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High count of webview content process termination
Our iOS app uses React Native Webview (based on top of WKWebView) to display content. This webview stays in memory throughtout the app's lifecycle. We are observing a high number of webview content process terminations - around 15% of our sessions. (https://developer.apple.com/documentation/webkit/wknavigationdelegate/webviewwebcontentprocessdidterminate(_:)) What could be the reasons for it? Is there a way to know for sure? Is the 15% of sessions number something that other apps also experience, or should this be lower? Thanks!
Topic: Safari & Web SubTopic: General
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85
May ’25
iOS Safari 18.4/18.5 with IIS Windows Authentication with negotiate hangs after entering credentials
I don't think the issue is specific iOS 18. We have a web application that runs with IIS Authentication of Windows and Anonymous. Initially the app opens and the user clicks a button and triggers the "401 Challenge" via ASP.NET. The browser presents the Active Directory login, user enters credentials, clicks Sign In, and the browser hangs (may actually be negotiating something). After a few minutes the user is logged into the application. We have done a number of google searches/AI to try to determine what to change and there is no clear solution. Is there anything else to try? This problem is not seen in Chrome on iOS or on a Windows machine. Strangely it is also not seen using BrowserStack with one of their "real" devices. We have other apps that run with just Windows Authorization and this problem is not observed.
Topic: Safari & Web SubTopic: General
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315
May ’25
JavaScript to externally automate Webpage operation
I am a newby to JavaScript, suggested to me to use to automate the task of opening of a Web page, selecting three internal buttons in sequence to download the underlying chart data. I have created the App via Automator on macOS, to run the Script, successfully open the Web Page, but cannot find a way to select and click() on the buttons. Can someone please help me. Robert. This is the code suggested by Grok 3 Beta, but I see this error: Error: First parameter passed to Document Constructor must be an object. function run(input, parameters) { var Safari = Application('Safari'); Safari.activate(); // Open the AEMO data dashboard (Grok 3 Beta recomendation opens the web page correctly) Safari.Document().make(); Safari.windows[0].currentTab.url = 'https://www.aemo.com.au/energy-systems/electricity/national-electricity-market-nem/data-nem/data-dashboard-nem'; delay(10); // Wait for page to load // Click the Fuel Mix tab (target the active in the tabs) Safari.Document(0).doJavaScript("document.querySelector('.tabs .active').click()"); delay(5); // Wait for tab content to load // Select 48 hrs from the dropdown Safari.Document(0).doJavaScript("document.querySelector('#interval').value = '48H'; document.querySelector('#interval').dispatchEvent(new Event('change'))"); delay(5); // Wait for selection to take effect // Click the download button Safari.Document(0).doJavaScript("document.querySelector('.visualisation-icon-button').click()"); return input; }
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146
Jun ’25
iOS26 WKWebView:Remote page becomes unresponsive after loading local file
Subject: iOS 26 WKWebView: Remote Pages Become Unresponsive After Loading Local HTML Files Description We're experiencing a critical issue with WKWebView in a React Native 0.64.3 application where remote web pages become completely unresponsive after loading local HTML files in iOS 26. It works well before iOS26. Environment: React Native 0.64.3 iOS 26.0 Xcode 26.0.1 Using custom WKWebView implementations in Native modules Problem Details App loads local HTML files using loadFileURL:allowingReadAccessToURL: Later, when loading remote pages via loadRequest:, the remote pages load successfully but become unresponsive to user interactions This occurs even when using different WKWebView instances The issue is reproducible 100% of the time once a local file has been loaded Restarting the app and loading remote pages directly works fine Code Example: // Loading local file (works fine) [self.webView loadFileURL:localFileURL allowingReadAccessToURL:accessURL]; // Later, loading remote page (loads but becomes unresponsive) NSURLRequest *request = [NSURLRequest requestWithURL:remoteURL]; [self.webView loadRequest:request]; What We've Tried: Using different WKWebView instances for local vs remote content Comprehensive cleanup in dealloc (removing all user scripts and message handlers) Loading blank HTML before switching to remote content Using shared WKProcessPool (understanding its limitations in iOS 15+) Ensuring proper decisionHandler management in navigation delegates Resetting WKWebView configuration settings Clearing cookies and cache between loads Using loadFileRequest:allowingReadAccessToURL: instead of loadFileURL: Key Observations: The remote page renders correctly and network requests complete No JavaScript errors in console The view hierarchy appears normal in Debug View Hierarchy Touch events seem to be delivered but not processed by the web content Questions: Has Apple introduced new security restrictions in iOS 26 that affect the transition from file:// URLs to http:// URLs? Are there specific WKWebView configuration changes required for React Native applications in iOS 26? Could this be related to the React Native bridge or JavaScript context persistence? Any insights or workarounds would be greatly appreciated, as this is blocking our iOS 26 compatibility.
