11 ms·

Unable to open links in Safari, Mail or Messages on iOS 9.3

231 points by nardras 11y ago

Killah911 11y ago
Amen, I've been suffering from l HN withdrawal symptoms due to this. I have only been able to read comments and submission headlines on the iPhone. Updtae: this is likely due to third party apps (in my case Booking.com). But uninstalling doesn't seem to help. Also I couldn't read the article since safari can only visit URLs that I explicitly type in
- umanwizard 11y ago
  Workaround mentioned in the article: disable JavaScript. Hope this helps you.
  - UVB-76 11y ago
    Far too many websites rely on JavaScript now for this to be a real workaround.
- puddintane 11y ago
  Does copy and paste not work?
  - leetrout 11y ago
    Not for me. Long pressing causes safari to lock up and crash.
    - Nazzareno 11y ago
      Long pressing works with Chrome
  - disposeofnick9 11y ago
    There's also another annoying, existing bug in iOS at least back to 9.2 where if memory is low, copy stops working... the clipboard retains the old value until you kill basically every other app.
cl3m 11y ago
Had this since yesterday. Best solution so far is to disable JavaScript or use opera mini
- thesimon 11y ago
  I can't find it atm, but someone contacted Apple on Twitter and they replied that disabling JavaScript is the best workaround.
- jedmeyers 11y ago
  Another workaround: using long click in Chrome will allow opening of the link in a new tab.
misterdata 11y ago
This appears to be caused by a bug in the Shared Web Credentials Daemon, which shares website credentials between apps and Safari. Once particular data is put in its database, it keeps crashing. https://twitter.com/aveapps/status/714215571894747136 https://twitter.com/aveapps/status/714215571894747136
- tvmalsv 11y ago
  Safari kept crashing for me (and occasionally other apps, but don't know if related, just thought they were buggy apps) on my iPhone 5. I originally thought it was a problem with some sites being horribly broken, but it was also happening on mainstream sites such as wsj.com. After I installed the 9.3 update, the crashes stopped. Maybe the firmware update and device reset clears that database. Or it could be completely unrelated. Whichever, that's my anecdote.
- cristianbica 11y ago
  Shared Web Credentials and App Links are set in the same file: you have an .entitlements where you set on what domains you want to have applinks, webcredentials. Then the iOS downloads from those domains a signed json file where you specify what apps can do applinks or webcredentials and you can limit those actions on some paths. What booking.com did is populated the paths section will 2.4M of urls instead of using wildcards (like "hotels/*"). The effect on the iOS is the Shared Web Credentials Daemon (the file is swcd) has a bug and with high amount of data it corrupts it's own database and fails. When opening absolute urls (schema://, ex: http:// http://) the iOS wants to pull some data from swcd which isn't running because of the corrupt database so it freezes the app opening the absolute url. From my point of view Apple is the only to be blamed (of course booking.com has been sloppy). They shipped a buggy core component (swcd) and they failed on the booking.com app approval process to detect this behavior.
neals 11y ago
Anybody know if this causes issues in Cordova / Phonegap apps?
- knd775 11y ago
  This could potentially be an issue with any app that uses an association file. edit To clarify, you need to use an association file on your website that references your app. What triggers the bug seems to be unknown, but appears to involve shared credentials.
- hicksyfern 11y ago
  We have a Cordova app that begins on a local web page then immediately redirects to a remote page, and we have recently had a bunch of users on iOS 9.3 complain that they are just stuck on the first screen. So it looks like it probably does affect Cordova apps.
based2 11y ago
from your iPhone
- sp332 11y ago
  It does say "on iOS 9.3".
stygiansonic 11y ago
I wonder if there was something particular about the booking.com site association file (i.e. some particular data in the `paths` array) or whether it was just the fact that the `paths` array was unexpected large, and when put into the overall database, made that too large to handle? Wonder if anyone has a copy of the old booking.com association file (the one that caused problems) - would be interesting to look at.
- tiglionabbit 11y ago
  It could easily be just because it's too large. Either there was a buffer overrun, or something got truncated in a bad way.
- 0x0 11y ago
  Probably an O(n^2) style algorithm as they never expected files with insane sizes like that
tommyd 11y ago
