MAUI WebView doesn't allow to web session to inspected in Safari developer tools (Mac Catalyst)

[alexeystrakh]

Description

WKWebView Safari developer tools (inspect option) are not available in a MAUI Mac app. If the same app is created using native tooling Xcode + Swift with no extra configuration/entitlements - it works (there is a visible session to inspect in Safari dev tools). If a new MAUI app is created with just a WebView in it (which created WKMauiWebView, which is essentially the same as WKWebView), Safari shows no debuggable sessions available.

Other scenarios tests - the same result with no option to debug the session:

• BlazorWebView
• Plain MacCatalyst WKWebView
• MAUI WebView with custom handler with developerExtrasEnabled set

The source for all foud projects is in the following repository:
https://github.com/xamcat/maui-wkwebview-inspect

Steps to Reproduce

1. Create new MAUI App
2. Register WebView on the main page

 <WebView Source="https://www.apple.com"
             VerticalOptions="FillAndExpand"
             HorizontalOptions="FillAndExpand" />

3. Run on Mac with dotnet build -t:Run -f net6.0-maccatalyst
4. Open Safari and navigate to Develop-> <MacName>

Result: No inspectable application message
Expected: Web session created by WebView (WKWebView) is visible in debug tools

Version with bug

6.0 (current)

Last version that worked well

Release Candidate 3 (current)

Affected platforms

macOS

Affected platform versions

maccatalyst 13.1

Did you find any workaround?

No workaround has been found.

Relevant log output

No response

[Eilon]

We tried everything we could to get this working with BlazorWebView on Mac, and we just couldn't get it to work. So it's probably the same problem as the regular .NET MAUI WebView, but we don't know what that is. We got Windows (WebView2), Android, and iOS all working with Dev Tools, but not macOS. But it's interesting to hear that an app built in Xcode has this working, so maybe we can compare what that does to what MAUI is doing, and figure out the difference.

[Eilon]

Also tagging this as area/blazor because this might educate us on how to fix this for Blazor.

[javiercn]

@Eilon do you think we might be missing an entitlement in the app manifest?

[Eilon]

@javiercn I'm not sure. I didn't see any entitlements in the Xcode app, either, unless it's somehow auto-generated in some cases? (Maybe let's say in debug mode?) Or maybe I missed where it is? Also, we did try using entitlements to enable F12 tools but it never worked, and various Internet people had also encountered the same thing, so we always ended up at a dead end.

[alexeystrakh]

I found some confirmations that the entitlement is needed (get-task-allow) to have the Safari inspect tools work, but also confirmed that Xcode doesn't include any entitlements for a Cocoa app and it works for Xcode.

May be Xcode includes this entitlements for debug builds automatically without asking us? Found here

get-task-allow is typically added by Xcode automatically for development builds

[TanayParikh]

@alexeystrakh did you get it working with the get-task-allow entitlement?

@Eilon we also have #5561 which tracks enabling dev tools for Blazor WebView. Do we want to keep this issue open for MAUI WebView or close it as a duplicate?

Also, not sure if you'll be able to access this; but this bug has been reported to & acknowledged by Apple: https://feedbackassistant.apple.com/feedback/9972022

[Eilon]

@TanayParikh ah I forgot we had a BlazorWebView-specific bug, so let's keep that, and then this bug will be for MAUI WebView.

That feedback ticket is unfortunately not visible even after I log in with my Apple ID.

[alexeystrakh]

I'm following this guide and have added the Entitlements.plist with the required value and registered it within a property group property CodeSignEntitlements, although it the build logs I don't see it was used by the build:

Target "_CompileEntitlements" in file "/usr/local/share/dotnet/packs/Microsoft.MacCatalyst.Sdk/15.4.402/tools/msbuild/iOS/Xamarin.Shared.targets":
  Building target "_CompileEntitlements" completely.
  No input files were specified.
  Using "CompileEntitlements" task from assembly "/usr/local/share/dotnet/packs/Microsoft.MacCatalyst.Sdk/15.4.402/tools/msbuild/iOS/../iOS/Xamarin.iOS.Tasks.dll".
  Task "CompileEntitlements"
    /usr/local/share/dotnet/packs/Microsoft.MacCatalyst.Sdk/15.4.402/tools/msbuild/iOS/Xamarin.Shared.targets(627,3): warning : Cannot expand $(AppIdentifierPrefix) in Entitlements.plist without a provisioning profile.
    /usr/local/share/dotnet/packs/Microsoft.MacCatalyst.Sdk/15.4.402/tools/msbuild/iOS/Xamarin.Shared.targets(627,3): warning :         
  Done executing task "CompileEntitlements".
  Task "GetFullPath" skipped, due to false condition; ('$(IsMacEnabled)' == 'true' And '$(_CompiledEntitlements)' != '') was evaluated as ('true' == 'true' And '' != '').
  Using "GetFullPath" task from assembly "/usr/local/share/dotnet/packs/Microsoft.MacCatalyst.Sdk/15.4.402/tools/msbuild/iOS/../iOS/Xamarin.iOS.Tasks.dll".
  Task "GetFullPath"
  Done executing task "GetFullPath".
Done building target "_CompileEntitlements" in project "maui-app-webviewtest2.csproj".

I'm using a personal Apple Account and wondering how I can get a key+profile for this. When I do the same via Xcode, it does everything automatically and also (!) says that a provisioning profile is not required:

Because of this, I'm unable to validate if the Entitlement.plist with the get-task-allow helps with the issue.