General: Forums subtopic: App & System Services > Networking DevForums tag: Network Extension Network Extension framework documentation Routing your VPN network traffic article Filtering traffic by URL sample code Filtering Network Traffic sample code TN3120 Expected use cases for Network Extension packet tunnel providers technote TN3134 Network Extension provider deployment technote TN3165 Packet Filter is not API technote Network Extension and VPN Glossary forums post Debugging a Network Extension Provider forums post Exporting a Developer ID Network Extension forums post Network Extension Framework Entitlements forums post Network Extension vs ad hoc techniques on macOS forums post Network Extension Provider Packaging forums post NWEndpoint History and Advice forums post Extra-ordinary Networking forums post Wi-Fi management: Understanding NEHotspotConfigurationErrorInternal forums post See also Networking Resources for general networking resources, including information about Wi-Fi. Share and Enjoy — Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com"

I’m encountering a persistent issue with my Network Extension (specifically NEFilterDataProvider) and would really appreciate any insights. The extension generally works as expected, but after some time — especially after sleep/wake cycles or network changes — a global network outage occurs. During this state, no network traffic works: pings fail, browsers can’t load pages, etc. As soon as I stop the extension (by disabling it in System Preferences), the network immediately recovers. If I re-enable it, the outage returns instantly. I’ve also noticed that once this happens, the extension stops receiving callbacks like handleNewFlow(), and reinstalling the app or restarting the extension doesn’t help. The only thing that resolves the issue is rebooting the system. After reboot, the extension works fine again — until the problem reoccurs later. I asked AI about this behavior, and it suggested the possibility that the kernel might have marked the extension as untrusted, causing the system to intentionally block all network traffic as a safety mechanism. Has anyone experienced similar behavior with NEFilterDataProvider? Could there be a way to detect or prevent this state without rebooting? Is there any logging or diagnostic data I should collect when it happens again? Any guidance or pointers would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

I haven’t been able to get this to work at any level! I’m running into multiple issues, any light shed on any of these would be nice: I can’t implement a bloom filter that produces the same output as can be found in the SimpleURLFilter sample project, after following the textual description of it that’s available in the documentation. No clue what my implementation is doing wrong, and because of the nature of hashing, there is no way to know. Specifically: The web is full of implementations of FNV-1a and MurmurHash3, and they all produce different hashes for the same input. Can we get the proper hashes for some sample strings, so we know which is the “correct” one? Similarly, different implementations use different encodings for the strings to hash. Which should we use here? The formulas for numberOfBits and numberOfHashes give Doubles and assign them to Ints. It seems we should do this conversing by rounding them, is this correct? Can we get a sample correct value for the combined hash, so we can verify our implementations against it? Or ignoring all of the above, can we have the actual code instead of a textual description of it? 😓 I managed to get Settings to register my first attempt at this extension in beta 1. Now, in beta 2, any other project (including the sample code) will redirect to Settings, show the Allow/Deny message box, I tap Allow, and then nothing happens. This must be a bug, right? Whenever I try to enable the only extension that Settings accepted (by setting its isEnabled to true), its status goes to .stopped and the error is, of course, .unknown. How do I debug this? While the extension is .stopped, ALL URL LOADS are blocked on the device. Is this to be expected? (shouldFailClosed is set to false) Is there any way to manually reload the bloom filter? My app ships blocklist updates with background push, so it would be wasteful to fetch the filter at a fixed interval. If so, can we opt out of the periodic fetch altogether? I initially believed the API to be near useless because I didn’t know of its “fuzzy matching” capabilities, which I’ve discovered by accident in a forum post. It’d be nice if those were documented somewhere! Thanks!!

