Hello! I develop transparent proxy based application, and I'm receiving a lot of crash reports from macOS 15.5 for crash in __88-[NEExtensionAppProxyProviderContext setInitialFlowDivertControlSocket:extraValidation:]_block_invoke.90 when stopping.
Even very old versions of my software started crashing on macOS 15.5.
I checked my extension that it correctly calls setTunnelNetworkSettings:nil on proxy stop, but crash is still here.
Does anybody else have this problem? Do you know any workaround for it?
Networking
RSS for tagExplore the networking protocols and technologies used by the device to connect to Wi-Fi networks, Bluetooth devices, and cellular data services.
Selecting any option will automatically load the page
Post
Replies
Boosts
Views
Activity
Our product (rockhawk.ca) uses the Multipeer Connectivity framework for peer-to-peer communication between multiple iOS/iPadOS devices. My understanding is that MC framework communicates via three methods: 1) infrastructure wifi (i.e. multiple iOS/iPadOS devices are connected to the same wifi network), 2) peer-to-peer wifi, or 3) Bluetooth. In my experience, I don't believe I've seen MC use Bluetooth. With wifi turned off on the devices, and Bluetooth turned on, no connection is established. With wifi on and Bluetooth off, MC works and I presume either infrastructure wifi (if available) or peer-to-peer wifi are used.
I'm trying to overcome two issues:
Over time (since iOS 9.x), the radio transmit strength for MC over peer-to-peer wifi has decreased to the point that range is unacceptable for our use case. We need at least 150 feet range.
We would like to extend this support to watchOS and the MC framework is not available.
Regarding #1, I'd like to confirm that if infrastructure wifi is available, MC uses it. If infrastructure wifi is not available, MC uses peer-to-peer wifi. If this is true, then we can assure our customers that if infrastructure wifi is available at the venue, then with all devices connected to it, range will be adequate.
If infrastructure wifi is not available at the venue, perhaps a mobile wifi router (battery operated) could be set up, devices connected to it, then range would be adequate. We are about to test this. Reasonable?
Can we be assured that if infrastructure wifi is available, MC uses it?
Regarding #2, given we are targeting minimum watchOS 7.0, would the available networking APIs and frameworks be adequate to implement our own equivalent of the MC framework so our app on iOS/iPadOS and watchOS devices could communicate? How much work? Where would I start? I'm new to implementing networking but experienced in using the MC framework. I'm assuming that I would write the networking code to use infrastructure wifi to achieve acceptable range.
Many thanks!
Tim
My code makes an iPhone use the CBCentralManager to talk to devices peripherals over core bluetooth.
After attempting a connect to a peripheral device, I get a didConnect callback on CBCentralManagerDelegate.
After this I initiate discovery of services using:
peripheral.discoverServices([CBUUID(nsuuid: serviceUUID)])
Since I am only interested in discovering my service of interest and not the others to speed up time to the actual sending of data.
This also gives me the didDiscoverServices callback without error prints in which I do the following:
guard let services = peripheral.services, !services.isEmpty else {
print("Empty services")
centralManager.cancelPeripheralConnection(peripheral)
return
}
And for next steps
if let serviceOfInterest = services.first(where: {$0.uuid == CBUUID(nsuuid: serviceUUID)}) { //double check for service we want
initiateDiscoverCharacteristics(peripheral: peripheral, service: serviceOfInterest)
}
Below is what initiateDiscoverCharacteristics() does. I basically only tries to discover certain characteristics of the selected service:
peripheral.discoverCharacteristics(
[CBUUID(nsuuid: readUUID),
CBUUID(nsuuid: writeUUID)],
for: serviceOfInterest)
For this also we get the didDiscoverCharacteristicsFor callback without error prints.
Here in this callback however we were not doing the serviceOfInterest check to see that we are getting the callback for the service we expect, since our understanding was that we will get didDiscoverCharacteristicsFor callback for the characteristics on the serviceOfInterest because that is what peripheral.discoverCharacteristics() was initiated for.
When we go ahead to write some data/subscribe for notify/read data we have 2 guard statements for services and characteristics of a particular service.
