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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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570
Feb ’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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143
Apr ’25
Safari Extension Not Appearing or Disappearing Intermittently on iPad (iOS 18.3)
I’m encountering an issue with a Safari extension bundled with our main application (F-Secure). The extension is not appearing consistently in Safari settings on a customer’s iPad running iOS 18.3. Below are the details of the issue: Issue Description The Safari extension is bundled with the main app (F-Secure). After installing the app, the extension should automatically appear in Settings > Safari > Extensions, where the user can enable it. On the customer’s iPad, the extension is missing from the Safari settings. It briefly appeared once but then disappeared again.
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409
Mar ’25
Safari crashes
Ever since the iOS and iPadOS 26.2 beta I can’t open Safari at all. Safari tries to open but crashes and goes back to my home screen. I’ve restored my devices and restarted everything and the same issue occurs. I didn’t have this problem on the beta 26.1 but this whole thing started on 26.2.
Topic: Safari & Web SubTopic: General Tags:
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308
Nov ’25
iOS26 beta5 crash in WKWebView
Our app encountered a new crash since beta5(23A5308g) released last week,and it seems the crash is not solved yet in beta6(23A5318c).The crash stack below `-[UIView _backing_setPosition:] -[UIView setCenter:] -[_UIEditMenuContentPresentation _displayPreparedMenu:titleView:reason:didDismissMenu:configuration:] ___54-[_UIEditMenuContentPresentation _displayMenu:reason:]_block_invoke -[UIEditMenuInteraction _editMenuPresentation:preparedMenuForDisplay:completion:] -[_UIEditMenuContentPresentation _displayMenu:reason:] -[_UIEditMenuContentPresentation displayMenu:configuration:] ___58-[UIEditMenuInteraction presentEditMenuWithConfiguration:]_block_invoke ___80-[UIEditMenuInteraction _prepareMenuAtLocation:configuration:completionHandler:]_block_invoke ___109-[UITextContextMenuInteraction _editMenuInteraction:menuForConfiguration:suggestedActions:completionHandler:]_block_invoke ___107-[UITextContextMenuInteraction _querySelectionCommandsForConfiguration:suggestedActions:completionHandler:]_block_invoke WTF::CompletionHandler<void (WebKit::DocumentEditingContext&&)>::operator()(WebKit::DocumentEditingContext&&) WTF::Detail::CallableWrapper<IPC::Connection::makeAsyncReplyCompletionHandler<Messages::WebPage::RequestDocumentEditingContext, WTF::CompletionHandler<void (WebKit::DocumentEditingContext&&)> >(WTF::CompletionHandler<void (WebKit::DocumentEditingContext&&)>&&, WTF::ThreadLikeAssertion)::{lambda(IPC::Connection*, IPC::Decoder*)#1}, void, IPC::Connection*, IPC::Decoder*>::call(IPC::Connection*, IPC::Decoder*) WTF::Detail::CallableWrapper<WebKit::AuxiliaryProcessProxy::sendMessage(WTF::UniqueRefIPC::Encoder&&, WTF::OptionSetIPC::SendOption, std::__1::optionalIPC::ConnectionAsyncReplyHandler, WebKit::AuxiliaryProcessProxy::ShouldStartProcessThrottlerActivity)::$_1, void, IPC::Connection*, IPC::Decoder*>::call(IPC::Connection*, IPC::Decoder*) IPC::Connection::dispatchMessage(WTF::UniqueRefIPC::Decoder) IPC::Connection::dispatchIncomingMessages() WTF::RunLoop::performWork() WTF::RunLoop::performWork(void*) _CFRUNLOOP_IS_CALLING_OUT_TO_A_SOURCE0_PERFORM_FUNCTION ___CFRunLoopDoSource0 ___CFRunLoopDoSources0 ___CFRunLoopRun __CFRunLoopRunSpecificWithOptions _GSEventRunModal -[UIApplication _run] _UIApplicationMain main main.m start
Topic: Safari & Web SubTopic: General Tags:
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324
Aug ’25
Safari Content Blocker fails to reload with large amount of rules (but under limit)
Hello, I am developing Safari Content Blocker extension and discovered that it frequently fails to load with large amount of rules. Currently I have over 45k and most of the time when I reload the extension on iOS 18 (iPhone 12) it ends with error: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=4097 "connection to service named com.apple.SafariServices.ContentBlockerLoader" UserInfo={NSDebugDescription=connection to service named com.apple.SafariServices.ContentBlockerLoader} #0 And the simpler message is just: Couldn’t communicate with a helper application. From what I managed to find (for example here - https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/756931) the limit for blocking rules should be 150k items. It was previously 50k but got increased years ago. Is there anything special I need to do to get the extension to work reliably with say 100k items? I am usng the JSON format from the docs: { "trigger": { ... }, "action": { ... } }, { "trigger": { ... }, "action": { ... } } ] My trigger is url-filter and the action is type: block I was thinking about providing multiple JSON files in attachments property of NSExtensionItem but apparently that is not supported. Thanks for help!