Dear Sir/Madam, Thank you for your support. I have reviewed the documentation for Local Push Connectivity (see URL below) and, following the instruction in the "Important" section to "Request this entitlement from the Entitlement Request Page," I completed the application process for this Entitlement on March 11, 2026. [Local push connectivity] https://developer.apple.com/documentation/networkextension/local-push-connectivity?language=objc#Supporting-APNs-and-local-push-connectivity-in-one-app Subsequently, on March 13, 2026, I received the following reply from Apple: Sub : Re: Requesting Network Extension App Push Entitlement From: Local Push Review Sent: Friday, March 13, 2026 4:09 AM Hi, Thank you for your interest in the Local Push Connectivity entitlement. Your entitlement request has been approved for: Team ID: NWKYYYYYYY Technical documentation on this API is available here: -(Omission) - Best Regards, Apple Developer Relations My understanding is that upon approval of this application, an "Entitlements" field should be added to the input fields for creating provisioning profiles. However, as of today(March 18, 2026), it has not yet been added. Will the Entitlements field be added if I simply wait? My account (Apple ID), which submitted the application, belongs to three Team IDs. For convenience, I will refer to them as Team ID SV3XXXXXXX, Team ID NWKYYYYYYY, and Team ID WEJZZZZZZZ. The application status for Entitlements for each Team ID is as follows: Team ID SV3XXXXXXX Entitlements: Present. Applied for Entitlements on February 6, 2021. (Received "Re: Requesting Network Extension App Push Entitlement" email on February 6, 2021) Team ID NWKYYYYYYY Entitlements: Not present. Applied for Entitlements on March 13, 2026. (Received "Re: Requesting Network Extension App Push Entitlement" email on March 13, 2026) Team ID WEJZZZZZZZ Entitlements: Present. No record (email) of applying for Entitlements. Because of this, I am concerned that the Entitlements applied for Team ID NWKYYYYYYY may have been mistakenly granted to Team ID WEJZZZZZZZ, and I am inquiring about this. Will the Entitlements field for Team ID NWKYYYYYYY be added if I simply wait? Thank you in advance.

Error 8 in the NEHotspotConfigurationError domain is .internal, aka NEHotspotConfigurationErrorInternal. This error typically indicates that something went wrong in some sort of expected way, but we decided not to surface the exact cause [1]. This has come up a bunch of times before on the forums, and I have various titbits to share. To start, I want to address some specific cases: You’ll see this error if your app isn’t signed with the com.apple.developer.networking.HotspotConfiguration entitlement. To fix this, use Xcode’s Signing & Capabilities editor to add the Hotspot capability to your app. Historically developers reported a situation where once they encountered the error it would show up consistently, but then it would go away on restarting the device. If you see behaviour like that, that’s definitely a bug and I encourage you to file it as such. I have more about filing such bugs in Filing a Wi-Fi Bug Report. Of course, you have to wait to reproduce the error again before you’ll be able to file that bug, because the act of restarting cleared the issue. I’ve seen reports where such problems only occur on a specific type of device, for example, on iPhone 16 but not on earlier or later iPhones. That’s definitely something that Apple should investigate, and I recommend that you file a bug about it. If the problem is being reported by your users but you can’t reproduce it yourself, consider the various suggestions in Using a Sysdiagnose Log to Debug a Hard-to-Reproduce Problem. Assuming you’re still here (-: the next step is to determine whether the problem is specific to NEHotspotConfigurationManager or not. Try joining the accessory’s network from Settings > Wi-Fi. Does that also have problems? If so, that’s not something we can help you with here on the forums. The focus of the Apple Developer Forums is primarily to help developers with the APIs in Apple’s various platform SDKs [2]. We’re not set up to help accessory developers with Wi-Fi issues. However, there are still things you can do, as I explain in Filing a Wi-Fi Bug Report. At this point you have an error that: Persists across restarts Happens with all Apple devices You can reproduce Only affects NEHotspotConfigurationManager If that’s correct then there are a couple of things you might look at: Coerce the error to an NSError and print that. Does it reveal anything interesting? Also check the underlying error property (NSUnderlyingErrorKey) for hints. When reproducing the error, monitor the system log for log entries in the com.apple.networkextension subsystem. Do those offer any clues? Note For lots of hints and tips about the system log, see Your Friend the System Log. And finally, if you have questions about this case, feel free to start a thread here on the forums and we’ll try to help you out. Put it in the App & System Services > Networking subtopic and tag it with Network Extension. Share and Enjoy — Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com" [1] There’s also the .unknown error. See this post for a brief summary of the difference. [2] And with Apple tools and some developer-oriented services. Revision History 2026-03-18 Added a missing entitlement bullet to the specific case list. 2026-03-17 First posted.

