NSURLCache does not clear stored responses in iOS8 - ios

Question

Here is the sample function I call when i need to clear cache and make a new call to URL
- (void)clearDataFromNSURLCache:(NSString *)urlString
{
NSURL *requestUrl = [NSURL URLWithString:urlString];
NSURLRequest *dataUrlRequest = [NSURLRequest requestWithURL: requestUrl];
NSURLCache * cache =[NSURLCache sharedURLCache];
NSCachedURLResponse* cacheResponse =[cache cachedResponseForRequest:dataUrlRequest];
if (cacheResponse) {
NSString* dataStr = [NSString stringWithUTF8String:[[cacheResponse data] bytes]];
NSLog(#"data str r= %#",dataStr);
NSLog(#"url str r= %#",[[[cacheResponse response] URL] absoluteString]);
[cache storeCachedResponse:nil forRequest:dataUrlRequest];
[NSURLCache setSharedURLCache:cache];
}
[[NSURLCache sharedURLCache] removeCachedResponseForRequest:dataUrlRequest];
//Check if the response data has been removed/deleted from cache
NSURLRequest *finalRequestUrlRequest = [NSURLRequest requestWithURL:requestUrl];
NSURLCache * finalCache =[NSURLCache sharedURLCache];
NSCachedURLResponse* finalcacheResponse =[finalCache cachedResponseForRequest:finalRequestUrlRequest];
if (finalcacheResponse) {
//Should not enter here
NSString* finaldataStr = [NSString stringWithUTF8String:[[finalcacheResponse data] bytes]];
NSLog(#"data str r= %#",finaldataStr);
NSLog(#"url str r= %#",[[[cacheResponse response] URL] absoluteString]);
}
}
In iOS 6/7 the response is deleted successfully for the requestURL, but in iOS 8 it never gets deleted.
I have searched but could not find any reason why this should not work in iOS8.
Any help will be appreciated…..

Answer 1

NSURLCache is broken on iOS 8.0.x - it never purges the cache at all, so it grows without limit. See http://blog.airsource.co.uk/2014/10/11/nsurlcache-ios8-broken/ for a detailed investigation. Cache purging is fixed in the 8.1 betas - but removeCachedResponseForRequest: is not.
removeCachedResponsesSinceDate: does appear to work on iOS 8.0 - an API that was added for 8.0, but hasn't made it to the docs yet (it is in the API diffs). I am unclear what use it is to anyone - surely what you normally want to do is remove cached responses before a particular date.
removeAllCachedResponses works as well - but that's a real sledgehammer solution.

Answer 2

I got a sufficient result reseting the cached response for a specific URL, changing the cache control to something that would never be returned like a "max-age=0" in the header. Look here

Answer 3

Whenever any API call is generated, That response is saved in the cache. You are able to find that folder in your documents directory, a folder with named cachedb is created which contains a list of responses. It can be a major concern related to security. With any third-party tool, someone can have access to that information.
Below is the way I have solved this issue :
NSURLCache *cache = [[NSURLCache alloc] initWithMemoryCapacity:0 * 1024 * 1024 diskCapacity:0 * 1024 * 1024 diskPath:nil];
[NSURLCache setSharedURLCache:cache];
I have allocated 0 memory space to the cache. so no data will be stored in Cache memory.