Just updated Pi-ole on Ras Pi to Pi-hole Version v4.4 Web Interface Version v4.3.3 FTL Version v4.3.1
Normal performance (Pi-Hole has been in use for over 3 years and performing perfectly)
Updating Gravity produces the following error:
[i] Target: hosts-file.net (ad_servers.txt)
[✗] Status: Not found
[✗] List download failed: no cached list available
The result is that ads are not being blocked
This is not the result. Ads are still being blocked. You can verify this by running the following command from the Pi terminal, which will show you the activity for the past 24 hours. With your subscribed blocklists, you should have about 91,300 domains on blocklist.
echo ">stats >quit" | nc localhost 4711
What you are seeing is that one of the blocklists to which you subscribe (this one in particular was one of the six lists offered by Pi-hole at initial install) is no longer available. When this happens, Pi-hole attempts to use the locally cached copy (which would be stored in directory /etc/pihole). Since there is no locally cached copy of this list, the list is not used to build gravity.
Since the list is no longer available, it has been removed from the offerings on install, but not in the current V4.x. The change will go into effect with V5.0 (and the current beta 5.0 being tested).
Thanks jfb for clarifying my question and ponting out the reason I am seeing ads in my browsing. I am still enjoying some blocking but after 3 years of virtually no ads, web pages now look awfully busy.
Any suggstions out there for a suitable replacement blocklist?? I see plenty of posts suggesting blocklists folk are using but none give much explanation of which list bolcks what traffic type. A replacement for hosts-file-ads-list is all I need.
Thanks again.
I suspect that if you are suddenly seeing ads where you did not before, it may not be the absence of this blocklist. Can you give a few examples of where you are seeing ads now where you did not before?
I'm seeing ads in many iPhone apps and both Safari and Chrome web browsers. Most are 'Ads by Google'. I can identify that from the grey button within the ads which allow me to select preferences about each ad. Screen real estate on a smartphone is precious. Apps like 'Rain Alarm', 'WillyWeather', IPCheck&Share', 'Formula 1', 'Sky Sports' are all peppered with Ads by Google. An example of a website where ads are showing is imore.com, but only on iPhone
Ads are fewer on my Windows desktop.
If these are the same ads I see on a Google search (image below), Pi-hole doesn't block them since the ads you see are from the same domain as the content. It is only when you click on one of the ad links that you are directed to a different domain that Pi-hole can block.
For comparison, this is what I see on that site using the basic 5 blocklists:
Given that you only see ads on the iPhone, it is possible that the iPhone has another DNS server available and the DNS requests are not all going to the Pi-hole.
You can check and see how the ads are being served using these tools:
The blocklist is dead see reddit
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