Hi, I'v got the error by using NEHotspotConfiguration to connect a wifi spot but get:NEHotspotConfigurationErrorDomain code=8. I hope to get the same result as when scanning the code with the system camera. A pop-up window will appear, and I just need to click "Join" to successfully connect. Here's the logs: [OneAppWifi][iOS] handleCheckWifiEnabled start (iOS 12+) [OneAppWifi][iOS] handleCheckWifiEnabled pathUpdateHandler status=satisfied [OneAppWifi][iOS] handleConnectWifi start, ssid=OPPO Find X6 Pro, pwd=len=16, authType=Optional("sae"), hidden=false [OneAppWifi][iOS] handleConnectWifi cancelPendingConnection before new request ssid=OPPO Find X6 Pro [OneAppWifi][iOS] cancelPendingConnection called, errorCode=nil, currentSsid=nil [OneAppWifi][iOS] cancelPendingConnection silent cancel, just clear pendingConnectResult [OneAppWifi][iOS] handleConnectWifi apply completion with error, domain=NEHotspotConfigurationErrorDomain, code=8, userInfo=["NSLocalizedDescription": internal error.] [OneAppWifi][iOS] resolveNEError NEHotspotConfigurationErrorDomain code=8 [OneAppWifi][iOS] resolveNEError systemConfiguration / internal, map to connection_failed [OneAppWifi][iOS] handleConnectWifi resolved as failure errorCode=Optional("connection_failed") for ssid=OPPO Find X6 Pro [OneAppWifi][iOS] firePendingResult value=["success": false, "errorCode": Optional("connection_failed")], currentSsid=Optional("OPPO Find X6 Pro")

Hello, I have implemented a URL Filter using the sample provided here: Filtering Traffic by URL. I am also using an App Group to dynamically manage the Bloom filter and block list data. However, when I update my block list URLs and create a new Bloom filter plist in the App Group, the extension does not seem to use the updated Bloom filter even after the prefetch interval expires. Also for testing purpose can I keep this interval to 10 mins or below ?

Hello, I submitted a Network Extension entitlement request (Packet Tunnel Provider) and opened case 102837721995. The case history says Apple sent a message on March 12, but I did not receive it and cannot reply through the support portal. Could someone from Apple Developer Support check the case? Also, it is possible that I misunderstood something or submitted the wrong entitlement request. My application will use WireGuard to establish the VPN connection. If a different entitlement is required for this scenario, please let me know. Thank you.

Every now and again I end up helping a developer with a Wi-Fi issue. These fall into two groups: User-level Wi-Fi issues Development Wi-Fi issues A user-level Wi-Fi issue is one where the developer hasn’t created any of the products involved. An example of this is when you’re developing an app for an accessory and iOS is having problems connecting to that accessory but you don’t control the accessory’s firmware. In general, I recommend that you escalate such issues to the accessory vendor. They can then run their own investigation and, if necessary, file their own bug report. A development Wi-Fi issue is one that directly affects one of your products. For example, you’re developing a Wi-Fi accessory and iOS is having problems connecting to it. In that case, the onus is on you [1] to investigate why things are failing. If your conclusion is that iOS is behaving incorrectly, file a bug about that. IMPORTANT If you do file a bug in the context of some forums thread, please post your bug number to the thread, just for the record. When filing this sort of bug report it’s important to provide: Solid evidence that the problem is on the Apple side of the fence Enough information for Apple’s engineers to investigate it effectively Let’s start with that second point. If you can reproduce the problem reliably, install the Wi-Fi debug profile on your device, reproduce the problem, noting down a rough timestamp, and include the resulting logs and that timestamp in your bug report. Also, consider attaching a packet trace. There are three options here: Record a packet trace from the perspective of the Apple device. On iOS, use an RVI packet trace for this. Record a packet trace from the perspective of your accessory. Record a Wi-Fi level packet trace. You can do this from your Mac (see Recording a Wi-Fi Packet Trace) but it might be easier to do this with the infrastructure you used during the bring up of your accessory. It’s fine to include all three (-: Also include any relevant context about the issue. For example: If the issue is tied to a specific device model (In that case, it’d be good to include the above information for both the successful and failing cases.) If the problem shows up when joining from Settings > Wi-Fi, or whether it’s tied to a specific API, like NEHotspotConfigurationManager Finally, make sure to include an explanation of why you think this is an Apple bug, referencing specific items in the logs and packet traces that you attached. Of course, it’s only possible to do all of this if you can reproduce the problem. Investigating an intermittent issue based on reports coming in from users is much harder. It’s OK to file a bug about such issues, but your bug might not be actionable. At a minimum you should aim to include a sysdiagnose log with your bug. IMPORTANT This log has to be taken shortly after reproducing the problem. Don’t just attach any old log. One option is to request such a log from your users. I talk more about this in Using a Sysdiagnose Log to Debug a Hard-to-Reproduce Problem. You can also ask your users to file their own bugs using the Feedback Assistant app. It should automatically capture and attach a sysdiagnose log. Share and Enjoy — Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com" [1] Well, your organisation. It’s rare to find a team where the same engineer works on both the iOS app and the accessory firmware. But if that’s you, good job!