Good to hear someone has got to the bottom of this. Been unable to use Safari for a few days due to it. I haven't updated any apps for months (I don't trust auto update to not leave my apps in a half downloaded state so I just let them mount up until I eventually download hundreds of updates!) so iOS must periodically check this list automatically rather then just when an app is updated/installed. The combination of a lack of an official response from Apple yet, the fact that this was apparently found by beta users (not that the issue is related to 9.3 directly, but it was reported as a beta issue by some), and the inability to change default browser leaving my phone in a pretty broken state has got me seriously considering a switch to Android though, where at least such a bug could probably be worked around through changing defaults or worst case flashing a new ROM. The iOS 9.3 release suggests Apple's QA process is rather lacking and incidents like this won't help confidence in their devices - it's okay for users who know how to work around it and understand what is going on, but my parents would probably think the whole internet was broken! Rant over, glad to see this on HN as it has been p*ing me off for a few days :)
- ricardobeat 11y ago
  Same here. I hesitated to upgrade to 9.3 when prompted but went ahead anyway, guess what I'm going to do next time... It baffles me that Apple let this bug go live when it was reported multiple times during betas. And the impossibility of avoiding the issue by using a different browser only adds to injury.
  - fnayr 11y ago
    Then get ready to have to daily respond to an unwanted popup dialog trying to force you to update. It's infuriating that Apple thinks it's ok to repeatedly harass you to update with NO option to turn off the prompts. This issue alone has made me want to switch to Android and I'd never thought I would say that.
    - jlarocco 11y ago
      The annoying login and update prompts are going to push me to Android faster than anything. I get prompted to log in to iTunes or iCloud literally 5 or 6 times just opening the Music app, navigating to a playlist, and clicking on a song. It's infuriating.
mynegation 11y ago
Submitted another story about this couple of days ago but it did not get much attention. Granted, this one calls out very specific technical reason. I have this problem after update to iOS 9.3 and FWIW I have Booking.com app installed. This problem was haunting users for quite a while, since beta for sure and may be even for some users on 9.2.1. The lack of response from Apple is disheartening. I am seriously considering switching to Android. Disabling JavaScript allows to navigate links in Safari, but opening links from other apps freezes them and many sites are broken without JS. My only recourse for now is to factory reset the phone, which is a huge PITA. And of course never ever install booking.com app
- tommyd 11y ago
  Your thoughts echo mine exactly (right down to submitting a story that got no votes!). The fact that this kind of bug would have a lower impact on Android (i.e. wouldn't disable major functionality due to the ability to switch out default apps), along with a general sense that Apple's software quality and support is becoming less reliably good (I would certainly have expected a quicker official response to this issue) and a slight feeing that Android is creeping ahead of iOS in terms of interesting new functionality is making me seriously consider the switch (partially as a kind of "protest" move, partially because I'm really annoyed about a major part of my phone breaking randomly, and partially because I'm curious to try it out), which I definitely wasn't seriously giving any thought to before this. Could work out to be a good thing in the end ;)
- epalmer 11y ago
  I ordered a nexus 6p today. Been an iphone user since the first year. I have grown tired of so many things that are ios. I mostly use google apps and them games and other apps that have android versions. I'm concerned that hands free calling, which I love from my Honda, may not work. If it does not then I will return the nexus and go back to iphone but will be very unhappy. I have multiple tablets (for work evals) and love both the ipad pro and several android tables I have. But I still have things about the ipad pro that bug me. Stop trying to upsell me icloud services.
  - 11y ago
dclowd9901 11y ago
WTAF, Am I reading this right? Booking.com was sending a 2.3MB file to every user, but only usable to iOS users?
- ricardobeat 11y ago
  No, this file is part of the iOS app.
  - cballard 11y ago
    Both you and the OP are incorrect. The file is not included in the app (only referred to), but is only downloaded by iOS itself - or anyone who points a web client directly at it, of course.
    - rocky1138 11y ago
      Do you have a link to it?
      - adregan 11y ago
