In Safari Web Extensions on iOS 18, declarativeNetRequest Rulesets and Dynamic Rules take over twice as long to apply -- which causes rulesets to often fail to apply before sites load. In a boilerplate Xcode project you can note the time difference toggling the OISD (https://oisd.nl) ruleset on iOS 17 and iOS 18 simulators. Additionally, if you force quit Safari and reopen to a site with ads blocked by OISD list (e.g. espn.com) the content will be blocked in that initial state on iOS 17, but not in iOS 18 due to the latency.
Based on the boilerplate extension, this bug is impacting all Mobile Safari Extensions using declarativeNetRequest Rulesets and Dynamic Rules. We know several other extension developers dealing with this issue.
Our team wrote detailed reproduction steps in our Feedback Assistant ticket: https://feedbackassistant.apple.com/feedback/15196130 but have received no responses. I would attach a screen recording here but it won't allow me.
Safari and Web
RSS for tagEnable web views and services in your apps.
Posts under Safari and Web tag
139 Posts
Sort by:
Post
Replies
Boosts
Views
Activity
I am working Web to App flow for my product.
Tolink to my app from web service, I define uri scheme from app and use it from my web site.
But, when I try to use this scheme from mobile safari web, It sometimes failed with message that uri is invalid.
That is weird It failed SOMETIMES not always Even I tried with same url.
In my device, there is current version app.
Why this happen? How can I resolve this issue?
This is problematic when opening links to other websites that require separate authentication. A typical example would be a Gmail web app, and then trying to open a link to a GitHub PR.
In the 18.0 release notes, this is mentioned as
Added support for opening links directly in web apps on macOS. (113034778
It'd be great if this could be customizable so that one could choose the old behavior.
Since iPadOS 18.x WKWebView seems to have a bug within its Fullscreen API (which can be enabled via WKPreferences.isElementFullscreenEnabled). This bug has the effect that websites trying to make an element (for example a video player) fullscreen fail to do so. This does not always happen, most of the time the fullscreen mode does work fine, but sometimes (far too often to be ignored) it does not. If an instance of WKWebView shows this issue, it can not be "fixed" by reloading the page or loading other pages, this issue exists in this instance forever.
My App is a web browser App so I can create and remove WKWebView instance easily (by opening or closing Tabs). And there are times where I never see this bug, and times where ever other tab shows this bug. It's totally unreliable.
The App does not show any issues at all when running under iPadOS 17 or older. The issue is only present under iPadOS 18.x.
After some testing I've found out that when the bug has affected an instance of WKWebView, the JavaScript call element.requestFullscreen() will work if the element is a video element, but does no longer work if it is another element (like a DIV). If an instance of WKWebView is not affected by this bug, element.requestFullscreen() will work for all HTML elements.
Does anyone has experienced this bug as well? And maybe found a workaround? Or maybe found a pattern which helps to find out what exactly is triggering this bug?
I'm developing an application that utilizes WKWebView to display a webpage. My goal is to improve the performance and loading speed of this webpage by intercepting specific API calls and providing pre-stored JSON responses directly from within the app, ensuring the webpage renders instantaneously.
The challenge I am encountering is the inability to intercept HTTPS URL schemes directly from WKWebView. Any insights or solutions from the community on how to effectively manage and overwrite these particular network requests would be greatly appreciated.
When user opens a new tab and loads a website, the declarativeNetRequest.getMatchedRules() returns nil and on reloading in the same tab it returns the URLs blocked.
Is this an expected behaviour?
Hi, I had been working on an extension without any issues, running it from Xcode and debugging locally in Safari. However, without making any code changes, and after uninstalling the extension, it stopped appearing in Safari after building for local debugging. Does anyone know what might be happening or how I can clean up the system?
Thanks a lot and best regards.
Hi. I've noticed on both iOS 17 and iPadOS 16 that when an user opens a website in a WKWebview (e.g from Gmail), then requests it to be opened in the external Safari app (through the "compass" icon), their localStorage data is not transferred to the Safari tab.
This behaviour breaks web experiences that rely on data being locally stored, e.g auth tokens or user identification data. It effectively stops users from being able to use some websites outside of an in-app context.
I am aware of Webkit's tracking prevention mechanisms such as https://webkit.org/tracking-prevention/#partitioned-third-party-localstorage, but I don't think this should apply to this case. Here the user is navigating between two Safari tabs (one internal and one external) on the same domain, exact same URL, by pressing a native Safari webview icon. There is no third-party cross-domain tracking happening.
Is this a bug or intended behaviour?
I have noticed that tabs.onRemoved works differently in Safari 18 comparing to other browsers and Safari 17.
Open a tab e.g. apple.com
Take note of the active tab id using this code:
browser.tabs.query({currentWindow: true, active: true}, (x) => console.log(x[0].id))
Add a listener on onRemoved:
browser.tabs.onRemoved.addListener(console.log)
on the active tab, navigate to e.g. https://developer.mozilla.org
Take note of the active tab id again (using the same tabs.query).
Expect:
there should be no console.log of onRemoved.
the active tab id stays the same.
Actual:
there is a console.log of onRemoved.
the active tab id is changed.
Please help. If this is a bug introduced in Safari 18, it would break a lot of JS Web extensions.
I have a homepage with an iframe containing my app LocalStorage,
but when opening my app page the LocalStorage is lost.
structuration of the page:
homepage : domain.com
iframe and app : app.domain.com
the localstorage is set up directly within the iframe and postmessage between iframe and parent works.
We see in the parent page that the LocalStorage for the sub-domain is set but opening the sub-domain on a new window it disappears :
The problem is detected On Safari 18 only.
