App not intercepting universal links instantiated from within SFSafariViewController

Question

I have an app that opens an SFSafariViewController to handle payments on web. Once the user does the purchase, they are landed on a confirmation screen that has a "next" button. When they click that button it is sending them to a url /myCallbackURL.

The app is configured to support universal links. I have the following in my SceneDelegate.

func scene(_: UIScene, continue userActivity: NSUserActivity) {
    if userActivity.activityType == NSUserActivityTypeBrowsingWeb, let url = userActivity.webpageURL {
      let components = url.absoluteURL.pathComponents
      // check the last component and go to the right view
    }
  }

I am putting a breakpoint in this function to see when it is hit.

When I run xcrun simctl openurl booted "https://example.com/myCallbackURL" in the terminal, the breakpoint is hit. But when I click from within SFSafariViewController, it is not!!

Does SFSafariViewController supports universal links? I am confused. According to Apple's documentation it does, but in my test it is not. Am I missing something?

Answer 1

You cannot launch a universal link to your own app from within your own app. SFSafariViewController is within your own app.

Answer 2

From the link you posted:

When a user is browsing your website in Safari and they tap a universal link to a URL in the same domain as the current webpage, iOS respects the user’s most likely intent and opens the link in Safari. If the user taps a universal link to a URL in a different domain, iOS opens the link in your app.

You're not getting a callback because the universal link doesn't open your app if it's called from a website from the same domain.

I would suggest using WKWebView instead and using the delegate methods to know when the specific URL is loaded.