        Looks like a signed json file found at `/apple-app-site-association` on sites that support it (eg. booking.com/apple-app-site-association, nytimes.com/apple-app-site-association, &c.)
Calvin02 11y ago
Fix that worked for me: 1) Put the phone in Airplane mode 2) Power it down 3) Power it up and while staying in Airplane mode 4) Delete Booking.com 5) Power it down 6) Power it back up and turn off Airplane 7) Go to Safari and browse normally
- choique 11y ago
  This just worked for me, thanks!
- ricardobeat 11y ago
  This did not fix it on my 6S. I wonder if there are other apps causing the same issue, I have a ton installed.
  - giovannibajo1 11y ago
    It looks like once the database is corrupted, swcd keeps crashing and there's no way out.
- acqq 11y ago
  Did not fix my iPhone 5S.
whitehat2k9 11y ago
It's funny that unpaid developers who release ROMs for my Android phone apparently do a better job at QA than the people at Apple.
- chris_wot 11y ago
  That might sound snarky, but actually it's entirely true. Apple QA around Safari is dreadful. They literally break the rendering of thousands of websites in 9.2 and only fix it in 9.3 - three months later. All because of checked in WebKit code that wasn't reviewed correctly. https://bugs.webkit.org/attachment.cgi?id=268394&action=diff https://bugs.webkit.org/attachment.cgi?id=268394&action=diff
  - chris_wot 11y ago
    Oh, and I should note: I love my iPhone and iPad - I own three iPads and 4 iPhones. So lest anyone think I'm an Apple hater, think again. In fact, I replaced my Windows PC with a Mac some time ago and never looked back. Which is why I'm hear to tell Apple: fix your freakibg regressions in Safari quickly. There is absolutely no reason why the browsers rendering engine can only be updated every three months! Sort it out Apple. You force all web apps to use your engine and prevent effective completion in this space: fine. But you now face the burden on ensuring you prevent and fix your bugs quickly!
    - chillacy 11y ago
      I do find it odd that Safari's update cycle is tied to the OS updates. Seems to me like they should be separate. Example: a few months ago Safari had a bug where it was still using apple's old WWDR certificate, preventing anyone from packaging their safari extensions. The fix came out months later in the next OS release.
  - progers7 11y ago
    You have 3 comments in this thread stating that this wasn't reviewed correctly. It was, you're just looking at the wrong link in their bugtracker: http://trac.webkit.org/changeset/194667 http://trac.webkit.org/changeset/194667 "Reviewed by Tim Horton."
EGreg 11y ago
was at the Apple Store in NYC At 1am yesterday. None of the people there knew how to solve it. I looked online and there are, by now, thousands of users in several threads in Apple forums complaining that links don't work. Here is some more info: This isn't just affecting 9.3, it's true also on 9.2.1 Don't bother wiping and restoring your phone, the problem comes back. My guess is that it was triggered by something in the Apple WebView APIs that happened recently, because it started happening on my phone for no reason this Friday (with 9.2.1) and most of these forum messages are from the past few days. Apple hasn't responded yet and 9.3 doesn't fix this problem. For now, use Google Chrome. Long-tap on links in Safari and other Apple apps crashes the app. However, thankfully in Chrome for iOS, it works (even though it also uses Apple's WebView). You can follow links via long-tap and copy-pasting the link into the Address bar. Finally, if you're wondering why some mobile links still seem to work - those are the ones enabled by javascript handling of tap events, that don't use the regular mechanism of loading a url.
kenshi 11y ago
So thats two pretty major bugs in iOS9.3 (the failing upgrade process for older hardware is the other big issue - and Apple are getting lots of support calls about it). I really have to wonder what has happened to Apple's Quality Control. More money, more bugs?
- chris_wot 11y ago
  Check out this patch: https://bugs.webkit.org/attachment.cgi?id=268394&action=diff https://bugs.webkit.org/attachment.cgi?id=268394&action=diff [iOS] Revert overflow:hidden on the body affecting viewport scale (r186786) https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=152803 https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=152803 Reviewed by NOBODY (OOPS!). Bug was reported on 6th January, broke thousands of websites, was patched shortly thereafter - and deployed 3 months later. Three months to fix a major regression snafu. Apple Safari support sucks.
  - darinf 11y ago
    This is just reverting a change that was found to be bad. Returning to a known good state makes sense.
    - chris_wot 11y ago
