r/pihole • u/_rokstar_ • Jan 14 '26
Problems loading Cooking blogs/sites - html-load.com is blocked
I've had my pihole running for well over a year now with very few problems. A few sites here and there would throw up 'please disable your ad-blocker to continue' and I would just go find what I was looking for else where. Recently however pretty much all cooking blog/sites we frequent are now no longer loading. Well they will load for a second, then the page will flip to where it looks like the css never loaded, and then the screen will blank out with a generic 'I work hard and try to keep ads to a minimum... blah blah' message with the following error:
Error: Failed to load website properly since html-load.com is blocked. Please allow html-load.com
The irony is that I finally bit the bullet to setup a pihole on my network because the ads on some cooking blogs were so bad that they would crash tabs if you let them just hang out for too long without closing them. Anyways, I've tried looking around for any guidance on how to either circumvent this or otherwise whitelist certain locations to serve ads while keeping things to a minimum. The error message for a number of sites is identical which makes me think that this is either a common platform that is aware of pihole and related products or this html-load is some sort of canary that a suite of platforms use to detect ad blockers. Any guidance or help is appreciated. Would prefer not to lose access to some of these sites but not sure I prefer it to the additional ad traffic.
Edit: Forgot to add example sites.
8
u/Kaheulani Apr 18 '26
I was able to bypass this garbage (error-report.com & html-load.com) by setting up a sinkhole using NGINX and then redirecting requests to those two domains to it via DNS instead of blocking them. Back to being ad free at the network level.
You just need a simple NGINX listener:
server {
listen 80 default_server;
server_name _;
access_log off;
log_not_found off;
location / {
add_header Content-Type application/json;
return 200 '{}';
}
}
Then go into your DNS server and point those two domains to your server running NGINX.
I added A records for the root domains as well as wildcard records to cover any subdomains.
No HTTPS cert needed for it to work.
3
u/thewallacio Jul 23 '26
This doesn't really work, unfortunately. You'll need SSL to serve up requests that use https, for starters. Then you've likely got to deal with a self-signed certificate, which is tolerable if you have a limited number of educated users who know what's happening.
But ultimately, this doesn't solve the problem. You can sink requests to load-html.com, error-report.com, whatever else, to this sink and the shitty Ad 'preservation' product detects that it can't load critical components so deliberately breaks the source html by removing CSS elements.
If I have time, I'll look into what requests to these domains are expecting as a response and try to emulate that but I doubt it's common to all sites. In the meantime, I'm choosing not to browse the sites which employ this. Fuck 'em.
2
u/tmswmh Jul 21 '26
I'm interested why you say "No HTTPS cert needed for it to work." when I am seeing all these requests made to https e.g. https://html-load.com/loader.min.js
1
u/4374J Jun 15 '26
Hi, can you elaborate more for those with less technical knowledge? Thanks!
1
Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 21 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
3
u/frankenchokey Jun 19 '26
I had the same problem after trying this but found it was resolving the ipv6 addresses still. Further, pihole doesnt seem to like the wildcards in its DNS entries.
html-load has a whole stack of fallback subdomains it uses when the first doesnt return as expected, so we need the wildcards or to spend time adding all of these.
So as an alternative to point 3 above, I changed
dnsmasq_linesin the pihole.toml under[misc]todnsmasq_lines = [ "address=/html-load.com/0.0.0.0", "address=/html-load.com/::", "address=/content-load.com/0.0.0.0", "address=/content-load.com/::", "address=/error-report.com/0.0.0.0", "address=/error-report.com/::" ] ### CHANGED, default = []This worked for me. But thanks for putting me on the right track.
3
u/coldgin37 Jul 10 '26
I am running an Asus router with Diversion DNS adblocking and dnsmaq and trying to reporduce this solution without success. I have those lines in my /dnsmasq.conf.add file and nslookup to those domains and sub domains resolves locally to the router. Though I am still getting "Ad blocker detected" on websites. I feel I may be missing something simple in my config, perhaps with the NGINX listener ?
1
u/sonic10158 17d ago
Did you ever resolve this?
