearly some sort of conflict occurring.

This is why as a short-term fix, it would be good to know how I can disable Side Rails on just the XenForo system until this conflict is resolved.

Mark_P

ISPr Thanks for your reply and thank you for these images.

You could try disabling ads on the forums, however, this would disable all ads not just the sidebar ones from all forum pages, so could lose a lot of revenue.

You can find more information on how to exclude ads here.

ISPr

Mark_P Yes that isn't an option as it's a busy forum that contributes to revenue. So at present the only option is to disable the feature across the whole site, which is far from ideal.

Jean_Pierre_Ezoic

As of right now, it may be best not to use the side rail option, as standalone integration offers limited functionality. Siderails will likely become more compatible with your site in the future. For the time being, you can use anchor ads and sidebar placeholders as a substitute. Floating side bar placeholders are capable of generating a large percentage of site revenue.

ISPr

I've already got 'Sticky Sidebars' enabled, but Ezoic's FAQ page for it doesn't fully cover how you manually implement this on the site with a standalone deployment.

https://support.ezoic.com/kb/article/what-is-a-sticky-sidebar-ad-how-can-i-add-a-sticky-sidebar-ad-to-my-site

Jean_Pierre_Ezoic

For further assistance with setting up your standalone ads, you can reach out to your onboarding specialist. They are wonderful people that are further specialized in this area of integration. You'll be able to reach them by clicking on the level icon, then clicking 'Connect with Adam'. This is your onboarding specialist that can assist in any editing of your standalone setup.

ISPr

I think I've asked Adam a few queries over the past two months and had one reply, which ignored most of them.

krivera

ISPr It looks like he has been out of the office but it looks like he comes back on the 13th of this month! I would reach out to him once more once he is back in office and if you don't receive a response, let us know!