The first guard below passes:
if(peripheral.services == nil) {
print("services yet to be discovered \(peripheral.identifier.uuidString)")
return
}
However the second guard below fails:
let serviceOfInterest = peripheral.services?.first(where: {$0.uuid == CBUUID(nsuuid: serviceUUID})
if((serviceOfInterest?.characteristics == nil) || (serviceOfInterest?.characteristics == [])) {
print("characteristics yet to be discovered \(peripheral.identifier.uuidString)")
return
}
First of all, does the iPhone go ahead and discover other characteristics and services separately even when we explicitly mention the service and the characteristics it should discover?
Now if you say yes and that it maybe the reason of our bug because we didn't do a check for serviceOfInterest in didDiscoverCharacteristicsFor callback, then I have another question.
Why don't we get a second/third print in didDiscoverCharacteristicsFor callback signifying that more characteristics were discovered?
The peripheral device just disconnects after a set timeout (peripheral device used in our testing does this if we are not communicating with it for a certain amount of time).
This issue is extremely rare. We have seen it only twice in our customer base. Both the instances were on the same iPhone 15 Pro. Once a few months back and once recently. Currently, this iPhone is having iOS version 18.1.1 running on it.
I've recently updated one of our CI mac mini's to Sequoia in preparation for the transition to Tahoe later this year. Most things seemed to work just fine, however I see this dialog whenever the UI Tests try to run.
This application BoostBrowerUITest-Runner is auto-generated by Xcode to launch your application and then run your UI Tests. We do not have any control over it, which is why this is most surprising.
I've checked the codesigning identity with codesign -d -vvvv
as well as looked at it's Info.plist and indeed the usage descriptions for everything are present (again, this is autogenerated, so I'm not surprised, but just wanted to confirm the string from the dialog was coming from this app)
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>BuildMachineOSBuild</key>
<string>22A380021</string>
<key>CFBundleAllowMixedLocalizations</key>
<true/>
<key>CFBundleDevelopmentRegion</key>
<string>en</string>
<key>CFBundleExecutable</key>
<string>BoostBrowserUITests-Runner</string>
<key>CFBundleIdentifier</key>
<string>company.thebrowser.Browser2UITests.xctrunner</string>
<key>CFBundleInfoDictionaryVersion</key>
<string>6.0</string>
<key>CFBundleName</key>
<string>BoostBrowserUITests-Runner</string>
<key>CFBundlePackageType</key>
<string>APPL</string>
<key>CFBundleShortVersionString</key>
<string>1.0</string>
<key>CFBundleSignature</key>
<string>????</string>
<key>CFBundleSupportedPlatforms</key>
<array>
<string>MacOSX</string>
</array>
<key>CFBundleVersion</key>
<string>1</string>
<key>DTCompiler</key>
<string>com.apple.compilers.llvm.clang.1_0</string>
<key>DTPlatformBuild</key>
<string>24A324</string>
<key>DTPlatformName</key>
<string>macosx</string>
<key>DTPlatformVersion</key>
<string>15.0</string>
<key>DTSDKBuild</key>
<string>24A324</string>
<key>DTSDKName</key>
<string>macosx15.0.internal</string>
<key>DTXcode</key>
<string>1620</string>
<key>DTXcodeBuild</key>
<string>16C5031c</string>
<key>LSBackgroundOnly</key>
<true/>
<key>LSMinimumSystemVersion</key>
<string>13.0</string>
<key>NSAppTransportSecurity</key>
<dict>
<key>NSAllowsArbitraryLoads</key>
<true/>
</dict>
<key>NSAppleEventsUsageDescription</key>
<string>Access is necessary for automated testing.</string>
<key>NSBluetoothAlwaysUsageDescription</key>
<string>Access is necessary for automated testing.</string>
<key>NSCalendarsUsageDescription</key>
<string>Access is necessary for automated testing.</string>
<key>NSCameraUsageDescription</key>
<string>Access is necessary for automated testing.</string>
<key>NSContactsUsageDescription</key>
<string>Access is necessary for automated testing.</string>
<key>NSDesktopFolderUsageDescription</key>
<string>Access is necessary for automated testing.</string>
<key>NSDocumentsFolderUsageDescription</key>
<string>Access is necessary for automated testing.</string>
<key>NSDownloadsFolderUsageDescription</key>
<string>Access is necessary for automated testing.</string>
<key>NSFileProviderDomainUsageDescription</key>
<string>Access is necessary for automated testing.</string>
<key>NSFileProviderPresenceUsageDescription</key>
<string>Access is necessary for automated testing.</string>
<key>NSLocalNetworkUsageDescription</key>
<string>Access is necessary for automated testing.</string>
<key>NSLocationUsageDescription</key>
<string>Access is necessary for automated testing.</string>
<key>NSMicrophoneUsageDescription</key>