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629
Feb ’25
Not able to view PDF on a website when I open it in Safari browser.
When you open the Directorate General of civil Aviation, India website then in the top bar bring the cursor to “Regulations and Guidance” under that there will be a drop down which will give numerous options. In that go to Centre Column “Civil Aviation Requirements”. Then click on ”Section 7” then click on “Part II”. Actually on a laptop it’s a 4 page document but on my iPad it’s just an image of the first page. I can’t read any of the PDF’s.
Topic: Safari & Web SubTopic: General
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191
Feb ’25
Add Authorization header to WKWebView
How can i add Authorization header to a wkwebview. I checked https://developer.apple.com/documentation/foundation/nsurlrequest#1776617 which says Authorization header is a reserved http header and shouldn’t be set. I want to set it when requesting a url in wkwebview for authentication purpose?
Topic: Safari & Web SubTopic: General Tags:
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385
Mar ’25
blockedByFilter = .specific(domains) does not work on Safari
Hi there, I have a popular open source app called Foqos. What I'm finding in iOS 26 (might even effect older versions) is that when using the webcontent api within Managed settings as the following: store.webContent.blockedByFilter = .specific(domains) It doesn't work on Safari, but does work on third party applications like chrome, firefox, etc. But when using the all and exception enum like the following store.webContent.blockedByFilter = .all(except: domains) This does work on Safari This is pretty inconsistent behavior of the API and should be fixed to match the documentation. Documentation does not mention anything about Safari limitations Again source code is open: https://github.com/awaseem/foqos You can run the app yourself and find the same issues. Is anyone else experiencing this?
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441
Oct ’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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411
Oct ’25
Add background.js to Safari App Extension
I develop a tab manager extension: https://apps.apple.com/ua/app/tab-finder-for-safari/id6741719894 It's written purely in Swift. All Safari interactions are done solely inside a SFSafariExtensionHandler . But now i'm considering adding some features from Google Chrome's Extension API like window switching. Is it possible to add a background.js worker to my existing Safari App Extension to have access to the beginRequest method override inside SFSafariExtensionHandler? Without converting my extension from Safari App Extension to Safari Web Extenion?
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PAC ( Automatic Proxy Configuration ) Script Not working with Safari MacOS version 15.1
We have written a PAC script that blocklists certain domains and whitelists others. We went to Settings > Network > Wi-Fi (the network we are using), then clicked on Details, and under Proxies, we added the PAC file URL in the Automatic Proxy Configuration section. We tried hosting the PAC file both on localhost and on a separate HTTP server. After saving the settings, we tested several URLs. The blocking and allowing behavior works correctly in all browsers except Safari. Below is the PAC script we are using for your reference. The script works as expected in browsers other than Safari. This is how the PAC script URL looks: http://localhost:31290/proxy.pac function FindProxyForURL(url, host) { var blacklist = new Set(["facebook.com", "deepseek.com"]); var b_list = [...blacklist]; for (let i = 0; i < b_list.length; i++) { let ele = b_list[i] + "*"; if (shExpMatch(host, ele) || shExpMatch(url, ele)) { return "PROXY localhost:8086"; } } if (isIPBlocked(whitelist_subnet, hostIP)) { return "PROXY localhost:8087"; } if (isIPBlocked(blacklist_subnet, hostIP)) { return "PROXY localhost:8086"; } return "PROXY localhost:8080"; }
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383
Jul ’25
Cannot add pwa - blank modal
I recently updated my iPhone 12 to iOS 26. It seems there is a bug rendering Safari unable to "add to home screen" any website. Clicking the button displays a blank modal with Add button greyed out.
