WKWebView causes my view controller to leak

Question

My view controller displays a WKWebView. I installed a message handler, a cool Web Kit feature that allows my code to be notified from inside the web page:

o         


        

Answer 1

Basic problem: The WKUserContentController holds a strong reference to all WKScriptMessageHandlers that were added to it. You have to remove them manually.

Since this is still a problem with Swift 4.2 and iOS 11 I want to suggest a solution which is using a handler which is separate from the view controller that holds the UIWebView. This way the view controller can deinit normally and tell the handler to clean up as well.

Here is my solution:

UIViewController:

import UIKit
import WebKit

class MyViewController: JavascriptMessageHandlerDelegate {

    private let javascriptMessageHandler = JavascriptMessageHandler()

    private lazy var webView: WKWebView = WKWebView(frame: .zero, configuration: self.javascriptEventHandler.webViewConfiguration)

    override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()

        self.javascriptMessageHandler.delegate = self

        // TODO: Add web view to the own view properly

        self.webView.load(URLRequest(url: myUrl))
    }

    deinit {
        self.javascriptEventHandler.cleanUp()
    }
}

// MARK: - JavascriptMessageHandlerDelegate
extension MyViewController {
    func handleHelloWorldEvent() {

    }
}

Handler:

import Foundation
import WebKit

protocol JavascriptMessageHandlerDelegate: class {
    func handleHelloWorld()
}

enum JavascriptEvent: String, CaseIterable {
    case helloWorld
}

class JavascriptMessageHandler: NSObject, WKScriptMessageHandler {

    weak var delegate: JavascriptMessageHandlerDelegate?

    private let contentController = WKUserContentController()

    var webViewConfiguration: WKWebViewConfiguration {
        for eventName in JavascriptEvent.allCases {
            self.contentController.add(self, name: eventName.rawValue)
        }

        let config = WKWebViewConfiguration()
        config.userContentController = self.contentController

        return config
    }

    /// Remove all message handlers manually because the WKUserContentController keeps a strong reference on them
    func cleanUp() {
        for eventName in JavascriptEvent.allCases {
            self.contentController.removeScriptMessageHandler(forName: eventName.rawValue)
        }
    }

    deinit {
        print("Deinitialized")
    }
}

// MARK: - WKScriptMessageHandler
extension JavascriptMessageHandler {
    func userContentController(_ userContentController: WKUserContentController, didReceive message: WKScriptMessage) {
        // TODO: Handle messages here and call delegate properly
        self.delegate?.handleHelloWorld()
    }
}