Android WebView - navigating back on URL redirection

Question

I have a question on the Android webview.

Assume URL A redirects to URL B.

My android application when it tries to open URL A, webview automatically redirects to URL B.

If a URL is being redirected to some other url, I see both these urls are stored in webview history. Now my webview history consists of [, , URL A, URL B ]

On back key click from URL B webpage, webview will try to load URL A, which again redirects to URL B. We need to double click back key to go back beyond URL A

How do I solve this issue ? Struggling from the past 2 hours :(

Answer 1

I have a same problem too, and figured out how to solve it. It's like yours. When I click the first link(www.new.a) it automatically redirects other link(mobile.new.a). Usually the links redirect two or three, and my solution have been worked on almost every redirect links. I hope this answer help you out with annyoing redirecting links.

I finally figured out that. You need a WebViewClient with four APIs. There are shouldOverrideUrlLoading(), onPageStarted(), onPageFinished(), and doUpdateVisitedHistory() in the WebViewClient. All the APIs you need is API 1 so don't worry about.

It goes like this. You can use other function rather than onKeyUp().

public class MyWebView extends WebView{
    ...
    private int mRedirectedCount=0;
    .... 

    @Override
    public boolean onKeyUp(int keyCode, KeyEvent event) {
        if ((keyCode == KeyEvent.KEYCODE_BACK) && this.canGoBack()) {
            if(mRedirectedCount>0){
                while(mRedirectedCount>0){
                    this.goBack();
                    mRedirectedCount--;
                }
                mRedirectedCount=0; //clear
            }else{
                this.goBack();
            }
        return true;
    }

    private class MyWebViewClinet extends WebViewClient{
        boolean mIsPageFinished=true;
        ...    

        @Override
        public boolean shouldOverrideUrlLoading(WebView view, String url) {
            .....
            if(mIsPageFinished){
                mRedirectedCount=0; //clear count
            }
            .....
        }

        @Override
        public void onPageStarted(WebView view, String url, Bitmap favicon) {
            super.onPageStarted(view, url, favicon);
            mIsPageFinished = false;
        }

        @Override
        public void onPageFinished(WebView view, String url) {
            super.onPageFinished(view, url);
            mIsPageFinished = true;
        }

        @Override
        public void doUpdateVisitedHistory(WebView view, String url, boolean isReload) {
            super.doUpdateVisitedHistory(view, url, isReload);

            if(!mIsPageFinished){
                mRedirectedCount++;
            }
        }

Answer 2

private class HelloWebViewClient extends WebViewClient {
}

mWebView.setWebViewClient(new HelloWebViewClient());

If overriding shouldOverrideUrlLoading(), then return false. May not be correct way but it works for me.

Answer 3

i have the problem too, now already solved the problem.

solution

**If WebViewClient is provided, return true means the host application handles the url, while return false means the current WebView handles the url. **

Answer 4

KOTLIN 2022

(Ignore some my codes, for example "intent.extras" or "with(webView.settings)" - if you don't need these settings of webView and yes I am not using viewBinding!!!)

Tried all my best to solve this problem + also fixed: when you clicking some toolbars in webpage which is something like show something without opening a new url, it was adding('cuz onTouch see below) current url again to our arrayList and when you were clicking "back" it was refreshing -> current url to current url. Best solution is here:

class WebActivity : AppCompatActivity(), View.OnTouchListener {
    private lateinit var url: String
    private lateinit var webView: WebView
    private lateinit var progressBar: ProgressBar
    private var mLastUrl: String? = null
    private val previous: ArrayList<String> = ArrayList()

    @SuppressLint("SetJavaScriptEnabled", "ClickableViewAccessibility")
    override fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle?) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState)
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_web)
        url = intent.extras!!.getString("url").toString()

        webView = findViewById(R.id.appWebView)
        progressBar = findViewById(R.id.webViewProgressBar)
        CookieManager.getInstance().setAcceptCookie(true)
        webView.webViewClient = (object : WebViewClient(){
            override fun onPageStarted(view: WebView?, url: String?, favicon: Bitmap?) {
                super.onPageStarted(view, url, favicon)
                progressBar.visibility = View.VISIBLE
            }

            override fun onPageFinished(view: WebView?, url: String?) {
                Log.i("DebugDebug", "OnPageFinished " + url);
                super.onPageFinished(view, url)
                mLastUrl = url
                progressBar.visibility = View.GONE
            }
        })
        webView.setOnTouchListener(this)

        with(webView.settings) {
            javaScriptEnabled = true
            javaScriptCanOpenWindowsAutomatically = true
            domStorageEnabled = true
            databaseEnabled = true
            loadWithOverviewMode = true
            useWideViewPort = true
            builtInZoomControls = true
            displayZoomControls = false
            setSupportZoom(true)
            defaultTextEncodingName = "utf-8"
        }
        webView.loadUrl(url)
    }

    @SuppressLint("ClickableViewAccessibility")
    override fun onTouch(v: View?, mE: MotionEvent?): Boolean {
        val hr = (v as WebView).hitTestResult
        if(hr != null && mLastUrl != null){
            if (previous.isEmpty() || previous[previous.size - 1] != mLastUrl) previous.add(mLastUrl!!)
        }
        Log.i("DebugDebug", "getExtra = " + hr.getExtra() + "\t\t Type = " + hr.getType())
        return false
    }

    override fun onBackPressed() {
        Log.i("DebugDebug", "onBackPressed loaded and removed" + previous.toString());
        if (previous.size > 0 && webView.url != previous[previous.size - 1]){
            webView.loadUrl(previous[previous.size - 1])
            previous.removeAt(previous.size - 1)
        }
    }
}

Answer 5

Try to overload the OnBackPressed() to overide the default hard key back action. there u can finish the current activity or control how you want.