We used declarativeNetRequest.getMatchedRules() to retrieve the blocked URLs. While we do receive a list, we noticed that the URLs captured do not always reflect the ones the content blocker is actively blocking at that moment. However, upon reloading the same page, the correct URLs appear.
Screenshots are attached for your reference.
First load:
After reload:
I have noticed that storage.local.get API works differently in Safari 18 compare to other browsers and Safari 17.
browser.storage.local.set({abc: 123})
browser.storage.local.get(console.log) // {abc: 123}
browser.storage.local.get({abc: null}, console.log) // expect {abc: 123} but got undefined instead.
According to MDN, storage.local.get should work with an object with object names as keys and the default value as value.
According to Safari 18 Release notes, this may be related to a fix: 'Fixed getting an empty key from storage. (99440265) (FB11427769)'.
We are using declarativeNetRequest.getMatchedRules() to get the matched rules' URLs. When user switches website in the same tab, it returns URLs which were blocked in the previous website also, within past 5 minutes.
Is it possible to fetch getMatchedRules() only for current webpage in the same tab?
Hi, I am developing the Click & Read web add-on for Chromium, Firefox and Safari.
We use xcrun safari-web-extension-converter tool to generate the Safari add-on. The build on Xcode had no meaning errors/warnings, until we had to switch to a more up-to-date MacBook (required as deprecated Mac had no support for latest macOS and thus for Xcode compatibility !).
So now I build my add-on on an Apple M1 MB Air on Sequoia 15.0 with latest Xcode, but I encounter an error ? or warning ? :
NSBundle file:///System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/MetalTools.framework/ principal class is nil because all fallbacks have failed
Unable to create bundle at URL ((null)): normalized URL null
Unable to create bundle at URL ((null)): normalized URL null
Unable to create bundle at URL ((null)): normalized URL null
But it doesn't prevent the add-on build to complete as I am able to open it onto Safari. Then, when loading the add-on on a test web page, I get this error on safari console:
Error: Invalid call to runtime.connect(). No runtime.onConnect listeners found.
BTW, the same add-on Dist works as expected on Chrome or Firefox (on macOS).
So it seems the runtime listener runtime.onConnect.addListener isn't initiated on Background script...
Thanks for your feedback and help
Dependent fields for multi-select options and dropdown fields are not displaying in Safari, although they work correctly in Chrome and Firefox.
Scenario
You have a form built with ASP.NET and Razor, where users need to select multiple options from a dropdown list to trigger the display of dependent fields.
Multi-Select Dropdown: The form has a multi-select dropdown for choosing different categories (Category A, Category B, etc.).
Dependent Fields: Based on the user's selection, certain dependent fields should become visible. For example, if the user selects Category A, an additional input field titled "Details for Category A" should be shown.
Expected Behavior (Chrome & Firefox)
When the user selects Category A or Category B, the corresponding input fields are displayed dynamically, functioning as expected.
Issue in Safari :
In Safari, the dependent fields do not show up when a user selects any category. It's as if the JavaScript or the CSS responsible for displaying these fields is not executing correctly.
CHROME
SAFARI
Browser: Safari (Version 18.0 (20619.1.26.31.6))
Operating System: MacOS (sequoia 15.0)
Device: MacBook Pro 14 Inch Apple M3 Pro , iPhone 14 iOS 18.0
Hai guys,
I'm trying to do autofocus on the search input while user clicks the search icon but its not working as expected in iPhone and iPad so go through some blogs and stackoverflow they mentioned the apple has removed the focus() from touchable device for usablity reason is anyone come up with the same issue or having solution for this kindly share. That must be helpful for me.
iOS 18 WKWebView images are not loading, no errors in older versions.
The example while loading HTML is as follows. A problem occurs when you pull an image from a url. To get a URL image you need a cookie or something. I add them too, but it doesn't work on iOS 18. I get the error "An error occurred trying to load the resource." and a blue question mark on the screen.
webView.configuration.websiteDataStore.httpCookieStore.setCookie(cookie)
<html>
<head>
<style>
body {
font-family: -apple-system;
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
text-align: center;
}
img {
width: 100%;
height: auto;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Resim Görüntüleme</h1>
<img src="https://xx.***.xx/example.png">
</body>
</html>
"""
I have an issue with web ads not working in Safari versions earlier than 16.4.
While debugging Safari Web Ads I found out that I don't get postbacks from versions 16.4 or below from Safari, although there are no technical limitations and the documentation says that web ads should work starting from versions 16.1 https://developer.apple.com/documentation/storekit/skadnetwork/skadnetwork_release_notes/skadnetwork_4_release_notes
For ads that appear in an app, the app is built with iOS 16.1 SDK or later. For web ads, the ad appears in Safari 16.1 or later.``
Maybe I missed something and Apple didn't update the documentation, is that normal?
Maybe it's related to this release and there was a technical problem with Apple? https://developer.apple.com/documentation/ios-ipados-release-notes/ios-ipados-16_4-release-notes/#SKAdNetwork
Has anyone encountered the same problem and how did you fix it?
Thanks!
My Safari extension has a WKWebView in the main app and an HTML popup window in Safari. For some reason, both are in dark mode on visionOS, even though the device environment is light and Safari tabs are also showing light mode. Why does this happen, and how can I change it?
So recently Intune add support for controlling safari web extension enablement using the new ddm configuration added in Macos 15, but unfortunately I can't make it work no matter what I try.
On the destination machine I see the that a user declaration for safari extension has been created, but there is not details on which extension they applied and it seems faulty (See attachment)
I have 2 questions:
Has anyone managed to make it work?
Is there a way to test this declaration like I can do with Mobile config by manually load it to the machine?
Thank you.