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1.2k
Oct ’25
WebKit HTML Anchor download attribute ignored by PDF files
When trying to create an anchor with the download attribute it does not work for PDF files, it displays the files inline. Also when the download attribute is set the target attribute is ignored too. The tag: ... The behavior: It displaies the file in line. The correct behavior: The file should be downloaded and not displayed or at least displayed but with the "_blank" target (new tab). This is an issue when working with WebSockets which is closed when the file is opened inline.
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218
Oct ’25
No longe rable to obtain network name
We have a JavaScript api that queries our Secure Browser to get the network information – signal strength, network name, plugged in/wifi. Everything worked fine through the Tahoe betas, still does. Now we are getting on the network name and this is breaking our UI. Was this an intentional change or a bug? The other two properties still appear to be working. And it works in all lower MacOS versions. We are currently obtaining it through AppleScript try   set ssid to do shell script "system_profiler SPAirPortDataType | awk '/Current Network Information:/ {getline; sub(/^ +/, ""); sub(/:$/, ""); print}'"   if ssid is equal to "" then     return "Not connected to any Wi-Fi network."   else     return ssid   end if on error errMsg   return "Error: " & errMsg end try
Topic: Safari & Web SubTopic: General
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371
Oct ’25
WKWebView randomly does not send out cookies from WKWebSiteDataStore to our servers
PLATFORM AND VERSION iOS Development environment: Xcode 16.2, macOS 15.3.2 Run-time configuration: iOS 15-18 This happens in iOS, and leads to to the hybrid home page showing users as wrongly unauthenticated, since the at cookie is missing. For context, we have a JWT token that is stored in the Keychain, and on app launch, before any WKWebViews are created, we synchronize this to the WKWebsiteDataStore as an at cookie. We have analytics instrumentation on our websitef to show that WKWebView randomly refuses to send out any cookies. – The following is a snippet from an explanation to the WebKit Slack: We are having an issue on iOS, in which WKWebView loads pages (and even subsequent reloads) without any cookies, even though we have stored cookies in WKWebsiteDataStore.default() before hand right after application launch and becoming a key window. We reference this object, store it as a singleton, (as well as a process pool), and then all webview configurations are initialized with the same data store, the same process pool, every call on the main thread. From reading the source code, it seems that if the internal IPC logic fails, the APIs for deleting and setting data records and cookies fail without any feedback in completion handlers. This bug often happens when returning from the background on iOS after a few hours. Sometimes it happens on cold launches of the app. We have mitigated a similar issue (no cookies being sent) by implementing webViewWebContentProcessDidTerminate and reloading the webview ourselves, we found that whatever webview does to reload if that method is not implemented leads to cookies not being used. There have been multiple reports of WKWebView losing cookies in recent iOS versions, and we have tried to implement all of the workarounds listed. Setting a maximumAge to the cookies we store, and doing a _ = await websiteDataStore.dataRecords(ofTypes: Set([WKWebsiteDataTypeCookies])) before accessing or modifying websiteDataStore.httpCookieStore Question: is it safe to work with WKWebsiteDataStore before a WKWebView is added as a view, if so are there any timing considerations? Are there any logs that we can take a look at, this issue is very hard to reproduce, about 2% of our users face it at scale? Is there anything that could be happening within our process (runloop issues, timing) that could be causing this issue? See multiple reports from other companies that have faced the issue: "Now the Thermonuclear Problem with WKWebViewDataStorage" https://medium.com/axel-springer-tech/synchronization-of-native-and-webview-sessions-with-ios-9fe2199b44c9 STEPS TO REPRODUCE They don't exist, because the issue only happens at scale. We just know that no cookies are sent for a small percentage of requests. We believe this to be an issue in which Webkit fails to communicate internally with whatever IPC mechanisms it has. We have not been able to reproduce this issue consistently. The best we can give is that it happens after a few hours that the app is in the background. This happens regardless of whether the WKWebsiteDataStore is persistent or not, but seems to be much worse when it is persistent. Thus we have disabled persistnet data stores and relied on nonPersistent. The issue is bad enough that we are trying to move away from relying on cookies for iOS and just use request headers which we can only set on the top level request of WKWebView. DTS Case-ID: 13154329
