ionic / firebase ipv6 Auth ios app rejection

24
votes

I have encountered an odd problem the second time submitting an update to the app store.

I am building an app using Ionic Framework with a Java backend. Right now we use Firebase for user login.

We had a tough time getting our app onto the store this June because our server did not support ipv6 originally. After setting this up we got through review. But now that we are trying to submit an update (with a new reviewer) they cannot log into our app over ipv6 from a fresh install.

After further testing, we realized that our firebase url does not appear to be reachable over ipv6 (although we still haven't replicated the app review's report - our test correctly displays an error message, but they said that the app freezes).

I find it hard to believe firebase is not ipv6 enabled, but the testing indicates that that is the case. (once logged in ipv6 works fine with our server, we think firebase's capability to auto-relogin users offline is why we mistakenly made it into the store in the first place). Has anyone experienced similar issues with your firebase app? What did you do to resolve it? Did you end up having to abandon firebase or does the problem lie elsewhere?

p.s. I've looked long and hard but couldn't find any documentation about fireabse's compatibility with ipv6 or lack thereof. If anyone has seen this kind of documentation, that would also be immensely helpful.

2
iosauthenticationionic-frameworkfirebaseipv6
Cross-post: groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/firebase-talk/t61zHXvuR3U, where it seems to fit better. – Frank van Puffelen
I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it seems a better fit for the firebase-talk group where it was also posted: groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/firebase-talk/t61zHXvuR3U – Frank van Puffelen
Please don't close this question. I have the exact same problem, have the exact same questions as OP, and am clueless what to do. Nothing gets solved in those google groups or whatever, this question needs to be here. – rigdonmr
I also faced the same problem but when my app was rejected first time because if IPV6 compatibility, i requested them to allow it as no IPV6 implementation was there the whole country. they accepted my argument and allowed it for once. how ever later on changed from afnetworking 1 to 3.0 because the latest version provided ipv6 support. – Adeel

2 Answers

3
votes

Unfortunately Apple seems to miss-attribute any bug related to networking with IPv6-compatibility problems (as long as they hit it during compatibility testing). Most of the time, they aren't actually related to Firebase IPv6 compatibility.

Firebase has been tested on IPv6 and is compatible. You should test your app in an IPv6 environment, and check the stack trace of any error you find. If you see that Firebase is causing to the error, file a ticket with support.

0
votes

Well, you could make some networking shinanigans like using an IPv6 reverse proxy that connects into your firebase via IPv4 which would lead them to be able to log in using IPv6, even though Firebase doesn't support it. I suggest looking NGINX for that if you'd like to implement it yourself or looking into Cloudflare if you'd like to get that as a service.