      Not sure I understand your point. That bad state got into the 9.2 release, was reverted and three months later got into 9.3. In the meantime thousands of sites break, and the Apple support forums are bursting at the seams with people asking about this issue. It's hardly "just reverting a change that was found to be bad". The impact was huge!
  - progers7 11y ago
    This was reviewed properly, you just have to click the actual commit: http://trac.webkit.org/changeset/194667 http://trac.webkit.org/changeset/194667 "Reviewed by Tim Horton." The response time here might not be great, but the patch author and reviewer are both experts in this area. I wouldn't consider this patch evidence of declining software quality--it's just a simple bug.
chris_wot 11y ago
Apple broke a fundamental rendering issue in iOS 9.2 - if you put overflow hidden into the body tag then it screws up the viewport. Thousands and thousands of pages broke. They fixed it three months later. Basically, Apple Safari support sucks. Why the hell is their web page renderer only updated in minor releases of iOS?
- chris_wot 11y ago
  Oh? Genuinely curious: what's so awful about my comment? If Apple can stuff up a fundamental rendering issue [1] and it takes them 3 months to release a simple revert of the unreviewed commit, then how are my comments on their incredibly slow bug fix timeframes for browser issues out of line? 1. https://bugs.webkit.org/attachment.cgi?id=268394&action=diff https://bugs.webkit.org/attachment.cgi?id=268394&action=diff
  - uxp 11y ago
    While I agree with the content of your comment, this one at the bottom of the page seems to be the third of nearly identical comments about this one WebKit bug made by your account on the page. It's approaching my SPAM threshold.
    - chris_wot 11y ago
      Indeed - I found this bug to be totally relevant to the issues being discussed. The first was to point out the issue. The second (the parent comment) was to ask why Safari rendering bugs take so long to fix and I used that bug as context for my question. The third was to respond to the huge downvotes of this comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11376114 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11376114 Each of those are entirely relevant in their context. It's hardly spam. If you want, I'll find more regressions, it won't be hard. Apple are utterly useless when it comes to Safari rendering regressions. (were you the one downvoting, incidentally? And what do you mean by the "third at the bottom of the page"? The comments shift around in ordering you know)
      - 11y ago
A3mercury 11y ago
I hate how links can only be opened in safari anyway. I'm having this problem so it's frustrating to no end.
- ben010783 11y ago
  This goes back to Apple not allowing you to replace default apps. Android phones let you define the default web browser, map viewer, etc.
acqq 11y ago
I've had 9.3 version 13E233 on my iPhone and I have just received the chance to upgrade again to 9.3. After upgrade the version is 13E237 (as seen in the Settings General About) but the problem remains. Still no change, https links to other sites dead in Safari, or the right click on the same link makes Safari blocks. So if you have chance to upgrade to the newer 9.3, better wait, until some newer version than 13E237 appears? I believe that in "Privacy / Diagnostics & Usage / .. Data / stacks + MobileSafari...." should theoretically contain the stack of the killed Safari at that moment and be sent to Apple? (Anyway, before I've upgraded to 13E237 I've already deleted booking.com and yelp apps. I've also then installed the new version of booking.com app and then deleted it, all with the suggested "Airplane" mode. Didn't work) Edit: the 13E237 is apparently http://9to5mac.com/2016/03/28/apple-re-releases-ios-9-3-for-older-iphones-and-ipads-affected-by-activation-lock-issue/ http://9to5mac.com/2016/03/28/apple-re-releases-ios-9-3-for-... "for users affected by an activation bug" not for this now.
baudehlo 11y ago
I had something similar happen to me on 9.2.1 - switch to readability mode in one app stopped all links working from Facebook. Took me forever to debug it.
4penelope 11y ago
Does removing the app Booking.com from the iphone 5S will solve the problems with Safari, mail, links and crashing? I have just installed the new fix of the IOS 9.3 on my 5S and had got no improvements. Prooblem wasn't solved by disactivating Java script.
4penelope 11y ago
Does the downgrade to 9.2.1 will fix the problem? I have just upgraded to todays repair of the 9.3, and no improvement! If inremove Booking app would itvsolve the problem? Even diactivating Javascript had not fixed the problem. It is frustrating. Why Apple sent a new update to 9.3 if they haven't fixed a thing?
ben_c 11y ago
I've put up a convoluted but working workaround here - https://bencollier.net/2016/03/how-to-fix-ios-9-3s-broken-safari-links/ https://bencollier.net/2016/03/how-to-fix-ios-9-3s-broken-sa...