Topic: Safari & Web SubTopic: General
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130
Apr ’25
Issue with Safari v18.2: Extension Prevents Video Playback When Inspecting
I am a developer working on a Safari extension that handles video playback, and I’ve encountered an issue with Safari version 18.2. When I open the developer tools to inspect the browser, videos fail to play as expected. It worked well on safari version 18.1. Details: Safari Version: 18.2 Operating System: macOS Sequoia v15.2 Additional Information: I’ve tested the extension with various video formats and sites. Clearing the cache and disabling other extensions did not resolve the issue. There are no error messages displayed in the console related to the extension. If I close inspecting, then extension(video playback) works well. I would appreciate any insights or suggestions on how to address this issue, as it impacts the functionality of my extension. Thank you for your help!
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538
Jan ’25
Content blocker not removing content
I have a content blocker that generally works correctly, but I need to block an element that has certain text in it. For example, <span id="theId">Some text</span> is easy enough to block because I can locate the id and block that, but what if there is no id, or the id is completely random? What if it's just <span>Some text</span>? How do I block that? Let's say this is my only content blocker rule: [ { "action": { "type": "css-display-none", "selector": ":has-text(/Some text/i)" }, "trigger": { "url-filter": ".*" } } ] No errors are seen when the rule is loaded, so it's syntactically correct, it just doesn't block the HTML. I gather this is because :has-text() works on attributes, not contents, so it works on alt, href, aria-label etc. but not on the contents of the element itself. How do I block Some text in my example above? Thanks!
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630
Feb ’25
Safari Web Extension: How do I avoid "this extension can read and alter web pages"?
I have a web extension that I want to send data to, and receive a response containing modified data. My understanding is that the native app is only contactable by a background script. How does a webpage contact the background script? One answer is by adding a content script, which is able to communicate with the background script using browser.native.sendMessage(). Unfortunately this triggers a warning that "this extension can read and alter web pages". I do not want to read and alter web pages, nor do I want users to be concerned about a permission the app doesn't need. I just want to receive data, and then return a response. What API should I be using to achieve this?
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725
Mar ’25
[bug report] Unicode characters with "Variation Selector-15" (U+FE0E) are not rendered as text in iOS 18.1.1
I reported this bug one year ago in https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/746406, but as it is not been fixed yet, I'm going to try by opening this new incident report. iOS is not working for the Unicode Variation Selector-15 (U+FE0E) for all the characters. Can you please apply that variation selector to all your Unicode characters? I) Steps to reproduce the issue: navigate in safari to the page https://eurovot.com/vs.htm II) Expected result: as the 1st column of characters have the Variation Selector-15 (U+FE0E) applied, and the 2nd column have the Variation Selector-16 (U+FE0F) applied, the first column should always display text characters (in orange) and the second column emoji characters. III) Error result: some characters are working fine in the 1st column and displayed as text (in orange colour), but some other aren't displayed as text, they wrongly displayed as emojis instead.
Topic: Safari & Web SubTopic: General
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491
Feb ’25
Unable to Add Non-Standard Headers Using Declarative Net Request Rule (DNR) in Safari
We’re encountering an issue when trying to add non-standard headers to outgoing requests using Declarative Net Request (DNR) rules in our Safari Web Extension. Tested on macOS 15.4 with Safari 18.4. Specifically, when attempting to add a custom header such as "X-Custom-Header" using a DNR rule, the header does not appear in the request. We are able to add standard headers like "Authorization" and "Cookie" to the request successfully using the same method. This behavior suggests that Safari may be filtering or blocking non-standard headers when set via DNR rules, unlike other browsers. In Chrome and Firefox, the same rule adds the "X-Custom-Header" header without any issue. We are looking for assistance in fixing these issues and having our Safari Extension function the same as it does in Firefox and Chrome.