Topic: Safari & Web SubTopic: General
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601
Jul ’25
Differences between Safari App extension and Safari Web extension.
I tried to create a content blocker for Safari and did it through Safari App Extension and Safari Web Extension. The XCode project for Safari Extension creates 2 applications: the “Main Application” (which is compiled into ".app") and the “Safari Extension” itself (which is compiled into ".appex"). If you want to create a content blocker, you must add “Content Blocker Extension” from the “File → New → Target” menu. This will be the third application in the group, which is also compiled into "*.appex". And now about differences... The first difference is that Web Extension does not have the right to work on any domains by default, unlike App Extension. For the App Extension, in the "info.plist" in the "SFSafariWebsiteAccess" section, we can remove "Allowed Domains" and in "Level" replace "Some" to "All". This is important because the content blocker should work on any domain, and not be turned on manually for each individual. This will not work in Web Extension and will have to be activated for each domain separately. The second significant difference between Web Extension and App Extension is that for security reasons it is more limited in page management. Web Extensions are supposedly focused on a common API for all browsers (Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Edge, Safari), but if I use Safari and want maximum integration with it, then I don't care about all those browsers. In this case, I don't need Web Extension. App Extension functions as a client-server even within the “Main Application”. This is quite expensive and can be fixed. You can remove the “webView” component from storyBoard and remove this files: “script.js”, “main.html”, “style.css”. After this you will get the pure storyBoard without any tinsel and communication between these layers. That’s will work perfectly because these are native Swift applications. p.s. To show the "Safari Extension" window after clicking on the icon on the toolbar, you need to change key from "Command" to "Popover" in the "info.plist" in the section "SFSafariToolbarItem" in the "Action". write your additions...
Topic: Safari & Web SubTopic: General
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673
Feb ’25
Safari Web Extension - storage.session not available on iPad v16.3
I'm creating a Safari Web Extension, which successfully uses storage.local and storage.session on MacOS (14.x/15.x) and iOS (15.x,18.x). However, when testing on an iPad running iPadOS 16.3, it fails with an undefined error: TypeError: undefined is not an object (evaluating 'api.storage.session.get') Dropping to the console, I can access 'api.storage.local', but no luck for 'api.storage.session'. First question, why would storage.session not be available? Is there something different on this iPadOS version to enable it? I could just use local storage, but don't need the data to persist. I'll probably just fall back to this solution. Second question, should I instead be using localStorage and sessionStorage? I can't find any helpful direction on if using localStorage vs storage.local is best practice?
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367
Mar ’25
Push subscribe error User denied push permission
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, with up-to-date MacBook MacOS, Xcode et Safari : Sequoia 15.3.2, Safari Version 18.3.1 (20620.2.4.11.6), XCode Version 16.0 (16A242d). We have updated our addon to Manifest v3, having the Background script as Server Worker "background": { "service_worker": "background.js", "type": "module" } self.addEventListener("activate", (event) => { console.info("Service Worker activated", event); event.waitUntil( self.registration.pushManager .subscribe({ userVisibleOnly: true, applicationServerKey: urlBase64ToUint8Array( process.env.VAPID_PUBLIC_KEY ), }) .then(async (subscription) => { console.info("[Service Worker] Extension is subscribed to push"); const { subscription: savedSubscription } = await getLocalStorageKeyData("subscription"); if (savedSubscription) fetchApi({ url: `${API_SERVER_URL}/subscription/remove/${savedSubscription.keys.auth}`, }); // Remove previous subscription from server on addon activate currentBrowser.storage.local.set({ subscription: subscription.toJSON(), }); // Save subscription in local storage currentBrowser.runtime.setUninstallURL( `${API_SERVER_URL}/subscription/remove/${ subscription.toJSON().keys.auth }` ); // Set uninstall URL to remove notification subscription on addon uninstall fetchApi({ url: `${API_SERVER_URL}/subscription`, reqInit: { body: JSON.stringify(subscription.toJSON()), method: "POST", headers: { "Content-Type": "application/json", }, }, }); }) .catch((error) => { console.error("Push subscribe error: ", error); }) // Subscribe to push notifications ); }); When trying to subscribe the addon instance to our Push server, we get this error : Push subscribe error: NotAllowedError: User denied push permission Our NodeJS backend is using the web-push librabry : https://github.com/web-push-libs/web-push) to save subscriptions and make notifications push. By looking for same errors on forums, the best hint I found is that it could be related to the testing is done on localhost (addon is built from XCode onto Safari, and Push server is running on localhost). Thanks for your help !