231 points by nardras 11y ago

Amen, I've been suffering from l HN withdrawal symptoms due to this. I have only been able to read comments and submission headlines on the iPhone. Updtae: this is likely due to third party apps (in my case Booking.com). But uninstalling doesn't seem to help. Also I couldn't read the article since safari can only visit URLs that I explicitly type in

umanwizard 11y ago
Workaround mentioned in the article: disable JavaScript. Hope this helps you.
- UVB-76 11y ago
  Far too many websites rely on JavaScript now for this to be a real workaround.
puddintane 11y ago
Does copy and paste not work?
- leetrout 11y ago
  Not for me. Long pressing causes safari to lock up and crash.
  - Nazzareno 11y ago
    Long pressing works with Chrome
- disposeofnick9 11y ago
  There's also another annoying, existing bug in iOS at least back to 9.2 where if memory is low, copy stops working... the clipboard retains the old value until you kill basically every other app.

cl3m 11y ago

Had this since yesterday. Best solution so far is to disable JavaScript or use opera mini

thesimon 11y ago
I can't find it atm, but someone contacted Apple on Twitter and they replied that disabling JavaScript is the best workaround.
jedmeyers 11y ago
Another workaround: using long click in Chrome will allow opening of the link in a new tab.

misterdata 11y ago

This appears to be caused by a bug in the Shared Web Credentials Daemon, which shares website credentials between apps and Safari. Once particular data is put in its database, it keeps crashing. https://twitter.com/aveapps/status/714215571894747136 https://twitter.com/aveapps/status/714215571894747136

tvmalsv 11y ago
Safari kept crashing for me (and occasionally other apps, but don't know if related, just thought they were buggy apps) on my iPhone 5. I originally thought it was a problem with some sites being horribly broken, but it was also happening on mainstream sites such as wsj.com. After I installed the 9.3 update, the crashes stopped. Maybe the firmware update and device reset clears that database. Or it could be completely unrelated. Whichever, that's my anecdote.
cristianbica 11y ago
Shared Web Credentials and App Links are set in the same file: you have an .entitlements where you set on what domains you want to have applinks, webcredentials. Then the iOS downloads from those domains a signed json file where you specify what apps can do applinks or webcredentials and you can limit those actions on some paths. What booking.com did is populated the paths section will 2.4M of urls instead of using wildcards (like "hotels/*"). The effect on the iOS is the Shared Web Credentials Daemon (the file is swcd) has a bug and with high amount of data it corrupts it's own database and fails. When opening absolute urls (schema://, ex: http:// http://) the iOS wants to pull some data from swcd which isn't running because of the corrupt database so it freezes the app opening the absolute url. From my point of view Apple is the only to be blamed (of course booking.com has been sloppy). They shipped a buggy core component (swcd) and they failed on the booking.com app approval process to detect this behavior.

neals 11y ago

Anybody know if this causes issues in Cordova / Phonegap apps?

knd775 11y ago
This could potentially be an issue with any app that uses an association file. edit To clarify, you need to use an association file on your website that references your app. What triggers the bug seems to be unknown, but appears to involve shared credentials.
hicksyfern 11y ago
We have a Cordova app that begins on a local web page then immediately redirects to a remote page, and we have recently had a bunch of users on iOS 9.3 complain that they are just stuck on the first screen. So it looks like it probably does affect Cordova apps.

based2 11y ago

from your iPhone

sp332 11y ago
It does say "on iOS 9.3".

stygiansonic 11y ago

I wonder if there was something particular about the booking.com site association file (i.e. some particular data in the `paths` array) or whether it was just the fact that the `paths` array was unexpected large, and when put into the overall database, made that too large to handle? Wonder if anyone has a copy of the old booking.com association file (the one that caused problems) - would be interesting to look at.

