Core Spotlight Userinfo is always empty

Question

I am using a combination of CoreSpotlight api and NSUserActivity api to index app content. Everything goes well until I tap a search result. The userInfo passed with userActivity in continueUserActivity method contains only one item i.e kCSSearchableItemActivityIdentifier. My other custom keys are nil.

Here is my code for indexing items..

class MyTestViewController:UIViewController{
     viewDidLoad(){
        searchHandler = SearchHandler()
        searchHandler.index(items)
     }
 }

 class  SearchHandler{
         var activity: NSUserActivity!

         func index(items:[Item]){
            for item in items{
         let attributeSet = getSearchItemAttribute(item)
                if let attributeSet =  attributeSet{
                    let searchableItem = CSSearchableItem(uniqueIdentifier: item.uniqueId, domainIdentifier:itemType.groupId(), attributeSet: attributeSet)
                    searchableItem.expirationDate = item.expirationDate
                    addToSpotlight([searchableItem])
                }

            activity = NSUserActivity(activityType: searchPrivacy.activity())
            activity.delegate = delegate

            //meta data
            activity.title = item.title

            var userInfoDic = [NSObject:AnyObject]()
            userInfoDic["indexItemType"] = itemType.rawValue
            userInfoDic["address"] = item.title
            activity.userInfo = userInfoDic

            if item.expirationDate != nil { activity.expirationDate = item.expirationDate! }
            if item.keywords != nil { activity.keywords = item.keywords! }
            activity.contentAttributeSet = attributeSet

            //eligibility
            activity.eligibleForHandoff = false
            activity.eligibleForSearch = true
            activity.eligibleForPublicIndexing = true
            activity.requiredUserInfoKeys = Set(["indexItemType","address"])

            activity.becomeCurrent()
            }
 }

 private  func getSearchItemAttribute(item:Item) ->CSSearchableItemAttributeSet?{
    if item.contentType != nil { // add an entry to core spot light
        let attributeSet = CSSearchableItemAttributeSet(itemContentType: item.contentType!)
        attributeSet.relatedUniqueIdentifier = item.uniqueId
        HALog.i("item.uniqueId= \(item.uniqueId)")
        attributeSet.title = item.title
        attributeSet.thumbnailData = item.thumbnailData
        attributeSet.thumbnailURL = item.thumbnailUrl
        attributeSet.rating = item.ratings
        attributeSet.ratingDescription = item.ratingDescription
        attributeSet.contentDescription = item.contentDescription
        return attributeSet
    }
    return nil
}

private  func addToSpotlight(searchableItems:[CSSearchableItem]) {

    CSSearchableIndex.defaultSearchableIndex().indexSearchableItems(searchableItems) { (error) -> Void in
        if let error = error {
            HALog.e("Deindexing error: \(error.localizedDescription)")
        } else {
            HALog.i("Search item successfully indexed!")
        }
    }

   }
}

Whenever I try to access indexItemType or address keys in userInfo its always nil.

I have tried all the solutions from these threads:

1. iOS 9 - NSUserActivity userinfo property showing null

2. http://helpprogramming.xyz/question/31328032/ios-9-nsuseractivity-userinfo-property-showing-null

None of the above solved my problem. I am currently using Xcode 7 with iOS 9.

Answer 1

If you use CSSearchableIndex then you will only receive the kCSSearchableItemActivityIdentifier in the userInfo. To set and retrieve custom properties in the userInfo you should only set the userActivity to becomeCurrent.

Stub out your call for the CSSearchableIndex and see if it works (you should also make sure your nsuseractivity object is a strong property on your view/model, as it can get deallocated before it has a chance to save the userInfo).

The info on the thread below helped me:

https://forums.developer.apple.com/thread/9690

Answer 2

I had the same issue here, and i searched so many answers not working for me... fortunately i got my solution in ios-9-tutorial-series-search-api

I recommend you read all the content above. I will give you two alternative solutions:

1. use NSUserActivity instead of CSSearchableItem: when you done your data setting, call userActivity.becomeCurrent, then your can found your data in spotlight(just two more things: I don't have a iOS 9 device, so only tested in iOS 10 Device, and the article I mentioned above said NSUserActivity is limited to one activity per navigation point, but I don't have such kind issue...)

2. use CSSearchableItem, set the uniqueIdentifier to a JSON string that contains your custom userInfo.

NOTE: Do not index a CSSearchableItem and call userActivity.becomeCurrent both, otherwise you will got two spotlight results. One of them is com.apple.corespotlightitem, other one is your custom activityType