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137
Apr ’25
Priority of Declarative Net Request rules not respected on Safari
A DNR rule with lower priority is being applied before a DNR rule of higher priority on Safari. Specifically, a low-priority DNR block rule that matches a request is being applied before a high-priority DNR redirect rule that matches the same request, preventing the redirect from occurring. The only way to get the high-priority redirect rule to occur is to remove the DNR block rule. This does not occur on other browsers. I have already submitted a Feedback Assistant report about this bug: FB16535579 How to reproduce: Create/install a web extension on Safari with the declarativeNetRequest and declarativeNetRequestWithHostAccess permissions Open the Web Extension Background Content console and add a redirect rule with a high priority number. For example: await chrome.declarativeNetRequest.updateDynamicRules({addRules: [ {id: 5000, condition: {urlFilter: "||www.google-analytics.com*/ga.js", resourceTypes: ["script"], domainType: "thirdParty"}, priority: 80, action: {type: "redirect", redirect: {url: “http://www.apple.com/”}}} ]}) Add a block rule of lower priority for the same urlFilter: await chrome.declarativeNetRequest.updateDynamicRules({addRules: [ {id: 5001, condition: {urlFilter: "||www.google-analytics.com^", domainType: "thirdParty"}, priority: 1, action: {type: "block"}} ]}) Visit https://efforg.github.io/privacybadger-test-fixtures/html/ga_surrogate.html Check the network tab and see that neither a request to Google Analytics nor apple.com appear. This means that the request to Google Analytics was blocked instead of being / before being redirected Remove the block rule: await chrome.declarativeNetRequest.updateDynamicRules({removeRuleIds: [5001]}) Reload https://efforg.github.io/privacybadger-test-fixtures/html/ga_surrogate.html. Check the network tab and confirm that there is a request to apple.com, showing that the redirect rule is only applied if the lower-priority block rule is removed. The priority of the DNR rules should handle this without having to remove a DNR rule. I have confirmed that the incorrect application of DNR rule priority happens on other top level domains, with other urlFilters, and with other redirect URLs. I confirmed that this is happening while I’ve granted my extension permissions on all websites.
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387
Apr ’25
Chrome extension => Safari web extension packager
"The Safari web extension packager enables you to package and distribute your Safari extensions using App Store Connect from any web browser, without requiring a Mac or access to Xcode." I upload the unzipped folder I'd test in Chrome://extensions to the Safari web extension packager in App store connect. I get error: Embedded binary's bundle identifier is not prefixed with the parent app's bundle identifier. The only solution i've seen to this error involves xcode/a mac, being without which doesn't help
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399
Oct ’25
Launching MacOS app via Url Scheme
I'm looking for answer or documentation on gatekeeper and launching a MacOS app via a url scheme/custom protocol. Our application is delivered via a zip file downloaded from the web. We utilize a url scheme. The act of extracting the app from the zip registers the url scheme with the OS. From previous research/testing we found we had to break the gatekeeper lock (have the user move the app from the downloaded location) to ensure that the url is honored on first launch of the application. To ensure user compliance, we added a check to make sure that the lock has been removed by looking at the quarantine attribute. This flow is not ideal. I am looking for alternatives and was previously under the impression that if we were to move to a DMG then that would provide the user a better user experience for moving it. However, now that I am getting around to looking into it, I am seeing some implied statements that this is not the case and that the quarantine bit will just be moved from the DMG to the app. Questions: Does a DMG allow the app to be launched via custom protocol without prior launch or movement? With a notarized app, will the custom protocol work on a subsequent launch, even without prior movement?
Topic: Safari & Web SubTopic: General
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318
Oct ’25
Getting started with PHP ..
I am new to PHP. I have developed my own web site with a lot of javascript in simple HTML files. I want to do some extensions with PHP but I can't make a simple web page function. I am sure something simple is wrong. Help! Here is the test web page I made: hello.html <html>  <head>   <title>Hello World</title>  </head>  <body>   <?php echo 'Hello World!'; ?>  </body> </html> Pointing Safari at hello.html gives me a new tab with the correct title, but no "Hello World" in the page itself. Here is the output of php --version: WARNING: PHP is not recommended PHP is included in macOS for compatibility with legacy software. Future versions of macOS will not include PHP. PHP 7.3.24-(to be removed in future macOS) (cli) (built: Jun 17 2021 21:41:13) ( NTS ) Copyright (c) 1997-2018 The PHP Group Zend Engine v3.3.24, Copyright (c) 1998-2018 Zend Technologies
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755
Jun ’25
How to trigger Safari App Extension with a keyboard shortcut without a content script and Accessibility permissions?