tiglionabbit 11y ago
It could easily be just because it's too large. Either there was a buffer overrun, or something got truncated in a bad way.
0x0 11y ago
Probably an O(n^2) style algorithm as they never expected files with insane sizes like that

tommyd 11y ago

Good to hear someone has got to the bottom of this. Been unable to use Safari for a few days due to it. I haven't updated any apps for months (I don't trust auto update to not leave my apps in a half downloaded state so I just let them mount up until I eventually download hundreds of updates!) so iOS must periodically check this list automatically rather then just when an app is updated/installed. The combination of a lack of an official response from Apple yet, the fact that this was apparently found by beta users (not that the issue is related to 9.3 directly, but it was reported as a beta issue by some), and the inability to change default browser leaving my phone in a pretty broken state has got me seriously considering a switch to Android though, where at least such a bug could probably be worked around through changing defaults or worst case flashing a new ROM. The iOS 9.3 release suggests Apple's QA process is rather lacking and incidents like this won't help confidence in their devices - it's okay for users who know how to work around it and understand what is going on, but my parents would probably think the whole internet was broken! Rant over, glad to see this on HN as it has been p*ing me off for a few days :)

ricardobeat 11y ago
Same here. I hesitated to upgrade to 9.3 when prompted but went ahead anyway, guess what I'm going to do next time... It baffles me that Apple let this bug go live when it was reported multiple times during betas. And the impossibility of avoiding the issue by using a different browser only adds to injury.
- fnayr 11y ago
  Then get ready to have to daily respond to an unwanted popup dialog trying to force you to update. It's infuriating that Apple thinks it's ok to repeatedly harass you to update with NO option to turn off the prompts. This issue alone has made me want to switch to Android and I'd never thought I would say that.
  - jlarocco 11y ago
    The annoying login and update prompts are going to push me to Android faster than anything. I get prompted to log in to iTunes or iCloud literally 5 or 6 times just opening the Music app, navigating to a playlist, and clicking on a song. It's infuriating.

mynegation 11y ago

Submitted another story about this couple of days ago but it did not get much attention. Granted, this one calls out very specific technical reason. I have this problem after update to iOS 9.3 and FWIW I have Booking.com app installed. This problem was haunting users for quite a while, since beta for sure and may be even for some users on 9.2.1. The lack of response from Apple is disheartening. I am seriously considering switching to Android. Disabling JavaScript allows to navigate links in Safari, but opening links from other apps freezes them and many sites are broken without JS. My only recourse for now is to factory reset the phone, which is a huge PITA. And of course never ever install booking.com app

tommyd 11y ago
Your thoughts echo mine exactly (right down to submitting a story that got no votes!). The fact that this kind of bug would have a lower impact on Android (i.e. wouldn't disable major functionality due to the ability to switch out default apps), along with a general sense that Apple's software quality and support is becoming less reliably good (I would certainly have expected a quicker official response to this issue) and a slight feeing that Android is creeping ahead of iOS in terms of interesting new functionality is making me seriously consider the switch (partially as a kind of "protest" move, partially because I'm really annoyed about a major part of my phone breaking randomly, and partially because I'm curious to try it out), which I definitely wasn't seriously giving any thought to before this. Could work out to be a good thing in the end ;)
epalmer 11y ago
I ordered a nexus 6p today. Been an iphone user since the first year. I have grown tired of so many things that are ios. I mostly use google apps and them games and other apps that have android versions. I'm concerned that hands free calling, which I love from my Honda, may not work. If it does not then I will return the nexus and go back to iphone but will be very unhappy. I have multiple tablets (for work evals) and love both the ipad pro and several android tables I have. But I still have things about the ipad pro that bug me. Stop trying to upsell me icloud services.
- 11y ago

dclowd9901 11y ago

WTAF, Am I reading this right? Booking.com was sending a 2.3MB file to every user, but only usable to iOS users?

ricardobeat 11y ago
No, this file is part of the iOS app.
- cballard 11y ago
  Both you and the OP are incorrect. The file is not included in the app (only referred to), but is only downloaded by iOS itself - or anyone who points a web client directly at it, of course.
  - rocky1138 11y ago
    Do you have a link to it?
    - adregan 11y ago
      Looks like a signed json file found at `/apple-app-site-association` on sites that support it (eg. booking.com/apple-app-site-association, nytimes.com/apple-app-site-association, &c.)