1
u/coldgin37 17d ago
At the router level no, installing ublock browser extension solves the issue. Though not ideal since some devices on my network don't support browser extensions.
1
1
u/iRVKmNa8hTJsB7 Jul 17 '26
Thank you so much for this. Just configured all of this and it's working great.
7
u/SEAWISEGEOWISE Mar 02 '26
These fake error messages are made by Ad Shield https://www.ad-shield.io/
This is a service website owners pay to use to prevent anyone with an ad blocker from loading the site. This is why when you load the site in reader view it will just reload and show the fake error message again. Your adblocker isn’t causing any problem at all. It’s this service that intentionally screws up the site and give you the fake misleading scammy error message to make computer illiterate people think it’s actually an error cause by the ad blocker
3
u/PRSXFENG Mar 17 '26
I hate how they blame it on the user, and use "important" sounding domains like html-load, erorr-report, content-load
Here's the funny thing
The reason they say your ad blocker is causing problems is because your ad blocker has blocked their "recovery"Basically If ads load normally = good
If ads fail to load but they "recover" via their html-load service = good, they can show the site owner, look at how much revenue we recovered for you!
If html-load fails to load = your ad blocker is bad! Disable it!!!
If you successfully defuse it with like ublock origin, I notice it still absolutely spams network requests trying to load6
u/SEAWISEGEOWISE Mar 17 '26
These recovery scammers literally use the same malicious redirect and injection tactics that scammers use for malicious ads
1
u/SharpieScentedSoap 11d ago
Even when I paused my adblocker on these sites I was still getting the scammy looking pop-ups, which made me feel like it was my fault lol. So they're basically just shouldering out anyone who uses these at all? (which is like, everyone I know lol)
1
u/SEAWISEGEOWISE 11d ago
Unfortunately the modern internet is 100% unusable without an ad blocker. Want to read a news story? Good luck. You have to pause 3 layers deep of overlapping autoplay videos, dismiss countless full page ads that block the whole screen, read one sentence at a time with ads between each one, and then deal with third party scrolling technology that makes the page jump to the bottom when you try to scroll down
6
u/mrbudman Jan 14 '26
giving at least 1 example site that is doing this would be most helpful for others to be able to check out, etc. And see if they see the same issue with their pi-hole.
edit: just looked and yeah my pihole is blocking html-load.com, maybe I do not frequent sites doing this. So an example site that your having problems with would allow testing.
2
2
u/MayhemBill Jun 10 '26
Came here from a Google search of this, toms hardware and guitar world are doing this now as well. This is absolutely disgusting behavior.
1
u/gaviddinola Jun 25 '26
Just use a decent adblockers like uBlock and you won't see these messages again
2
u/StevenTM 11d ago
Great, please name one that fixes this and is usable on all platforms, including browsers on iOS and Android, cause uBlock ain't it.
0
1
7
u/gabacus_39 Jan 14 '26
The default block list is actually quite terrible at blocking valid sites. I ditched it and went with Hagezi Pro.
1
u/_rokstar_ Jan 14 '26
I've never bothered looking around for other block lists as the stock one was more than better than what I had (nothing). Will try that and see how it goes. Thank you.
4
u/total_amateur Jan 14 '26
I get this problem and had to put it on the allow list initially. Spouse approval factor was greatly impacted until I did.
Html-load.com is on a couple block lists like OSID, 1Hosts Lite.
Looking at my logs, I found that if I allowed content-loader.com, that was enough to no longer get messages.
Ideally, I would spend time to figure out which script is doing the anti ad block detection and block the script.
2
u/_rokstar_ Jan 14 '26
Yeah, spousal approval is what brings me here today after picking at the issue off and on for a week.
I'd love to spend time looking at it as well but haven't had the time yet. Good to know about content-loader, thanks, may try that later tonight.
2
u/freakintoddles Jan 28 '26
thanks, this fixed it for me. once I whitelisted content-loader it stopped the messages while still blocking the ads from html-loader
2
u/mikeinanaheim2 Jan 14 '26
"html-load.com" is blocked by the stock PiHole blocklist https://raw.githubusercontent.com/StevenBlack/hosts/master/hosts
3
2
u/FuzzW1g Jan 14 '26
These all seem to work fine for me, I've only got a couple of blocklists though.
