Ad is not visible. Not refreshing ad

Question

I have made a free android game and I wanted to add a banner to it. I followed this tutorial and I don't know why it won't work.

When I run my game on the emulator in LogCat I see a message "Ad is not visible. Not refreshing ad." and when I install the game on my phone I also don't see any ads.

Here is my main.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
              xmlns:ads="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
              android:orientation="vertical"
              android:layout_width="match_parent"
              android:layout_height="match_parent">
  <com.google.android.gms.ads.AdView android:id="@+id/adView"
                         android:layout_width="wrap_content"
                         android:layout_height="wrap_content"
                         ads:adUnitId="hidden"
                         ads:adSize="BANNER"/>
</LinearLayout>

and here is the code in MainActivity.java

public class MainActivity extends AndroidApplication {
    private AdView adView;

    @Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);

        AndroidApplicationConfiguration cfg = new AndroidApplicationConfiguration();
        cfg.useGL20 = true;
        cfg.useAccelerometer = true;
        cfg.useCompass = true;

        setContentView(R.layout.main);

        // Look up the AdView as a resource and load a request.
        adView = (AdView)this.findViewById(R.id.adView);
        AdRequest adRequest = new AdRequest.Builder().build();
        adView.loadAd(adRequest);

        initialize (new RedSquare(), cfg);
    }

    @Override
    public void onPause() {
      adView.pause();
      super.onPause();
    }

    @Override
    public void onResume() {
      super.onResume();
      adView.resume();
    }

    @Override
    public void onDestroy() {
      adView.destroy();
      super.onDestroy();
    }
}

Answer 1

There is nothing especially wrong with your layout. Though I would probably change the layout_width for AdView to be:

android:layout_width="match_parent"

But it is not clear what

initialize (new RedSquare(), cfg);

is doing? I suspect it is altering the layout.

Answer 2

I've found out using adMob defining the layout explicitely in a file could be a huge headache generator, as sometimes it might turn impredictable with some parameter and layout combination. What always seems to work is adding the AdView dynamically to some LinearLayout.

This should work:

final LinearLayout fragLayout = (LinearLayout) inflater.inflate(R.layout.your_layout, container, false);
final AdView adView = new AdView(getActivity());
adView.setAdUnitId("your-admob-id");
adView.setAdSize(AdSize.BANNER);

// Here you'll append the new AdView
final LinearLayout publiView = (LinearLayout) fragLayout.findViewById(R.id.publi);
publiView.addView(adView);

final AdRequest.Builder adReq = new AdRequest.Builder();
// You should include a line like this for testing purposes,
// but only after you've tested whether your AdView works!
// This will prevent your ad being loaded each time you test
// your ad, so it will prevent you being blocked from AdMob.
// You'll find your device_id in the LogCat.
adReq.addTestDevice("your_device_id");

final AdRequest adRequest = adReq.build();
adView.loadAd(adRequest);

---- EDIT ----

This implementation is for Fragments, you probably are running an Activity and that's why you're getting those errors.

• Replace getActivity() with this

• The inflater simply (as it name says) inflates a new LinearLayout from a layout file. This means I have defined a layout which I've called your_layout and defined inside a LinearLayout. The inflater just creates an instance of that `LinearLayout. In your case probably it's not necessary.

I'm adding a code that probably will work for you:

final LinearLayout yourLayout = (LinearLayout) findViewById(R.id.your_linearlayout_id_where_you_want_to_put_your_adview);

final AdView adView = new AdView(this);
adView.setAdUnitId("your-admob-id");
adView.setAdSize(AdSize.BANNER);

yourLayout.addView(adView);

final AdRequest.Builder adReq = new AdRequest.Builder();
// You should include a line like this for testing purposes,
// but only after you've tested whether your AdView works!
// This will prevent your ad being loaded each time you test
// your ad, so it will prevent you being blocked from AdMob.
// You'll find your device_id in the LogCat.
adReq.addTestDevice("your_device_id");

final AdRequest adRequest = adReq.build();
adView.loadAd(adRequest);

Answer 3

To show ads in libgdx you need to initialize your app for view. So, replace all this:

setContentView(R.layout.main);

// Look up the AdView as a resource and load a request.
adView = (AdView)this.findViewById(R.id.adView);
AdRequest adRequest = new AdRequest.Builder().build();
adView.loadAd(adRequest);

initialize (new RedSquare(), cfg);

With this:

RelativeLayout layout = new RelativeLayout(this);

requestWindowFeature(Window.FEATURE_NO_TITLE);
getWindow().setFlags(WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_FULLSCREEN, 
            WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_FULLSCREEN);
getWindow().clearFlags(WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_FORCE_NOT_FULLSCREEN);
View gameView = initializeForView(new RedSquare(), cfg);

AdView AdView = new AdView(this);
AdView.setAdSize(AdSize.SMART_BANNER);
AdView.setAdUnitId("***"); //The AdUnitId
AdRequest.Builder adRequest = new AdRequest.Builder();
adRequest.addTestDevice("***"); //Your Test device if any
AdView.loadAd(adRequest.build());

layout.addView(gameView);

RelativeLayout.LayoutParams adParams = 
    new RelativeLayout.LayoutParams(RelativeLayout.LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT, 
                    RelativeLayout.LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT);
adParams.addRule(RelativeLayout.ALIGN_PARENT_TOP);
adParams.addRule(RelativeLayout.ALIGN_PARENT_RIGHT);

layout.addView(AdView, adParams);

setContentView(layout);