Calvin02 11y ago

Fix that worked for me: 1) Put the phone in Airplane mode 2) Power it down 3) Power it up and while staying in Airplane mode 4) Delete Booking.com 5) Power it down 6) Power it back up and turn off Airplane 7) Go to Safari and browse normally

choique 11y ago
This just worked for me, thanks!
ricardobeat 11y ago
This did not fix it on my 6S. I wonder if there are other apps causing the same issue, I have a ton installed.
- giovannibajo1 11y ago
  It looks like once the database is corrupted, swcd keeps crashing and there's no way out.
acqq 11y ago
Did not fix my iPhone 5S.

whitehat2k9 11y ago

It's funny that unpaid developers who release ROMs for my Android phone apparently do a better job at QA than the people at Apple.

chris_wot 11y ago
That might sound snarky, but actually it's entirely true. Apple QA around Safari is dreadful. They literally break the rendering of thousands of websites in 9.2 and only fix it in 9.3 - three months later. All because of checked in WebKit code that wasn't reviewed correctly. https://bugs.webkit.org/attachment.cgi?id=268394&action=diff https://bugs.webkit.org/attachment.cgi?id=268394&action=diff
- chris_wot 11y ago
  Oh, and I should note: I love my iPhone and iPad - I own three iPads and 4 iPhones. So lest anyone think I'm an Apple hater, think again. In fact, I replaced my Windows PC with a Mac some time ago and never looked back. Which is why I'm hear to tell Apple: fix your freakibg regressions in Safari quickly. There is absolutely no reason why the browsers rendering engine can only be updated every three months! Sort it out Apple. You force all web apps to use your engine and prevent effective completion in this space: fine. But you now face the burden on ensuring you prevent and fix your bugs quickly!
  - chillacy 11y ago
    I do find it odd that Safari's update cycle is tied to the OS updates. Seems to me like they should be separate. Example: a few months ago Safari had a bug where it was still using apple's old WWDR certificate, preventing anyone from packaging their safari extensions. The fix came out months later in the next OS release.
- progers7 11y ago
  You have 3 comments in this thread stating that this wasn't reviewed correctly. It was, you're just looking at the wrong link in their bugtracker: http://trac.webkit.org/changeset/194667 http://trac.webkit.org/changeset/194667 "Reviewed by Tim Horton."

EGreg 11y ago

was at the Apple Store in NYC At 1am yesterday. None of the people there knew how to solve it. I looked online and there are, by now, thousands of users in several threads in Apple forums complaining that links don't work. Here is some more info: This isn't just affecting 9.3, it's true also on 9.2.1 Don't bother wiping and restoring your phone, the problem comes back. My guess is that it was triggered by something in the Apple WebView APIs that happened recently, because it started happening on my phone for no reason this Friday (with 9.2.1) and most of these forum messages are from the past few days. Apple hasn't responded yet and 9.3 doesn't fix this problem. For now, use Google Chrome. Long-tap on links in Safari and other Apple apps crashes the app. However, thankfully in Chrome for iOS, it works (even though it also uses Apple's WebView). You can follow links via long-tap and copy-pasting the link into the Address bar. Finally, if you're wondering why some mobile links still seem to work - those are the ones enabled by javascript handling of tap events, that don't use the regular mechanism of loading a url.

kenshi 11y ago

So thats two pretty major bugs in iOS9.3 (the failing upgrade process for older hardware is the other big issue - and Apple are getting lots of support calls about it). I really have to wonder what has happened to Apple's Quality Control. More money, more bugs?

chris_wot 11y ago
Check out this patch: https://bugs.webkit.org/attachment.cgi?id=268394&action=diff https://bugs.webkit.org/attachment.cgi?id=268394&action=diff [iOS] Revert overflow:hidden on the body affecting viewport scale (r186786) https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=152803 https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=152803 Reviewed by NOBODY (OOPS!). Bug was reported on 6th January, broke thousands of websites, was patched shortly thereafter - and deployed 3 months later. Three months to fix a major regression snafu. Apple Safari support sucks.
- darinf 11y ago
  This is just reverting a change that was found to be bad. Returning to a known good state makes sense.
  - chris_wot 11y ago
    Not sure I understand your point. That bad state got into the 9.2 release, was reverted and three months later got into 9.3. In the meantime thousands of sites break, and the Apple support forums are bursting at the seams with people asking about this issue. It's hardly "just reverting a change that was found to be bad". The impact was huge!
- progers7 11y ago
  This was reviewed properly, you just have to click the actual commit: http://trac.webkit.org/changeset/194667 http://trac.webkit.org/changeset/194667 "Reviewed by Tim Horton." The response time here might not be great, but the patch author and reviewer are both experts in this area. I wouldn't consider this patch evidence of declining software quality--it's just a simple bug.

