auryn_macmillan reported that two of their Discourse instances fail to behave as proper Chrome webapps on Android when added to the homescreen — instead opening in a regular Chrome tab. While most instances work correctly (showing splash screens and hiding the URL bar), these two do not. Falco initially suggested verifying HTTPS, which was confirmed. Investigation revealed that the manifest.json for https://forum.gnosis.pm/ was malformed. Falco suspected missing required fields, particularly apple_touch_icon_url, which auryn_macmillan confirmed was set. Further discussion revealed the issue was likely caused by the installed push notifications plugin, which interferes with the manifest generation. Falco noted that the plugin may require full configuration (including gcm_sender_id) or removal to function correctly. A fix is pending. auryn_macmillan confirmed disabling the plugin resolved the issue for one instance and plans to disable it on both until the plugin is fixed. The core criteria for proper webapp behavior appear to be: valid HTTPS, correctly configured manifest.json (including title and apple_touch_icon_url), and avoiding interference from misconfigured plugins like push notifications.
I have a few of instances of Discourse running for different projects. They are pretty much identical, other than a couple of minor CSS differences, but are behaving differently when I try to use the “Add to homescreen” option on chrome for android. The majority work without a hitch (imitating a native app; splash screen, no URL bar, etc), however two instances seem to simply put a shortcut on the homescreen and open up in a new tab in chrome.
Are there any specific criteria that I might have neglected to set up in the two misbehaving that might be causing this? (I’ve tested it across a couple of devices, so I’m confident I’m not the only one experiencing it).
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