<string>Access is necessary for automated testing.</string>
<key>NSMotionUsageDescription</key>
<string>Access is necessary for automated testing.</string>
<key>NSNetworkVolumesUsageDescription</key>
<string>Access is necessary for automated testing.</string>
<key>NSPhotoLibraryUsageDescription</key>
<string>Access is necessary for automated testing.</string>
<key>NSRemindersUsageDescription</key>
<string>Access is necessary for automated testing.</string>
<key>NSRemovableVolumesUsageDescription</key>
<string>Access is necessary for automated testing.</string>
<key>NSSpeechRecognitionUsageDescription</key>
<string>Access is necessary for automated testing.</string>
<key>NSSystemAdministrationUsageDescription</key>
<string>Access is necessary for automated testing.</string>
<key>NSSystemExtensionUsageDescription</key>
<string>Access is necessary for automated testing.</string>
<key>OSBundleUsageDescription</key>
<string>Access is necessary for automated testing.</string>
</dict>
</plist>
Additionally, spctl --assess --type execute BoostBrowserUITests-Runner.app return an exit code of 0 so I assume that means it can launch just fine, and applications are allowed to be run from "anywhere" in System Settings.
I've found the XCUIProtectedResource.localNetwork value, but it seems to only be accessible on iOS for some reason (FB17829325).
I'm trying to figure out why this is happening on this machine so I can either fix our code or fix the machine. I have an Apple script that will allow it, but it's fiddly and I'd prefer to fix this the correct way either with the machine or with fixing our testing code.
Hi,
We have an issue (https://github.com/actions/runner-images/issues/10924) raised by a user requesting to add 'local network access' permission for macOS 15 and macOS 15-arm64 image runners. Apple introduced a new LNP policy with macOS Sequoia that is not controlled by TCC or MDM. Could you please guide us on how to add 'local network access' permission for macOS 15 and macOS 15-arm64 image runners?
Thanks.
Hi all,
We've been exploring the capabilities of the Network.framework for peer-to-peer communication and have run into some behavior that we haven't been able to fully explain with the existing documentation.
In our tests, we’re working with 12 iOS devices, all disconnected from Wi-Fi to force communication over Apple Wireless Direct Link (AWDL). While using the Network.framework to create peer-to-peer connections, we observed that the number of connected peers never exceeded 8, despite all 12 devices being active and configured identically.
Some questions we’re hoping to get clarification or discussion on:
Is there a known upper limit to the number of peer-to-peer connections supported via AWDL?
Are there conditions under which the framework or system limits or throttles visible peers?
Does AWDL behavior vary by hardware model, iOS version, or backgrounding state of the app?
Is there any official documentation or guidance around peer discovery or connection limits when using NWBrowser and NWConnection in a peer-to-peer context?
We’d appreciate any insights from the Apple engineering team or other developers who have worked with larger peer groups using Network.framework in peer-to-peer mode.
There are multiple report of crashes on URLConnectionLoader::loadWithWhatToDo. The crashed thread in the stack traces pointing to calls inside CFNetwork which seems to be internal library in iOS.
The crash has happened quite a while already (but we cannot detect when the crash started to occur) and impacted multiple iOS versions recorded from iOS 15.4 to 18.4.1 that was recorded in Xcode crash report organizer so far.
Unfortunately, we have no idea on how to reproduce it yet but the crash keeps on increasing and affect more on iOS 18 users (which makes sense because many people updated their iOS to the newer version) and we haven’t found any clue on what actually happened and how to fix it on the crash reports. What we understand is it seems to come from a network request that happened to trigger the crash but we need more information on what (condition) actually cause it and how to solve it.
Hereby, I attach sample crash report for both iOS 15 and 18.
I also have submitted a report (that include more crash reports) with number: FB17775979.
Will appreciate any insight regarding this issue and any resolution that we can do to avoid it.
iOS 15.crash
iOS 18.crash
Goal : Block all outbound connections to a static list of hosts (both In-app requests and WKWebView/Safari).
App & both extensions have Network Extension entitlement with content-filter-provider and filter-control-provider
What’s working:
Safari and WKWebView requests matching the block list are dropped.
