Closing Brave ads tries to open Nvidia Experience's streaming tab on Windows

[gaetschwartz]

Description

When clicking the "Close" button on the Brave Ad Windows notification it seems to open the Stream tab on Nvidia and start a stream (This I am not sure, just an assumption, as when Instant Replay is enabled on Nvidia Experience, it displays a notification saying I need to disable Instant Replay to do this).

mncfHmmSr-yXQF-2.mp4

Steps to Reproduce

1. Have NVidia Experience installed
2. Click the "Close" button when receiving an ad on Windows.
3. NVidia Experience's overlay opens up on the Streaming tab

Actual result:

NVidia Experience's overlay opens up on the Streaming tab

Expected result:

Close the Ad without any of this happening

Reproduces how often:

Every time

Desktop Brave version:

Brave	1.27.69 Chromium: 91.0.4472.106 (Official Build) beta (64-bit)
Revision	574f7b38e4e7244c92c4675e902e8f8e3d299ea7-refs/branch-heads/4472@{#1477}
OS	Windows 10 OS Version 2009 (Build 19043.1055)

Android Device details:

• Install type (ARM, x86): -
• Device type (Phone, Tablet, Phablet): -
• Android version: -

Version/Channel Information:

• Can you reproduce this issue with the current release? Haven't tried yet
• Can you reproduce this issue with the beta channel? Yes
• Can you reproduce this issue with the nightly channel? Haven't tried yet

Other Additional Information:

• Does the issue resolve itself when disabling Brave Shields? No
• Does the issue resolve itself when disabling Brave Rewards? Well yes but that's the whole point of Ads
• Is the issue reproducible on the latest version of Chrome? No

Miscellaneous Information:

See my tweet for a video : https://twitter.com/gaetschwartz/status/1381536194505359362?s=20

Note: I made sure no keybinds are enabled for anything related to the streaming functionality of NVidia Experience if that helps.

[jonathansampson]

Thanks, @gaetschwartz! I suspect this is interpreting the notification_helper process/executable as an app you would like to stream. If you run the app manually, does it also launch the NVIDIA view? You can find the notification_helper.exe within the Brave directory in Program Files.

[gaetschwartz]

It doesn't do anything when I double click on notification_helper.exe. And I don't think it interprets the executable as an app I would like to stream because it doesn't do it with any games and it really doesn't seem like a normal behavior.

[jonathansampson]

Please also check your Game Experience settings to see if Brave or notification_helper has been added to the list of games and apps you would like to stream.

[gaetschwartz]

It doesn't look like it.

[gaetschwartz]

Note that it happened previously and I had to reinstall Windows, once I did the issue was still here. Might help.

[gaetschwartz]

By the way Shield is to stream games to NVidia Shield, similar to Stadia or XCloud, it is not related to the Broadcast "Streaming" tab I was talking about.

[jonathansampson]

@gaetschwartz Thank you for that clarification; I was just realizing that on my end as well :) I'm not finding the Streaming Tab on my system.

[gaetschwartz]

It is in the overlay. It opens the NVidia overlay.

You can open your overlay by using the (default) keybind Alt+Z or via the NVidia Experience settings.

Telegram.Desktop.2021.06.17.-.21.06.05.05.mp4

[jonathansampson]

I'm trying to understand what it is that invokes this app, but it seems there have been years of frustrated users reporting similar issues with this (not with Brave). 4 years ago it appears to have been really unpopular, with Reddit posts and even a popular Twitch streamer raging on air.

I'm not able to reproduce the behavior (NVIDIA GeForce Experience, version 3.22.0.32), even after having enabled the feature locally. If you don't need this enabled, you can disable the In-Game Overlay from within the GeForce Experience settings. Unfortunately, it is not clear to me at this time what is triggering the overlay.

When you click an ad notification, the notification_helper.exe process is briefly ran, followed by a new brave.exe process. I assume GeForce is detecting at least one of these, and asking if you'd like to stream. Really odd.

[gaetschwartz]

Hi @jonathansampson, thanks the answer, I will try to investigate a little more. Is there any way to trigger a sample Brave Ad i.e launching notification_helper.exe or else ?

[gaetschwartz]

Okay, I reinstalled NVidia Experience and it fixed it. It might be due to the order I installed the two software when reinstalling Windows; NVidia and then Brave.

Closing the issue, feel free to reopen it if you feel like there is something that can be done in Brave to palliate this.