Events not showing on iOS Private Browsing tab

[Stephan]

I just discovered that events do not show on Map and List views on iOS when the Filter Bar is enabled and the user is in Private Browsing mode. My best guess is that this is because of local storage limitations. Disabling the Filter Bar restores functionality. What is the best way to resolve this?

[George]

Hey Stephan,

Thank you for reporting this issue – it’s something that was not on our radar and we can definitely do some more investigation here to see what’s going on and if there’s a fix we can make to resolve this issue.

If the issues are, indeed, with iOS’s localStorage limitations in Private Browsing mode, then unfortunately there may be little if nothing we can do to work around that since all of The Events Calendar’s code, of course, runs in the browser directly. In other words if the operating system limits the browser’s ability to run certain code then we can’t get around that as a piece of code running inside the browser, like a knife trying to cut itself…

I will pass this issue along to developers for further investigation to see if what I mentioned here is, in fact, the case – there may be a simpler bug with our code or something, but even if this is the case I do not have a fix to recommend at the moment 🙁 And we do not have a release planned for at least several more weeks from now in the future.

I apologize for the lack of actionable things to do at present regarding this issue; please let me know what you think about all of this, and if there’s anything else I can help you with!

Sincerely,
George

[George]

Hey Stephan,

I’m sorry I forgot to mention this, but there are actually two useful step here that you can do to further the bug report. First, to help us recreate your problem, can you share your System Information with us? Here’s how to do that -> https://theeventscalendar.com/knowledgebase/sharing-sys-info/

Then, you can try running through our troubleshooting steps here -> https://theeventscalendar.com/knowledgebase/testing-for-conflicts/

In doing those steps, check on the issue with your Events pages in “Private Browsing” after EACH step. Does any behavior of this issue change at all anywhere along the way?

This process will help reveal or rule out the possibility of theme or other plugin conflicts, which could definitely be a factor here.

Thank you!
George

[Stephan]

Hi George,

I understand the limitations on providing a fix for the Filter Bar. What I’d suggest instead, though, is a method to detect and turn off filtering when Private Browsing is enabled. I’d rather have our events show without the filtering options than to have our end users see nothing. Would this be possible?

As for the additional testing, I have confirmed that changing themes and turning off other plugins does not affect this issue. Additionally, turning off the Filter Bar eliminates the problem. I will send my system info in a separate private reply.

Thanks,
Stephan

[Stephan]

This reply is private.

[George]

I appreciate the additional testing you did, @Stephan, and your sharing your System Information with us. All of these things are helpful!

As are your suggestions about hiding the filters altogether if Private Browsing is activated; upon further research, however, it turns out that there is NOT, in fact, a reliable to tell if a user is using Private Browsing these days. In 2013 and such, it was easier to tell, but improvements have been made in browsers so that local storage is still used in Private Browsing, just in a smarter and more ephemeral way.

I’ve made a development ticket for this issue despite all of this. There may indeed be something we can improve on our end of things here. As for a quick fix or a simple JavaScript check for local storage capabilities to determine if the user is in Private Browsing or not, however, there is unfortunately no solution for this at this time 🙁

I’m sorry to bear that news, @Stephan. Let me know what you think and if there is anything else I can help with.

Sincerely,
George

[Stephan]

I’m sorry to hear that there is no reliable way to detect Private Browsing. I appreciate you forwarding this issue along to the development team–I think this use case is common enough that it warrants further thought.

Thanks!
Stephan

[George]

It definitely warrants further thought, Stephan. I’ve logged a development ticket and thus it will come up for discussion on next week’s weekly meeting where we share newfound bugs, feedback, etc. Keep your eyes on the “Changelogs” of the plugin after an update is published – if we’re able to handle this any better, we’ll note it there!

Cheers,
George

[Support Droid]

This topic has not been active for quite some time and will now be closed.

If you still need assistance please simply open a new topic (linking to this one if necessary)
and one of the team will be only too happy to help.

[George]

Hello!

I wanted to inform you that we’ve just published a series of updates to our products that fixes a number of issues.

We’ve fixed the Private Browsing-related issues reported here.

Learn more about this release—version 4.3.3—in the official release notes here → https://theeventscalendar.com/maintenance-release-events-calendar-4-3-3-event-tickets-4-3-3-premium-plugins/

Thanks for your patience while we fixed this!
George

[Author]

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