I have a Safari App Extension which allows users to switch between last open tabs with a shortcut option+tab in the same way it's possible to switch between last open apps with command+tab. Here is how i do it: I inject a content script on all websites which has the only thing – key listener for option+tab presses. When a user presses option+tab, that keyboard listener detects it and sends a message to the Safari Handler. Then Safari Handler sends a message to the containing app and it shows a panel with last open tabs. This approach has a problem: it shows a message to a user in settings: "Can read sensitive info from web pages, including passwords..." Which is bad, because in reality i don't read passwords. If i remove SFSafariContentScript key in the Safari App Extension target's Info.plist, then this message about reading sensitive data disappears, but then i loose the ability to open the tabs panel. How can I open my app window with a shortcut without frightening a user? It's possible to listen to global key presses, but that would require a user to grant the app permissions of Accessibility (Privacy & Security) in macOS system settings, which also sounds shady. I know an app which does not require an Accessibility permission: https://apps.apple.com/ua/app/tabback-lite/id6469582909 and at the same time it does not tell a user about reading sensitive data in the extension settings. Here is my app: https://apps.apple.com/ua/app/tab-finder/id6741719894 It's open-source: https://github.com/kopyl/safari-tab-switcher
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582
Feb ’25
Unexpected Safari useragent for www.espn.com, fixed when disabling site-specfic hacks
Recently we started noticing in Safari v18.2 browser an unexpected useragent set for https://www.espn.com pages like - "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/110.0.0.0 Safari/537.36" (recognized as Chrome by most UA detection logic) and breaks our video playback in some scenarios. When digging into this we came across site specific quirks and the "Disable site-specific hacks" setting which fixed the playback functionality and set a more expected UA - "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/605.1.15 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/18.2 Safari/605.1.15". Is the unexpected UA being set somewhere in Safari/Webkit? Can this be removed so site functionality works without needing to find the "Disable site-specific hacks" setting?
Topic: Safari & Web SubTopic: General Tags:
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543
Feb ’25
Safari Extension doesn't load after running Product > Archive
I've been developing a Safari web extension for MacOS and iOS, and I'm running into a very strange issue. I ported over my Chrome extension to Safari, and for several days as I was iterating on the extension (change code, build, run, test in Safari), everything worked perfectly fine. Once I was finished with the extension, I followed the instructions on how to prepare to submit the Safari web extension (and it's containing MacOS and iOS apps) to the App Store for review. For the MacOS app and Safari web extension on Mac, I changed my target from "My Mac" (which I'd been using for testing), to "Any Mac". I then went to the "Product" menu in Xcode and selected "Archive" That's when things started to go wrong. The next time I went to Safari, my web extension could no longer find critical files to run the extension (such as background.js, popup.html, etc.) This was despite there being no code changes before or after me creating a build archive. When I restarted Safari, the extension no longer appeared in the list of extensions within preferences. No matter what I do (clean build folder and re-run, restart Safari, restart Xcode, restart computer), nothing will get my extension to show up in Safari again. Note that this does not happen with the Safari web extension in the iOS simulator. It only happens on Mac. I was confident that my extension was working, so I submitted my extension to the Mac App Store for review. It was approved, and a few users have downloaded it and it works totally fine. To further try to figure out what's going on, I created a new sample Xcode project. From the new project screen, I chose the "Safari web extension" under "Multiplatform". Without making any code changes, I build and run that project, and the default MacOS app and Safari web extension from the template. I then immediately create an archive (with no code changes). Once I try to run the project for my Mac again, the extension no longer works. So I have verified that this problem does not have to do with my extension's code, but I cannot for the life of me figure out what is wrong. I have examined every possible build setting, but given that I ran a default project template, made no changes, and it still had this problem, I'm not sure what else could be wrong.
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656
Jan ’25