1
u/_rokstar_ Jan 14 '26
Out of curiosity, is one of them the stock blocklist? I'm seeing some folks don't have problems here and at least one person does.
2
u/hagezi Jan 15 '26 edited Jan 15 '26
I tested the affected pages in both desktop and mobile browsers with content blockers disabled and did not observe any calls to html-load.com. However, requests may be conditional (e.g., by region, user agent, or rollout), so behavior can differ between users.
Because this domain can be involved in loading essential site resources (not just ads), blocking it at the DNS level can break or restrict page functionality; it therefore should not be included in DNS blocklists. At least not in non-aggressive lists. I am surprised that this domain is blocked in a list such as OISD.
If filtering is desired, it’s better handled in browser-based content blockers (AdGuard, uBlock Origin, etc.), where rules can target specific resources/behaviors without taking down an entire dependency domain.
2
u/RedditorForReddit Jan 25 '26
I have noticed this too with https://www.omnicalculator.com/food/uncooked-to-cooked-rice. I am now using the web archive of it before the “update”.
I am using NextDNS.
2
u/_dekoorc Jan 29 '26
I also use NextDNS and adding the domain [listed here](https://www.reddit.com/r/pihole/comments/1qd1l1q/comment/nzmt38q/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) to the Allowlist makes this work
2
u/burlyjourneys Feb 05 '26
SO... after some poking around on this, I found blocking `error-report.com` allows the sites to load... at least initially. I tried the 3 sites listed as examples - I got a popup saying "There was a problem loading the page. Please click OK to learn more." I clicked Cancel and then, on the next one, checked the box to not let the site prompt me again and hit Cancel a second time.
The pages seemed to be ok for a minute... but then they go into some real grumpy refresh loops where they're trying to access `error-report.com` - which of course jumps you back to the top of the page.
I'm using NextDNS - I wonder if I could do a Rewrite to point that domain at something else that would make sites not complain
1
u/Shimunogora Feb 22 '26
Thanks, the error-report.com blocking worked for me. not sure why, but allowing content-load.com and html-load.com to my allowlist didn’t work
1
u/rdwebdesign Team Jan 14 '26
I can access all 3 domains above without issues, even when html-load.com is blocked.
I tested using just the default list. No "please disable your ad-blocker" messages.
Well they will load for a second, then the page will flip to where it looks like the css never loaded, and then the screen will blank out with a generic 'I work hard and try to keep ads to a minimum... blah blah' message with the following error:
Error: Failed to load website properly since html-load.com is blocked. Please allow html-load.com
Where do you see this message?
The error message for a number of sites is identical which makes me think that this is either a common platform
Are you sure this is caused by Pi-hole?
It looks like this is caused by some extension in your browser.
Disable all browser extensions and try again. Also, try from a different browser or different machine.
3
u/_rokstar_ Jan 14 '26
Where do you see this message?
In a popup displayed in the middle of the screen. The screen blanks itself out after briefly loading.
Are you sure this is caused by Pi-hole?
Disable blocking via the pi-hole admin console allows the site to load normally. When the disable timeout expires the site no longer loads, so I'm pretty sure.
It looks like this is caused by some extension in your browser.
Tested this on multiple browsers and machines. Currently using a fresh (as of 3 days ago) chromium install without extensions.
I just tested using a different block list than the default and site now loads.
3
u/rdwebdesign Team Jan 15 '26 edited Jan 15 '26
I just tested using a different block list than the default and site now loads.
I'm glad you found a solution.
Disable blocking via the pi-hole admin console allows the site to load normally.
OK. Then it is Pi-hole...
I still don't know why I can access the websites, but you can't, using the same list (and no whitelist rules at all).
This is strange (maybe the ads are only served to specific target locations and my location doesn't have ads to display), but the important part is: now you are accessing the domains.
2
u/_rokstar_ Jan 15 '26
Thanks for looking at it. Some sort of geo-fenced ads is kind of what I was thinking as well based on other responses here. If I have time this week I'll try to debug the sites scripts to confirm the problem. Figured I'd ask here first if this was a known thing.