What’s broken:
In-app traffic never reaches the Data Provider—those requests always succeed.
Setup:
• NEFilterProviderConfiguration with both Data & Control providers, filterBrowsers = true, filterSockets = true
• Data Provider implements handleNewFlow for socket/browser flows
• Control Provider implements handleNewFlow for browser flows
• Enabled via saveToPreferences() and toggled ON in Settings
send a request and it returns with timeout
Integration Team are Using Fortigate as a firewall and NGINX for some reasons
so we use VPN TO Access , requests always succeed but at once it failed with timeout in randomize request not specific one
we are using URLSession as a network layer
when I retry the same failed request again, it success
the request cannot connect apigee
Sec Team concern {
app session hits the security gateway with lots of SYN step to try to initiate a new session and doesn’t wait for (SYN-ACK / ACK) steps to happen to make sure the connection initiated correctly and gateway consider it flooding attack
}
Topic:
App & System Services
SubTopic:
Networking
Hi! My project has the Local Push Connectivity entitlement for a feature we have requiring us to send low-latency critical notifications over a local, private Wi-Fi network.
We have our NEAppPushProvider creating a SSE connection using the Network framework with our hardware running a server. The server sends a keep-alive message every second. On an iPhone 16 with iOS 18+, the connection is reliable and remains stable for hours, regardless of whether the iOS app is in the foreground, background, or killed.
One of our QA engineers has been testing on an iPhone 13 running iOS 16, and has notice shortly after locking the phone, specifically when not connected to power the device seems to turn off the Wi-Fi radio. So when the server sends a notification, it is not received. About 30s later, it seems to be back on. This happens on regular intervals.
When looking at our log data, the provider does seem to be getting stopped, then restarted shortly after. The reason code is NEProviderStopReasonNoNetworkAvailable, which further validates that the network is getting dropped by the device in regular intervals.
My questions are:
Were there possibly silent changes to the framework between iOS versions that could be the reason we're seeing inconsistent behavior?
Is there a connection type we could use, instead of SSE, that would prevent the device from disconnecting and reconnecting to the Wi-Fi network?
Is there an alternative approach to allow us to maintain a persistent network connection with the extension or app?
Topic:
App & System Services
SubTopic:
Networking
Tags:
Extensions
Network
User Notifications
Network Extension
I've been wondering what is the memory limit for network extensions. Specifically, I'm using the NEPacketTunnelProvider extension point.The various posts on this forum mention 5 MB and 6 MB for 32-bit and 64-bit respectively. However I find that (at least on iOS 10) the upper limit seems to be 15 MB. Is this the new memory limit for extensions?
Hi,I am trying to create an NAT64 Network with Sharing options to test my Apps.I did follow the guide provided here https://forums.developer.apple.com/thread/14213But even with the option key pressed the "Create NAT64 Network" check box is still missing.I am using a OS X 10.11Any ideas?!
Hello Everyone,
I’m working on a project that involves multicast communication between processes running on different devices within the same network. For all my Apple devices (macOS, iOS, etc.), I am using NWConnectionGroup, which listens on a multicast address "XX.XX.XX.XX" and a specific multicast port.
The issue occurs when a requestor (such as a non-Apple process) sends a multicast request, and the server, which is a process running on an Apple device using NWConnectionGroup (the responder), attempts to reply. The problem is that the response is sent from a different ephemeral port rather than the port on which the multicast request was received.
If the client is behind a firewall that blocks unsolicited traffic, the firewall only allows incoming packets on the same multicast port used for the initial request. Since the multicast response is sent from a different ephemeral port, the firewall blocks this response, preventing the requestor from receiving it.
Questions:
Is there a recommended approach within the NWConnectionGroup or Network.framework to ensure that responses to multicast requests are sent from the same port used for the request?
Are there any best practices for handling multicast responses in scenarios where the requestor is behind a restrictive firewall?
Any insights or suggestions on how to account for this behavior and ensure reliable multicast communication in such environments would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Harshal
I'm building an app that helps manage my own wifi access points. Now, all my wifis emit SSIDs starting with the same prefix. Is it possible for me to list down all the SSIDs near me that start with that prefix, so that determine which of my wifis are near me? (Swift)
Can NEHotspotHelper or NEHotspotConfigurationManager help in this regard?
Esim activation. Assuming I already have card data, I use the universal link https://esimsetup.apple.com/esim_qrcode_provisioning?carddata= to install it.
