Android Question SOLVED - Cannot load page in webview

1. Page Requirements and Compatibility​

• JavaScript and Advanced Features: Some websites require advanced JavaScript or specific browser capabilities that might not be enabled or fully supported in a WebView. If League Secretary uses complex JavaScript or web features that WebView isn't handling well, it could lead to timeouts.
• Webview Configuration: If the WebView is not set up to support JavaScript or if certain WebView settings are disabled (like cookies, DOM storage, etc.), the website might not load correctly.

2. Network and Security Issues​

• HTTP vs. HTTPS: Websites that use HTTPS might not load correctly if there are issues with the SSL/TLS configuration on either the server or the client side. WebView might also have issues if SSL errors are not handled properly.
• Certificate Errors: WebView might encounter SSL certificate errors that a regular browser doesn't show, depending on your WebView setup (e.g., webViewClient.onReceivedSslError might need to handle these errors).
• Timeout Settings: The WebView could be timing out due to network latency or restrictions on the device or network, particularly if the timeout settings are lower than required to load the page.

3. Server-side Issues​

• Server Configuration: The server hosting the website might have certain configurations or blocks in place that prevent loading from WebView. For example, some websites block requests from specific user agents or restrict loading to known browsers.
• Traffic Filtering: If the website implements firewall or security rules that block non-standard traffic or detects your WebView as a bot or harmful request, it might prevent loading.

4. WebView Settings​

• Make sure you have enabled JavaScript in your WebView:

WebView webView = (WebView) findViewById(R.id.webview);
WebSettings webSettings = webView.getSettings();
webSettings.setJavaScriptEnabled(true);
webSettings.setDomStorageEnabled(true); // Enables DOM storage
webSettings.setUseWideViewPort(true); // May help in some cases
webSettings.setLoadWithOverviewMode(true); // May help in some cases

5. Error Handling in WebView​

• Implement a WebViewClient to handle errors and debug further:

webView.setWebViewClient(new WebViewClient() {
    @Override
    public void onReceivedError(WebView view, WebResourceRequest request, WebResourceError error) {
        // Handle the error
        Log.e("WebViewError", "Error: " + error.toString());
    }

    @Override
    public void onReceivedSslError(WebView view, SslErrorHandler handler, SslError error) {
        // Handle SSL error
        handler.proceed(); // Ignore SSL certificate errors (not recommended for production)
    }
});

6. Testing in a Browser​

• Test the URL in the Chrome browser on the Android device to see if it loads correctly. If it loads in Chrome but not in WebView, the issue is likely with WebView settings or capabilities.
• Also, try testing the same page on different networks to rule out network-specific issues.

Steps to Troubleshoot​

1. Enable JavaScript and DOM Storage in WebView settings.
2. Check for SSL errors using WebViewClient.
3. Debug Logs: Add logging to see if there is an error or specific event when it times out.
4. Network Check: Try different networks or a VPN to see if it's a network-related issue.
5. User-Agent: Consider setting the WebView's user agent string to mimic a common browser to see if that affects loading:

String userAgent = "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/58.0.3029.110 Safari/537.3";
webSettings.setUserAgentString(userAgent);

Conclusion​