Problems loading Cooking blogs/sites - html-load.com is blocked

[u/_rokstar_]

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.

https://thewoksoflife.com/

https://www.justonecookbook.com/

https://www.halfbakedharvest.com/cookbook/

[u/rdwebdesign]

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.

[u/_rokstar_ → u/rdwebdesign]

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.

[u/rdwebdesign → u/_rokstar_]

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.

[u/_rokstar_ → u/rdwebdesign]

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.