I'm following up on a couple of forum threads from 2020 to get more clarity on the current guidance for supporting multiple XPC services in system extensions. For context, I'm trying to create a system extension that contains both an Endpoint Security client and a Network Extension filter, and I'm seeing indications that the system may not expect this and doesn't handle it smoothly. First: Previous guidance indicated that the system would automatically provide a Mach service named <TeamID>.<BundleID>.xpc to use for communicating with the system extension. However, the SystemExtension man page currently documents an Info.plist key called NSEndpointSecurityMachServiceName and suggests that the default service name is deprecated; and in fact if this key is not set, I find a message in the Console: The extension from () is using the deprecated default mach service name. Please update the extension to set the NSEndpointSecurityMachServiceName key in the Info.plist file. I have accordingly set this key, but I wanted to confirm that this is the current best practice. Second, and more interesting: Another user was trying to do something similar and observed that the Mach service for the endpoint security client wasn't available but the NE filter was. Quinn did some research and replied that this was intended behavior, quoting the EndpointSecurity man page: "If ES extension is combined with a Network Extension, set the NEMachServiceName key in the Info.plist" (which I have also done), and concluding from this: ... if you have a combined ES and NE system extension then the Mach service provided by the NE side takes precedence. However, the current man page does not include this quoted text and says nothing about a combined ES and NE system extension. So I'm wondering about current best practice. If I do combine the ES and NE clients in a single system extension, should they each declare the Mach service name under their respective Info.plist keys? And could there be a single XPC listener for both, using the same service name under each key, or would it be better to have separate XPC listeners? Alternatively, would it be preferable to have each component in a separate system extension? (This would entail some rearchitecting of the current design.)

Hello I have implemented URL Filter using below sample link https://developer.apple.com/documentation/networkextension/filtering-traffic-by-url But currently I am facing weird issue when I try to add new urls in the input_urls.txt file. When I add url in the file and execute BloomFilterTool again, it creates new bloom plist as well as server url file so I replaces those manually restart the server as well as reinstall the app, but when I do so I am not able to get new urls blocked by browser until and unless I am not killing browser and relaunching it again. Does anybody facing same kind of issue ?

On my iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max devices, running iOS 26.0, 26.0.1, and 26.1, Wi-Fi raw socket communication works flawlessly. Even after keeping the connection active for over 40 minutes, there are no disconnections during data transmission. However, on the iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Pro, the raw socket connection drops within 20 seconds. Once it disconnects, the socket cannot reconnect unless the Wi-Fi module itself is reset. I believe this issue is caused by a bug in the iPhone 17 series’ communication module. I have looked into many cases, and it appears to be related to a bug in the N1 chipset. Are there any possible solutions or workarounds for this issue?

I added a Content Filter to my app, and when running it in Xcode (Debug/Release), I get the expected permission prompt: "Would like to filter network content (Allow / Don't Allow)". However, when I install the app via TestFlight, this prompt doesn’t appear at all, and the feature doesn’t work. Is there a special configuration required for TestFlight? Has anyone encountered this issue before? Thanks!

Hello, I am facing a validation error when uploading a macOS app with a Network Extension. The Error: Invalid system extension. The system extension at “[T] TEXT.app/Contents/Library/SystemExtensions/company_name.network-extension.systemextension” resides in an unexpected location. The Problem: Validation fails only when the app's Product Name contains square brackets: [T] TEXT. If I remove the brackets from the Product Name, validation passes. What I've tried: Setting Product Name to TEXT (without brackets) and CFBundleDisplayName to [T] TEXT. Cleaning Derived Data and rebuilding the archive. Verified that the extension is physically located at Contents/Library/SystemExtensions/. It seems the Apple validation tool fails to parse the bundle path correctly when it contains characters like [ or ]. Question: How can I keep the app name with brackets for the user (in System Settings and Menu Bar) while ensuring the Network Extension passes validation? Is there a way to escape these characters or a specific Info.plist configuration to satisfy the validator?"