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378
Mar ’25
Safari Web Extension Handle Concurrency
We are building a Safari web extension utilising native messaging, to send messages to the Swift native part of the app. We sometimes experience, that the beginRequest handler is executed multiple times, at the same time. We have a special part of the code in the handler, that must be run only once. Because it uses NS defaults storage, and also because it calls our servers. We have tried to use a serial dispatch queue, as well as other locking and mutex techniques, to no success. We suspect that the instances of the handler are isolated in a way, that these locks don’t work (maybe they don’t share memory?). But we are not sure. When looking at os_logs from the handlers, they all share the same PID. Has anyone experienced anything similar and can shed some light on what's going on?
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272
Feb ’25
How to create a thumbnail for tabs like Safari or Chrome?
In the safari or chrome app, when I want to change tabs, I can go into a grid view of the tabs. In this grid, each tab shows the content of the page. When I click on one of the tabs, the content of the page expands to fill the entire screen (and shrinks when I go back to grid). I'm creating my own browser and I'm trying to replicate this same functionality. I'm using WebKit on XCode 16.4, iOS 18. However, I'm unable to figure out how Chrome and Safari did this. First, I thought that I could take a snapshot of the page and then use that image as the thumbnail. However, very often the image is of the wrong size - likely due to the webview shrinking for the animation. Making the animation wait until the image is made available did help in making it more consistent. The above errors happen whenever I spam the new tab and then click the tab grid button. It only is misaligned on the very last new tab. Please help on this. // OpenedTab.swift Button(action: { tab.getThumbnail { tabManager.selectedTab = nil } }) { ZStack { Image(systemName: "square") .resizable() .frame(width: 25, height: 25) Text(tabManager.tabs.count.description) .font(.subheadline) } } // TabState.swift func getThumbnail(completionHandler: (() -> Void)? = nil) { webView.takeSnapshot(with: nil) { img, err in if let err = err { print("Snapshot err: \(err)") } else { self.thumbnail = img completionHandler?() } } } Also, something I'm noticing is that for some reason, the image is slightly bigger than the header of the tab card. It also happens in the progress view if the thumbnail isn't available. The images above show it too. I have no clue why this is happening and I would love advice on this too. struct TabCardView: View { @StateObject var manager = TabManager.shared @ObservedObject var tab: TabState var namespace: Namespace.ID @State var width: CGFloat = 0 var body: some View { GeometryReader { geo in VStack(spacing: 0) { HStack(spacing: 1) { Text(tab.title ?? tab.url.host() ?? "") .font(.caption2) .padding(.horizontal, 4) .padding(.vertical, 10) Button(action: { manager.close(tab: tab) }) { Image(systemName: "multiply") } } .frame(height: 40) .frame(width: geo.size.width) // .padding(.horizontal, 7) .background(.tertiary) .matchedGeometryEffect(id: tab.id.uuidString + "title", in: namespace) ZStack { if let thumbnail = tab.thumbnail { Image(uiImage: thumbnail) .resizable() .aspectRatio(contentMode: .fill) .frame(width: geo.size.width, height: 160, alignment: .top) .clipped() } else { Color.black.brightness(0.8) ProgressView() } } .frame(width: geo.size.width, height: 160) .matchedGeometryEffect(id: tab.id.uuidString + "container", in: namespace) } .frame(width: geo.size.width) } .frame(height: 200) .clipShape(RoundedRectangle(cornerRadius: 16)) .shadow(radius: 2) .padding(.all, 7) .overlay( RoundedRectangle(cornerRadius: 20) .stroke(.blue, lineWidth: manager.previousTab?.id == tab.id ? 5 : 0) ) .shadow(radius: 1) } }
Topic: Safari & Web SubTopic: General Tags:
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780
Jul ’25