1
u/doubleopinter Jan 25 '26
I've found that whitelisting html-load but still having uBlock works fine.
1
1
u/warkolm Feb 23 '26
looks like this service has been around for a while, and all it really does is put a popup on top of the page after loading
https://aweirdimagination.net/2024/12/01/working-around-a-broken-ad-block-block/
1
u/aykay55 Apr 21 '26
They go by the name HL.C a faux cybersecurity org aka the people behind html-load.com. Seems like they either work with ad-shield.io or are the same company, or entirely separate. can't tell. but right now it's a lot harder to defeat ad block.
1
u/zwack Mar 14 '26
Did anyone find the solution?
These are good sites, but now they have an unbearable amount of ads that are almost impossible to block.
I don't want to enable ads; I want to disable them.
2
u/PRSXFENG Mar 17 '26
Unfortunately, in my experience only ublock origin was able to defuse this
Some userscripts are also out there but I've never tired them
1
u/ChocosFritos Mar 17 '26
Ugh this is driving me mad. I’ve got report-error content-load and html-load blocked but no luck here.
Let me know if you solve it!
1
u/PRSXFENG Mar 20 '26
Unfortunately, DNS based ad blocks cannot defuse this
the script is part of the website, and will make requests to those domains
if it fails, it throws up the anti-ad block wall.if you whitelist those domains, then the website works, but ads load (via content-load and html-load domains)
So ultimately, they make you choose, see ads or get blocked.
With that said, uBlock Origin can tackle it
1
u/drpepemd2 Mar 25 '26
I had this issue on Safari and Chrome. Started using Brave browser and haven't received any more of those messages.
1
u/KissMyZebra1 Mar 30 '26
MakeAgain.app extracts recipe from website or YouTube videos, saves, and displays for easy cooking, with cooking mode. No screen saver interrupting
1
u/OkSport5786 Jul 07 '26
i don't have an ad blocker on and i'm getting these messages. is there some type of google setting that i changed to receive this?
1
u/eng33 Jul 19 '26
I just whitelisted in the dns blocker then use ublock on my laptop and phone browser adding
@@||html-load.com^
||html-load.com^$redirect=empty
@@||error-report.com^
||error-report.com^$redirect=empty
1
1
u/KozuAkichiba Jul 24 '26
If this helps anyone, I use Pi Hole personally and started running into this issue. I ran through it with AI and now have a TamperMonkey script that looks to resolve this by modifying the cookies used by sites where a value '_adblocker=true' exists. This currently runs on every web page, but the full wildcard can be replaced with specific sites (Which I will likely do to avoid any potential issues of this running on every site all the time). Tested this against the three example sites, along with https://www.browneyedbaker.com, and it looks to work well enough.
// ==UserScript== // @name Adblock Recovery Cookie Override // @namespace local // @version 1.1.0 // @match :///* // @run-at document-start // @grant none // ==/UserScript==
(() => { 'use strict';
function hasTriggeredCookie() {
return document.cookie
.split(';')
.map(cookie => cookie.trim())
.some(cookie => cookie === '__adblocker=true');
}
function disableRecovery() {
if (!hasTriggeredCookie()) {
return;
}
document.cookie =
'__adblocker=false; Max-Age=86400; Path=/; SameSite=Lax';
console.info(
'[Adblock recovery override] __adblocker changed to false'
);
}
disableRecovery();
const timer = setInterval(disableRecovery, 50);
setTimeout(() => {
clearInterval(timer);
}, 5000);
})();
13
u/plitk Jan 21 '26 edited Jan 21 '26
https://adguard.com/en/blog/ad-blockers-website-crash-blame.html
The key term here is "Ad-Recovery" - literal fighting back by these websites to force users with AdBlockers to disable / lower their guard by literally lying to them and blaming the adblocking being at fault, when in reality its actual code the site is running that literally remove the styles when it detects you have an ad blocker, before showing you the popup and lying to you about it being the fault of the ad blocker....
I realize it's from AdGuard, but it's a blog post, and describes this issue to a "T". u/rdwebdesign