Make periodic HTTP requests with service worker - service-worker

Is it possible to make HTTP requests in background with service worker, when users are not visiting my webpage. I want to make periodic requests to my webpage (e.g. 3 seconds)?
There is a feature called periodicSync, but i didn't understand how to use it.

I've not tried implementing this but for me the clearest overview has been this explanation.
Making periodic requests involves first handling the Service Worker ready event, invoking the periodicSync.register() function with config options. The register() function returns a Promise that allows you to deal with success or rejection of the periodic sync registration.
registration.periodicSync.register()
Pass a 'config' object parameter with the following properties:
tag
minPeriod
powerState
networkState
You may then register listeners against the periodicSync event. E.g (slightly simplified example based on the explanation.
self.addEventListener('periodicsync', function(event) {
if (event.registration.tag == 'my-tag') {
event.waitUntil(doTheWork()); // "do the work" asynchronously via a Promise.
}
else {
// unknown sync, may be old, best to unregister
event.registration.unregister();
}
});

Related

Redirect API call fetches from Service Worker

This is a really annoying issue. I am using a third party login in my application. When a user logins in through the third party, it redirects an api call to the server.
ex: /api/signin/github?code=test&state=test
For some strange reason this API call is getting fetched from the service worker instead on the server which handles the login logic.
ex:
Without seeing your service worker's fetch event handler, it's hard to say exactly what code is responsible for that.
In general, though, if there are URLs for which you want to tell the service worker never to respond to, you can just avoid calling event.respondWith(...) when they trigger a fetch. There are lots of ways to avoid doing that, but an early return is straightforward:
self.addEventListener('fetch', (event) => {
const url = new URL(event.request.url);
if (url.pathname === '/api/signin/github') {
// By returning without calling event.respondWith(),
// the request will be handled by the normal browser
// network stack.
return;
}
// Your fetch event response generation logic goes here.
event.respondWith(...);
});

Managing Server Side Events with a Service Worker

I am building a web app to display on my iPad to control my raspberry pi acting as an audio recorder. Part of the need is to maintain an event source open so that the server can send Server Side Events. A specific instance of the app can grab control of the recording process, but will loose control if the server sees sse link closes. This is just protection against a client disappearing and leaving the control held (control of the process does needed to be renewed at least every 5 minutes - but I don't really want to wait that long in the normal case of someone just closing the browser tab.)
Part of my need is to push the browser to the background so I can then open up the camera and record a video.
I built this app and had it almost working see https://github.com/akc42/pi_record.git (master branch).
Until I pushed the browser to the background and found IOS shut down the page and broke the sse link.
I tried restructuring to use a private web worker to manage the sse link, massing messages between the web worker and the main javascript thread - again almost working (see workers branch of above repository). But that got shutdown too!
My last thought is to use a service worker, but how to structure the app?
Clearly the service worker must act as a client to the server for the server side events. It must keep the connection open, but it also needs to keep track of multiple tabs in the browser which may or may not try and grab control of the interface, and only allow one tab to do so.
I can think of three approaches - but its difficult to see which is better. At least I have never even seen any mention of approach 2 and 3 below , but it seems to me that one of these two might actually be the simplest.
Approach 1
Move the code I have now for separate web workers into the service worker. However we will need to add to the message passing some form of ID between window and service. So I can record which tab actually grabbed control of the interface and therefore exclude other tabs from doing so (ie simulate a failed attempt to take control).
As far as I can work out MessageEvent.ports[0] could be a unique object which I could store in a Map somewhere, but I am not entirely convinced that the MessageChannel wouldn't close if the browser moved to the background.
Approach 2
have a set of phantom urls in the service worker that simulate all the different message types (and parameters) that where previously sent my the tab to its private web worker.
The fetch event provides a clientid (which I can use to difference between who actually grabbed control) and which I can use to then do Clients.get(clientid).postMessage() (or Clients.matchAll when a broadcast response is needed)
Code would be something like
self.addEventListener('fetch', (event) => {
const requestURL = new URL(event.request.url);
if (/^\/api\//.test(requestURL.pathname)) {
event.respondWith(fetch(event.request)); //all api requests are a direct pass through
} else if (/^\/service\//.test(requestURL.pathname)) {
/*
process these like a message passing with one extra to say the client is going away.
*/
if (urlRecognised) {
event.respondWith(new Response('OK', {status: 200}));
} else {
event.respondWith(new Response(`Unknown request ${requestURL.pathname}`, {status: 404}));
}
} else {
event.respondWith(async () => {
const cache = await caches.open('recorder');
const cachedResponse = await cache.match(event.request);
const networkResponsePromise = fetch(event.request);
event.waitUntil(async () => {
const networkResponse = await networkResponsePromise;
await cache.put(event.request, networkResponse.clone());
});
// Returned the cached response if we have one, otherwise return the network response.
return cachedResponse || networkResponsePromise;
});
}
});
The top of the the fetch event just passes the standard api requests made by the client straight through. I can't cache these (although I could be more sophisticated and perhaps pre reject those not supported).
The second section matches phantom urls /service/something
The last section is taken from Jake Archibald's offline cookbook and tries to use the cache, but updates the cache in the background if any of the static files have changed.
Approach 3
Similar to the approach above, in that we would have phantom urls and use the clientid as a unique marker, but actually try and simulate a server side event stream with one url.
I'm thinking the code with be more like
...
} else if (/^\/service\//.test(requestURL.pathname)) {
const stream = new TransformStream();
const writer = stream.writeable.getWriter();
event.respondWith(async () => {
const streamFinishedPromise = new Promise(async (resolve,reject) => {
event.waitUntil(async () => {
/* eventually close the link */
await streamFinishedPromise;
});
try {
while (true) writer.write(await nextMessageFromServerSideEventStream());
} catch(e) {
writer.close();
resolve();
}
});
return new Response(stream.readable,{status:200}) //probably need eventstream headers too
}
I am thinking that approach 2 could be the simplest, given where I am now but I am concerned that I can see nothing when searching for how to use service workers that discusses this phantom url approach.
Can anyone comment on any of these approaches and provide guidance on how to best program the tricky bits (for instance does Approach 1 message channel close when the browser is moved to the background on an iPad, or how do you really keep a response channel open, and does that get closed when the browser moves to the background in Approach 3)
The simple truth is that none of these approaches will work. What I didn't realise when I asked the question is that a service worker is re-run by the browser when ever there is something to do and that run only lasts for the length of time of the processing of an event. Although eventWaitUntil can prolong that, the only reference to how long I can find is that the browser is still at liberty to cancel it if it appears it might never close. I can't imagine than in a period of several hours it won't get cancelled. So an Event Source will close effectively terminate its link to the server.
So my only option to achieve what I want is to have the server carry on when the Event Source closes and find some other mechanism to release resources held on behalf of the client

