Universal Links not working from browser / WebBrowser openAuthSessionAsync

Expo SDK
1

Please provide the following:

  1. SDK Version: 46
  2. Platforms(Android/iOS/web/all): Android/iOS
  3. Add the appropriate “Tag” based on what Expo library you have a question on.

Hey all,

I’m trying to get authentication working with universal links, and I’m struggling to get it to work.

For brevity, I will use the term “universal links” to mean both Universal Links for iOS and Deep Links for Android. I do not mean custom schemes, however.

TLDR:

When trying to open a universal link by entering it in the browser address bar on a Mobile device, it doesn’t open the app. Instead, it goes to the app association url and I get a page not found.

Universal Links work fine when pressing on them from other apps such as Notes, however.

Detailed Question / Context:

I’m playing with two authentication flows. One I have working (custom scheme), the other does not work.

Working Scenario (custom scheme):

const customScheme = ‘com.companyname.postfix’ // Same as scheme in app.json
result = await WebBrowser.openAuthSessionAsync(authUrl, customScheme, browserOptions)

In this case the backend service authenticates and then redirects using the custom scheme. In the app, we get back the result and can parse the data from there.

Non Working Scenario (Universal Links):

const universalLink = ‘https://www.mydomain.com/path’ // Matches app.association, etc.
result = await WebBrowser.openAuthSessionAsync(authUrl, universalLink, browserOptions)

In this case the backend service calls a redirect to the universal link. The browser goes to the url for our app-site-association file (shows a page not found error because there is no web page at that address), but does not launch the app.

I THINK that the underlying issue is that Universal Links aren’t working when they are entered directly into the browser, but I’m not sure.

Am I misunderstaning universal links, and is this scenario not possible, or am I doing something wrong?

Again, the same exact link works fine when pressing from the Notes app.

Thanks for any help!

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