Why is SFSafariWebViewController not sharing cookies with Safari properly?

Question

I created an incredibly basic app which includes a SFSafariViewController pointing at the URL http://www.w3schools.com/js/js_cookies.asp . This is a test website for reading and writing cookies.

I then loaded the same website into Mobile Safari, and added one cookie. I switched to my app, read the cookie, it's there. I go back to Safari, add another cookie, go back to my app, but the second cookie hasn't appeared. I refresh the pages, no difference. Go back to Safari and read the cookies, they are both read successfully.

Is there anything I need to do between apps in order for the cookies to be written and read properly?

Answer 1

A user on the Apple Dev Forums suggested that it might only work for "persisted cookies" not "session cookies". I wasn't setting an expiry date on my cookies. I changed that by getting a time in the future:

const expireTime = new Date(Date.now() + 1000 * 60 * 60 * 24).toGMTString();

And then setting it in the header:

"Set-Cookie":`query=${uri.query}; path=/; expires=${expireTime}`

And now the cookie value appears in SFSafariViewController.

Answer 2

You could enforce the SFSarfariViewController to dismiss when the app closes. This would ensure the webpage gets refreshed along with any new cookies.

In ViewDidLoad:

[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self selector:@selector(shouldDismiss:) name:UIApplicationDidEnterBackgroundNotification object:nil];

then:

- (void)shouldDismiss:(NSNotification*)notification {

    [self.safariViewContollerName dismissViewControllerAnimated:YES completion:nil]  
}

Hope this helps,

Liam