We have a macOS system extension with NETransparentProxyProvider which is able to intercept traffic and handle it. We also wanted to setup few search domains from our network extension. However, unlike PacketTunnelProvider, NEDNSSettings are completely ignored with NETransparentProxyProvider. So whats the best way to setup few DNS search domains when using NETransparentProxyProvider.

Hello, We are facing what we believe is a compatibility issue with two networking APIs. If the Network extension VPN configuration has includeAllNetworks flag enabled and the NEHotspotHelper is registered. The user has internet connection but it is blocked, and there user will get internet back only after restarting the device. VPN Configuration is as below while connecting to VPN, { localizedDescription = WLVPN WireGuard Configuration enabled = YES protocolConfiguration = { serverAddress = <18-char-str> passwordReference = {length = 20, bytes = 0x67656e70ed0d05c06b1b4896bf4fef2031e1a92d} disconnectOnSleep = NO includeAllNetworks = YES excludeLocalNetworks = YES excludeCellularServices = YES excludeAPNs = YES excludeDeviceCommunication = YES enforceRoutes = NO providerBundleIdentifier = com.wlvpn.ios.consumervpn.network-extension } onDemandEnabled = NO onDemandRules = () } After running the code shown below. Regardless if the VPN is connected or not, the user needs to restart his device to regain internet access. private let neHelperQueue = DispatchQueue(label: "com.wlvpn.ios.consumervpn.hotspot", attributes: DispatchQueue.Attributes.concurrent) let options: [String: NSObject] = [kNEHotspotHelperOptionDisplayName : "" as NSObject] let status = NEHotspotHelper.register(options: nil, queue: neHelperQueue) { cmd in NSLog("Received command: \(cmd.commandType.rawValue)") } We need to use the includeAllNetworks flag to prevent the novel "Tunnel vision" vulnerability. Can we please have some help getting confirmation if both functionalities are compatible or if there's a way to enable them at the same time?

We are assisting a client with their app integration. The client believes that NEPacketTunnelProvider, NEHotspotHelper, and NEHotspotManager extensions stop functioning if the containing app hasn't been launched by the user within some recent window (e.g. 30, 60, or 90 days). We haven't been able to find any documentation supporting this claim. Specifically, we'd like to know: Is there any app launch recency requirement that would cause iOS to stop invoking a registered NEHotspotHelper or NEHotspotManager configuration? Is there any app launch recency requirement that would cause iOS to tear down or prevent activation of a NEPacketTunnelProvider? More generally, does iOS enforce any kind of "staleness" check on apps that provide Network Extension or Hotspot-related functionality, where not being foregrounded for some period causes the system to stop honoring their registrations? If such a mechanism exists, we'd appreciate any pointers to documentation or technical notes describing the behavior and timeframes involved. If it doesn't exist, confirmation would help us guide our client's debugging in the right direction. Thank you.

1) Blocked page UX When a URL is blocked, the browser typically shows a generic error like “"Safari cannot open the page because it couldn’t load any data,” with no indication that the page was blocked by a policy. Is there any plan to add an API that allows developers to present a custom “blocked” page or remediation action, similar to NEFilterControlProvider’s remediationMap? Even a minimal hook (custom HTML, deep link, or support URL) would make the experience clearer for users. 2) Cross‑app link‑opening behavior With a block rule in place, direct navigation in Safari is blocked as expected. However, tapping the same URL in a messaging app (e.g., WhatsApp) opens Safari - and the page loads, not blocked. Repro steps: Configure a URL Filter extension that blocks https://example.com. Case A: Open a browser and type the URL in the address bar → blocked (expected). Case B: Tap the same URL in WhatsApp (or another messenger) → a browser opens and the page loads (unexpected). iOS version - 26.0

Hello team, I am trying to find out a way to block urls in the chrome browser if it is found in local blocked list cache. I found URL Filter Network very much suitable for my requirement. But I see at multiple places that this solution is only for Enterprise level or MDM or supervised device. So can I run this for normal user ? as my targeting audience would be bank users. One more thing how can I test this in development environment if we need supervised devices and do we need special entitlement ? When trying to run sample project in the simulator then getting below error

I haven’t come across any official documentation regarding the limit on the number of Network Extensions macOS can run. However, I did see some discussions suggesting that Apple might restrict this to 5 extensions in macOS Tahoe. Is there any official confirmation on this?