Cordova-plugin-ionic-webview: 2.x on iOS: incompatibility with cordova-hot-code-push-plugin - showing white page after app was killed and restarted

[berndlackinger]

Using cordova-hot-code-push-plugin, if you kill the app via appswitcher and restart it, a white page is displayed.

The location of this new white index page is:

in iOS simulator:
http://localhost:8080/Users/****/Library/Developer/CoreSimulator/Devices/***/data/Containers/Data/Application/***/Library/Application%20Support/com******.prod/cordova-hot-code-push-plugin/2018.08.09-10.50.04/www//index.html

on real device:
http://localhost:8080/var/mobile/Containers/Data/Application/****/Library/Application%20Support/com.******.prod/cordova-hot-code-push-plugin/2018.08.09-10.50.04/www//index.html

When i the reload the app vie Webinspector i see it's a 404.

If i do a window.location.replace('http://localhost:8080/index.html') everything works as intended - until the app gets killed and restarted again.

it seems to have to do with #138

[superbigsoft]

I had the same issue while using https://github.com/Microsoft/cordova-plugin-code-push
I worked around by modifying function setServerPath of CDVWKWebViewEngine.m.

Basically, i handled 2 more cases:

1. CDV_LOCAL_SERVER is null in some cases
2. Modify request to path (^/var/mobile/|^/Users/) to

It seems to be working. I'm not sure of any side effect.
=> Please let me know if this would be fine?

-(void)setServerPath:(NSString *) path
{
    self.basePath = path;
    BOOL restart = [self.webServer isRunning];
    if (restart) {
        [self.webServer stop];
    }

    if (self.CDV_LOCAL_SERVER == nil) {
        NSDictionary * settings = self.commandDelegate.settings;
        //bind to designated hostname or default to localhost
        NSString *bind = [settings cordovaSettingForKey:@"WKBind"];
        if(bind == nil){
            bind = @"localhost";
        }

        //bind to designated port or default to 8080
        int portNumber = [settings cordovaFloatSettingForKey:@"WKPort" defaultValue:8080];

        //set the local server name
        self.CDV_LOCAL_SERVER = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"http://%@:%d", bind, portNumber];
    }

    NSString *serverUrl = self.CDV_LOCAL_SERVER;

    [self.webServer addGETHandlerForBasePath:@"/" directoryPath:path indexFilename:((CDVViewController *)self.viewController).startPage cacheAge:0 allowRangeRequests:YES];

    NSString *codePushUrl =@"(^/var/mobile/|^/Users/)";
    [self.webServer addHandlerForMethod:@"GET" pathRegex:codePushUrl requestClass:GCDWebServerFileRequest.class asyncProcessBlock:^(__kindof GCDWebServerRequest * _Nonnull request, GCDWebServerCompletionBlock  _Nonnull completionBlock) {

        NSString *absUrl = [[[request URL] absoluteString] stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:serverUrl withString:@""];

        NSRange range = [absUrl rangeOfString:@"?"];
        if (range.location != NSNotFound) {
            absUrl = [absUrl substringToIndex:range.location];
        }

        GCDWebServerFileResponse *response = [GCDWebServerFileResponse responseWithFile:absUrl];
        completionBlock(response);
    }];

    [self.webServer addHandlerForMethod:@"GET" pathRegex:@"_file_/" requestClass:GCDWebServerFileRequest.class asyncProcessBlock:^(__kindof GCDWebServerRequest * _Nonnull request, GCDWebServerCompletionBlock  _Nonnull completionBlock) {
        NSString *urlToRemove = [serverUrl stringByAppendingString:@"/_file_"];
        NSString *absUrl = [[[request URL] absoluteString] stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:urlToRemove withString:@""];

        NSRange range = [absUrl rangeOfString:@"?"];
        if (range.location != NSNotFound) {
            absUrl = [absUrl substringToIndex:range.location];
        }

        GCDWebServerFileResponse *response = [GCDWebServerFileResponse responseWithFile:absUrl];
        completionBlock(response);
    }];
    if (restart) {
        [self startServer];
    }
}

[ghenry22]

May not be the issue here but I see an error in your URL's

www//index.html

should have only 1x /

[berndlackinger]

@ghenry22 i saw that too, tried the window.location.replace thing without the second slash - didn't work either.

[berndlackinger]

@superbigsoft i tried your changes and later your whole fork - the app crashes then.

