Cordova - window.history.back() not working on HTML back button in iOS 9

The problem is that setting of window.location.hash is asynchronous in the iOS 9.0 UIWebview (used by Cordova/Phonegap) - see this bug report for details.

This causes issues when using jQuery Mobile which by default uses window.location.hash to navigate between "pages". It also causes issues with popups/dialogs/select menus which use this mechanism.

You can fix this by preventing jQuery Mobile from automatically listening/using location.hash:

$(document).on("deviceready", function(){
    $.mobile.hashListeningEnabled = false;
});

However, I found this had side effects on Android such as causing the hardware back button not to work, so I targeted it specifically at iOS 9 using cordova-plugin-device:

$(document).on("deviceready", function(){
    if(device.platform === "iOS" && parseInt(device.version) === 9){
        $.mobile.hashListeningEnabled = false;
    }
});

Note that I'm using navigator.app.backHistory() not window.history.back() in conjunction with hashListeningEnabled = false - this may make a difference.

Alternatively you can use this plugin to use the new WKWebView on iOS 8 and 9. WKWebView is used by Safari on iOS 8+, hence JQM sites viewed in the browser on iOS 9 don't encounter these issues. cordova-ios 3 still uses UIWebView due to a bug in WKWebView in iOS 8, but the upcoming cordova-ios 4 will support a WKWebView core plugin for iOS 9+. Note that there are additional considerations when using WKWebView with Cordova/Phonegap apps due to its stricter security, such as requiring CORS headers on XHR responses.

I think it is the A tag's default action causes the bug. So I just prevent the default action by adding return false at end of the click handler function

And it works.

• html

<a id="back-btn">back</a>

• javascript

  $('#back-btn').on('click', function(e) {
         window.history.go(-1);
         return false;
      })
  

SOLUTION:

This line resolved my issue :

 history.go(0); 

I have replaced window.history.back() with history.go(0);

Now it is working fine for me in iOS 9

In index.html

   <script type="text/javascript">$.mobile.hashListeningEnabled = false;</script>

Add this in onDeviceReady function:

function onDeviceReady() {
    if ( device.platform === "iOS" && parseInt( device.version ) === 9 ) {
        $.mobile.hashListeningEnabled = false;
    }

    if ( !( $.mobile.hashListeningEnabled &&
        $.mobile.path.isHashValid( location.hash ) &&
        ( $( hashPage ).is( ":jqmData(role='page')" ) ||
            $.mobile.path.isPath( hash ) ||
            hash === $.mobile.dialogHashKey ) ) ) {

        // make sure to set initial popstate state if it exists
        // so that navigation back to the initial page works properly
        if ( $.event.special.navigate.isPushStateEnabled() ) {
            $.mobile.navigate.navigator.squash( path.parseLocation().href );
        }

        $.mobile.changePage( $.mobile.firstPage, {
            transition: "none",
            reverse: true,
            changeHash: false,
            fromHashChange: true
        } );
    } else {
        // trigger hashchange or navigate to squash and record the correct
        // history entry for an initial hash path
        if ( !$.event.special.navigate.isPushStateEnabled() ) {
            $window.trigger( "hashchange", [true] );
        } else {
            // TODO figure out how to simplify this interaction with the initial history entry
            // at the bottom js/navigate/navigate.js
            $.mobile.navigate.history.stack = [];
            $.mobile.navigate( $.mobile.path.isPath( location.hash ) ? location.hash : location.href );
        }
    }
}

Validation for device OS version (as history.go(0) is working only with iOS 9) Prior to iOS 9 version window.history.back() working perfectly

And now Add this piece of code in place of window.history.back()

if ( device.platform === "iOS" && parseInt( device.version ) === 9 ) {
    console.log( "version" + device.version );
    console.log( "iOS 9" );
    history.go( 0 );
    //write your code here                 
}
else {
    window.history.back();
}

To fix this Message "Failed to load webpage with error: CDVWebViewDelegate: Navigation started when state=1" in console add below code in CDVWebViewDelegate.m

In - (BOOL)webView:(UIWebView*)webView shouldStartLoadWithRequest:(NSURLRequest*)request navigationType:(UIWebViewNavigationType)navigationType

Method Comment this piece of code shown below:

/*if ([_delegate respondsToSelector:@selector(webView:didFailLoadWithError:)]) {
    NSDictionary* errorDictionary = @{NSLocalizedDescriptionKey : description};
    NSError* error = [[NSError alloc] initWithDomain:@"CDVWebViewDelegate" code:1 userInfo:errorDictionary];
    [_delegate webView:webView didFailLoadWithError:error];
}*/