However, it always ends up in the system Settings app.
The flow: 1. Click the link -> 2. Redirect to Settings -> 3. Show activation dialog.
Is there anyway to make the activation flow stay within the app? I couldn't find any documentation for that.
This is an example from Revolut app, where the whole flow above happens without leaving the app.
I encountered an undesired DNS behaviour when using L2TP/ipsec VPN.
I have DHCP configured Wi-Fi connection, which send dns servers and search domain (192.168.0.10, lan)
VPN sends its own DNS server (10.0.0.2), search domain (intranet) is added manually in VPN DNS config settings.
I expect, when VPN is connected, to be still able to resolve local names, i.e some-host.lan. However, they become unresolvable.
quick check shows that the remote dns server is used to resolve local names.
shilishper@mac ~ % host -v some-host.lan
Trying "some-host.lan"
Host some-host.lan not found: 3(NXDOMAIN)
Received 106 bytes from 10.0.0.2#53 in 16 ms
Received 106 bytes from 10.0.0.2#53 in 16 ms
Actually, all dns queries are going to the remote server. I would expect that only queries for the configured domain (intranet) should go to that server. I played with the service order, but it didn't change anything.
Is anything can be done about this, programmatically?
PS new to macOS, but have extensive linux knowledge
I am trying to connect to an accessory's WiFi network using the below code and I always see the message "connection succeded" even if I provide an incorrect passphrase. I tried with different accessories and see the same behavior.
hotspotConfigurationManager.joinAccessoryHotspot(accessory, passphrase: passphrase) { error in
if let error = error {
print("connection failed: \(error.localizedDescription)")
} else {
print("connection succeeded")
}
}
We have an application which is written in Swift, which activates two network extensions (Content Filter, Transparent Proxy). We want to use MDM deployment for these network system extensions.
For Content Filter, we already have Jamf Profile which has Web Content Filter payload and it works fine.
Our Transparent Proxy module is a system extension, which is exposing an app proxy provider interface (We are using NETransparentProxyProvider class and in extension’s Info.plist we use com.apple.networkextension.app-proxy key.) We don’t have any remote server setup to forward the traffic, instead we open a connection with a certain localhost:port to redirect the traffic which is received in our transparent proxy. We have another module that listens to the particular localhost:port to process the traffic further.
We are unable to find the appropriate payload in any of the Profile Editor applications like Apple Configurator, iMazing Profile Editor and Jamf Pro that correctly describes our setup.
As per https://developer.apple.com/documentation/devicemanagement/vpn/transparentproxy documentation, we noticed that we can use the VPN payload with app-proxy as Provider Type for Transparent Proxy.
Here are the list of issues encountered with different MDM solutions.
**AppleConfigurator: **
We were able to install the profile created via Apple Configurator. However when we install our product (which has the above mentioned system extensions), the Transparent Proxy added by our product fails to map with the installed profile. User has to provide the credentials and follow the steps while installing the extension via the product.
Attached the screenshot of "Network->Filters" screen and the profile for reference.
Profile Created using Apple Configurator
iMazing Profile Editor:
Unable to install the profile created using iMazing Profile Editor.
Attached the screenshot of error and the profile for reference:
Profile Created Using iMazing Profile Editor
Jamf Pro:
We were able to install the profile created via Jamf Pro and also while in stalling our product the Transparent Proxy gets mapped with the one which is installed via profile. However after that the network is broken and hence unable to browse anything.
Attached the profile for reference.
Profile Created using Jamf Pro
What should be the correct profile payload to use for our Transparent Proxy?
Topic:
App & System Services
SubTopic:
Networking
Tags:
Network Extension
System Extensions
Device Management
I'm developing a per-app VPN iOS app with Wireguard. For that, I created a configuration file with payload type "com.apple.vpn.managed.applayer". Using the MDM server I installed some apps which need to use the VPN connection. But when I open these apps, I could see the VPN getting enabled in the device. The VPN icon appears on the notification bar but no internet connection. The VPN and internet is working correctly if I change the payload type to "com.apple.vpn.managed" in configuration file.
I want to configure one aspect of my networking configuration (the QUIC keepalive interval). This only seems to be configurable via Network.framework’s nw_quic_set_keepalive_interval. Is there any way to apply this to a URLSession? Or do I need to implement the whole connection management myself using Network.framework?