chris_wot 11y ago

Apple broke a fundamental rendering issue in iOS 9.2 - if you put overflow hidden into the body tag then it screws up the viewport. Thousands and thousands of pages broke. They fixed it three months later. Basically, Apple Safari support sucks. Why the hell is their web page renderer only updated in minor releases of iOS?

chris_wot 11y ago
Oh? Genuinely curious: what's so awful about my comment? If Apple can stuff up a fundamental rendering issue [1] and it takes them 3 months to release a simple revert of the unreviewed commit, then how are my comments on their incredibly slow bug fix timeframes for browser issues out of line? 1. https://bugs.webkit.org/attachment.cgi?id=268394&action=diff https://bugs.webkit.org/attachment.cgi?id=268394&action=diff
- uxp 11y ago
  While I agree with the content of your comment, this one at the bottom of the page seems to be the third of nearly identical comments about this one WebKit bug made by your account on the page. It's approaching my SPAM threshold.
  - chris_wot 11y ago
    Indeed - I found this bug to be totally relevant to the issues being discussed. The first was to point out the issue. The second (the parent comment) was to ask why Safari rendering bugs take so long to fix and I used that bug as context for my question. The third was to respond to the huge downvotes of this comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11376114 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11376114 Each of those are entirely relevant in their context. It's hardly spam. If you want, I'll find more regressions, it won't be hard. Apple are utterly useless when it comes to Safari rendering regressions. (were you the one downvoting, incidentally? And what do you mean by the "third at the bottom of the page"? The comments shift around in ordering you know)
    - 11y ago

A3mercury 11y ago

I hate how links can only be opened in safari anyway. I'm having this problem so it's frustrating to no end.

ben010783 11y ago
This goes back to Apple not allowing you to replace default apps. Android phones let you define the default web browser, map viewer, etc.

acqq 11y ago

I've had 9.3 version 13E233 on my iPhone and I have just received the chance to upgrade again to 9.3. After upgrade the version is 13E237 (as seen in the Settings General About) but the problem remains. Still no change, https links to other sites dead in Safari, or the right click on the same link makes Safari blocks. So if you have chance to upgrade to the newer 9.3, better wait, until some newer version than 13E237 appears? I believe that in "Privacy / Diagnostics & Usage / .. Data / stacks + MobileSafari...." should theoretically contain the stack of the killed Safari at that moment and be sent to Apple? (Anyway, before I've upgraded to 13E237 I've already deleted booking.com and yelp apps. I've also then installed the new version of booking.com app and then deleted it, all with the suggested "Airplane" mode. Didn't work) Edit: the 13E237 is apparently http://9to5mac.com/2016/03/28/apple-re-releases-ios-9-3-for-older-iphones-and-ipads-affected-by-activation-lock-issue/ http://9to5mac.com/2016/03/28/apple-re-releases-ios-9-3-for-... "for users affected by an activation bug" not for this now.

baudehlo 11y ago

I had something similar happen to me on 9.2.1 - switch to readability mode in one app stopped all links working from Facebook. Took me forever to debug it.

4penelope 11y ago

Does removing the app Booking.com from the iphone 5S will solve the problems with Safari, mail, links and crashing? I have just installed the new fix of the IOS 9.3 on my 5S and had got no improvements. Prooblem wasn't solved by disactivating Java script.

4penelope 11y ago

Does the downgrade to 9.2.1 will fix the problem? I have just upgraded to todays repair of the 9.3, and no improvement! If inremove Booking app would itvsolve the problem? Even diactivating Javascript had not fixed the problem. It is frustrating. Why Apple sent a new update to 9.3 if they haven't fixed a thing?

ben_c 11y ago

I've put up a convoluted but working workaround here - https://bencollier.net/2016/03/how-to-fix-ios-9-3s-broken-safari-links/ https://bencollier.net/2016/03/how-to-fix-ios-9-3s-broken-sa...