Bypass Service-Worker caching

I have a progressive web-app, which speaks to an API. The calls to this api get cached by a service worker, which works great.
But now, I want to add a reload-button, which ideally forces the service worker to try to bypass the cache and update it if successful, also it should not return the cached result if a connection could not be made.
I am a bit unsure how to solve this. I am using the sw-toolbox.
All requests go through the fetch callback which receives a request object. Thus, before returning a cached response you can look for an additional header parameter (you need to include it into your request to API) to skip the logic returning cached response.
Based on your description, you are using the application cache. It can be accessed from the app fronted independent of the sw-tool box.
function onReloadButtonClicked(event) {
//Check for browser cache support
if ('caches' in window) {
//Update cache if network query is successful
caches.open('your_cache_name')
.then(function(cache) {
cache.add('your_url');
}).catch(function(err) {
// Do something with the error
});
}
}

SignalR is only sending the first two messages

I have a .Net MVC web application and I am using SignalR to implement a progress bar functionality.
I have a View that is making an Ajax POST to an action using JQuery:
$.ajax({
url: actionUrl,
type: 'POST',
data: { ids: ids },
success: function (data) {
...
}
});
The Controller is procesing information inside a loop, and every n iteration is sending a message using signalr to a Hub. The client is connected to the Hub and updates a progress bar with the information in the messages.
I open the connection to the signalr hub with this code:
var connection = new HubConnection("http://localhost/");
connection.Credentials = CredentialCache.DefaultNetworkCredentials;
this.proxy = connection.CreateHubProxy("progressHub");
connection.Start().Wait();
And then send the information with this:
proxy.Invoke("ProgressChanged", taskId, progress);
This is working correctly for the first two updates, but from that on it is not working anymore until the end of the long process, when I receive all the remaining messages. I am receiving something like this:
0% complete
5% complete
... (long pause as the process completes)
10%, 15%, 20%, 25%, etc (all these messages come together)
It is always the first two messages, not a random number of messages.
Do you know any configuration that I may be missing?
I tried adding a sleep after each message and making the action async and adding .Wait() to each message, but it is always the same behaviour.
I tried it in IISExpress and full IIS 8.
Your action method in the controller should be async and call an asynchronous Task. My guess is that while your ajax call is waiting for completion, the call made by signalR are probalby queued until your proccess is complete and end the ajax request.

A better way to detect a change in a parse class?

Currently I set up a timer that every 2 seconds makes a query to a parse class to see if any data has changed. If the data has changed it calls the refreshData method so my view can be updated with the new parse data.
So when ever data is updated in the parse class it will almost instantly be updated in the app.
The problem is this causes a lot of unnecessary web traffic, which I need to avoid.
What can I do to replace the timer with something that detects when data is changed in the parse class then tells the app to call the refreshData method?
afterSave Triggers
//this will trigger everytime the className objects has changed
Parse.Cloud.afterSave("className", function(request) {
//Do some stuff here //like calling http request or sending push 'data has changed' to installed mobile device
console.log("Object has been added/updated"+request.object.id);
});
https://parse.com/docs/js/guide#cloud-code-aftersave-triggers
You need to deploy first a cloud code then it will handle your problem :-)
In some cases, you may want to perform some action, such as a push, after an object has been saved. You can do this by registering a handler with the afterSave method. For example, suppose you want to keep track of the number of comments on a blog post. You can do that by writing a function like this:
Parse.Cloud.afterSave("Comment", function(request) {
query = new Parse.Query("Post");
query.get(request.object.get("post").id, {
success: function(post) {
post.increment("comments");
post.save();
},
error: function(error) {
console.error("Got an error " + error.code + " : " + error.message);
}
});
});
The client will receive a successful response to the save request after the handler terminates, regardless of how it terminates. For instance, the client will receive a successful response even if the handler throws an exception. Any errors that occurred while running the handler can be found in the Cloud Code log.
If you want to use afterSave for a predefined class in the Parse JavaScript SDK (e.g. Parse.User), you should not pass a String for the first argument. Instead, you should pass the class itself.
I'm not sure if my solution will fit with your needs, but using beforeSave trigger within CloudCode, combined to DirtyKeys will save you time and queries : http://blog.parse.com/learn/engineering/parse-objects-dirtykeys/
With DirtyKeys you can detect once some change was done on your class, and then you can build new trigger and do whatever you need once done.

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