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bug: CloseWatcher API Prevents Navigation When No Overlays Are Present in Chromium v126 #29648
Description
Prerequisites
- I have read the Contributing Guidelines.
- I agree to follow the Code of Conduct.
- I have searched for existing issues that already report this problem, without success.
Ionic Framework Version
v8.x
Current Behavior
Hello,
I recently noticed that the CloseWatcher API, which had been removed, is now back in Chromium version 126. After testing this feature, I found it to be working very well overall. However, I encountered an issue:
When no overlays are present on the page, I am unable to navigate back to the previous page. This seems to be a bug.
Could you please look into this issue? Thank you for your assistance.
Expected Behavior
The CloseWatcher API should only be active when overlays are present, allowing normal navigation when there are no overlays.
Steps to Reproduce
1- Clone the repository and navigate to the project directory.
2- Enable experimentalCloseWatcher option.
3- Run the command npm run start to start the application.
4- Open a mobile browser and navigate to any page with overlays, such as src/components/modal.
5- Close all overlays.
6- Try to navigate back to the previous page using the back button on your mobile device.
Code Reproduction URL
Ionic Info
v8.2.2
Android Chrome v126
Additional Information
No response
Activity
ionitron-bot commentedon Apr 8, 2025
Thanks for the issue! This issue has been labeled as
needs reproduction. This label is added to issues that need a code reproduction.Please reproduce this issue in an Ionic starter application and provide a way for us to access it (GitHub repo, StackBlitz, etc). Without a reliable code reproduction, it is unlikely we will be able to resolve the issue, leading to it being closed.
If you have already provided a code snippet and are seeing this message, it is likely that the code snippet was not enough for our team to reproduce the issue.
For a guide on how to create a good reproduction, see our Contributing Guide.
a7medm7med commentedon Apr 11, 2025
Hi @thetaPC, @brandyscarney 👋
This issue is quite important to us. We've been waiting for proper CloseWatcher support in browsers for a long time.
There's no need for a reproduction URL in this case. You can easily observe the issue by enabling the
experimentalCloseWatcheroption, then opening a mobile browser (Chrome or Edge) and navigating to any page with overlays. After dismissing all overlays, try using the browser’s back button — you’ll notice that navigation doesn’t occur, even though it should.I simply modified the default value of
experimentalCloseWatcheroption toconfig.get('experimentalCloseWatcher', true).The good news: CloseWatcher is correctly dismissing overlays, which is great.
The problem: When no overlays are present, it still intercepts the back navigation, preventing the user from returning to the previous page.
Ideally, CloseWatcher should only take control when overlays are active. Once they’re all dismissed, the browser’s default back behavior should be restored.
Tested on: Android Chrome v135
Thanks again for your time and support!
thetaPC commentedon Apr 11, 2025
A minimal reproduction is important here to ensure we're not making any assumptions about the setup. Since this involves navigation, configuration changes, and overlays, the overall setup might be more complex than it seems. A simple example removes any confusion and lets us see exactly what's going on.
You might be able to use the tabs with a router on the docs site as a start and modify it to display the error.
a7medm7med commentedon Apr 11, 2025
Hi @thetaPC, thanks for the clarification — that makes sense now, and sorry for the confusion earlier.
Here’s a minimal reproduction:
Edit: https://stackblitz.com/edit/ydawrihu?file=index.html
Preview: https://ydawrihu.stackblitz.io/
To reproduce the issue:
thetaPC commentedon Aug 27, 2026
Thanks for submitting the issue and StackBlitz reproduction, really helpful! We've confirmed this is a real issue on our end.
When
experimentalCloseWatcheris enabled, the CloseWatcher API intercepts the back button globally. The problem is it stays active even when you have no overlays to dismiss, which prevents the browser from handling back navigation normally. We've identified the issue incore/src/utils/hardware-back-button.ts.Sorry for the slow response on this one. We'll look into a solution for it.
Thanks for your patience!
fix(close-watcher): allow back navigation when nothing is open (ionic…
ShaneK commentedon Oct 7, 2026
Hey! Thanks for the bug report! This has been fixed in v9.0.7!