[berndlackinger]

maybe i should mention that it works flawlessly in the 1.x version of cordova-plugin-ionic-webview, but then we do not have the local webserver for android

[superbigsoft]

@berndlackinger: could you copy here the exception causing app to crash?

[berndlackinger]

i am no iOS developer, but XCODE shows me GCDWebServerFileResponse.m line 82

[superbigsoft]

@berndlackinger: me neither iOS nor Android dev. But if you can setup a simple demo and upload it to another repo, i might try to help debugging it.

[berndlackinger]

Here's how to reproduce it:

cordova create TestProject com.example.testproject TestProject
cd ./TestProject
cordova platform add ios

cordova plugin add [email protected]
cordova plugin add cordova-hot-code-push-plugin
cordova emulate ios

-> everything works with the 1.x version of the webview plugin and hot code push

cordova plugin rm cordova-plugin-ionic-webview
cordova plugin rm cordova-hot-code-push-plugin
cordova plugin add [email protected]
cordova emulate ios

-> everything works with the 2.x version of the webview plugin without hot code push

cordova plugin add cordova-hot-code-push-plugin
cordova emulate ios

-> does not work with the 2.x version of the webview plugin and hot code push

[superbigsoft]

@berndlackinger: i fixed the error in my repo. Could you please try again? The problem was because Hot-Code-Push is storing file in folder "Application Support" which is when encoded in URL turned into "Application%20Support" that can't be found by the GCDWebServer

[berndlackinger]

@superbigsoft i am happy to report it is working :) 💯
Thanks a lot!

[litianyangz]

@berndlackinger @superbigsoft I had the same problem, and I couldn't find the CDVWK WebViewEngine. M. file, hoping to get help

[ghenry22]

@superbigsoft I saw your repo, I will test this out and create a PR against the ionic-webview to merge these changes in

[superbigsoft]

@litianyangz are you using my repo? What error did you get?

[superbigsoft]

@ghenry22 Feel free to review and merge the changes. However please note that i'm not iOS/Android developer so i'm not 100% sure about my fixes. So it's great if you can review and let us know if it works well.

[litianyangz]

@superbigsoft I didn't find the CDVWKWebViewEngine.m. file. Can you write the demo and tell me the connection address?

[superbigsoft]

@litianyangz: you can try my repo: cordova plugin add https://github.com/superbigsoft/cordova-plugin-ionic-webview.git

[litianyangz]

@superbigsoft OK, thank you. I look forward to good results.

[litianyangz]

@superbigsoft

There seems to be no jurisdiction

[litianyangz]

@superbigsoft

[litianyangz]

@superbigsoft

[superbigsoft]

@litianyangz please let me know what the value of variable path at line 81 is?

[litianyangz]

@superbigsoft Can you tell me what chat tools you use? Maybe we can communicate with chat tools.

[litianyangz]

@superbigsoft i am happy to report it is working :) 💯
Thanks a lot!

[davidemanske]

@superbigsoft Thanks for providing your repo, it works for me on iOS. However, I'm also seeing this same issue on Android. Are you able to check into a similar fix for Android like you've done for iOS?

[hooliy]

@superbigsoft Thank you very much for solving my problem, but it seems not perfect. There is a blank in the bottom. Occasionally APP exit！

[moldstadt]

I am experiencing the same problem as @hooliy. Any chance that the ionic team will look at resolving this properly?

[mlynch]

We’re removing the internal web server so maybe the issue will resolve itself once that is out

[shaxxx]

@mlynch Just to be clear this plug-in will no longer serve assets from http urls but file:// urls instead?

[sithwarrior]

@mlynch Can you elaborate on that? Im testing upgrading from 1.2 to 2.2.5 (to fix xcode 10 ios 12 bug) and it causes a lot of issues on our Android version, that it now has a webserver.

[akash-pal]

We’re removing the internal web server so maybe the issue will resolve itself once that is out

Hi @mlynch any update on this issue ?

[Silvest89]

I have the same problem here even with @superbigsoft repo

[davidemanske]

We’re removing the internal web server so maybe the issue will resolve itself once that is out

Should we just assume this is not going to happen and start thinking about Ionic 4?

[akimakitalo]

Its been a months now with no news.

Is the web server still going to be removed, or has the situation changed? I realise these things take time, but it would be nice to know whats going to happen.

@mlynch, willing to comment?

[sithwarrior]

We’re removing the internal web server so maybe the issue will resolve itself once that is out

@mlynch Is this still happening?