Webpack url-loader PDF data URI link for Vue site stops working in iOS 14

Question

I have a Vue.js website with a PDF file which is included in my ultimate javascript bundle via webpack. (It's my CV.) The following build and delivery process has worked perfectly fine for me since 2017, but suddenly stopped working in iOS 14:

1. Build the PDF with LaTeX.

2. Use webpack's url-loader to include the PDF in my webpack bundle as a base64 data URI.

3. Load that URL into a vuex data store, and then just deliver it as a link when clicked.

For the last three years, this has worked fine: I've been able to click on the link and get a working PDF. It's been kind of random and platform-specific whether the PDF opens in-browser or shows up in a download folder, and whether it gets the filename I've asked it to get or not, but, well, that doesn't matter to me. And the core functionality of click the link and get the PDF has worked on every browser and every platform I've ever tried it on.

All of a sudden, with iOS 14, it's stopped working. Now, when I try to activate the PDF link in iOS Safari, nothing happens at all. When I do it in iOS Chrome, it produces a little popup claiming it downloaded a document, but nothing seems to actually be able to open the document. And when I do it in iOS DuckDuckGo, it just displays the base64 data URI in the address bar.

Interestingly, if I take the dataURI that DDG displays in the address bar and copy and paste it into Safari or Chrome on iOS, it actually displays my pdf. So the browsers still have the capacity to display a PDF from a data URI. It just doesn't want to do so from my link.

And my site still works as expected on the desktop. Including in Safari on the desktop. Also, it still works on my wife's phone (she's still on iOS 13). So this is clearly something Apple changed in iOS 14. But what? And how to get my site working again?

I'm guessing that Apple has changed the behavior of the renderer in iOS in some fashion to cause it to break across browsers but nowhere else (since browsers in iOS are all still required to rely on webkit, right?)

This is a pretty important feature to me. I made this decision deliberately for perceived performance---combined with pre-rendering, everything on my site, including the PDF, loads very close to instantly from the user perspective. So I'd really like to keep it.

I'm using Webpack 2.6.1 and Vue 2.3.3. This is a stable build that has been working flawlessly for three years, so I haven't felt the need to update anything except for security updates.

After searching around, I did find this Apple dev discussion which suggests that in iOS 14, Apple newly blocks redirects to data URIs. But I'm not doing a redirect, I'm actually navigating directly to the URI through a link. And the linked discussion suggests that the newly banned behavior just brings Apple in line with what other browsers already ban---but my code works in every other browser, so that can't be it.

Relevant code, to the extent it matters (though it's so basic and obvious that I doubt a simple code fix will be the answer here):

from my webpack.base.js:

    {
        test: /\.(pdf)$/,
        loader: 'url-loader'
    },

from my vuex store, in state.js

import cvURL from './assets/pdf/gowdercv.pdf';

from the component containing the link that points to PDF:

<p><a :href="cvURL" download="gowdercv.pdf"><img src="../../assets/icons/file-pdf.svg" class="cvicon"> Download in PDF</a></p>

which is loaded as a computed property to the component, i.e.,

computed: {
    cvURL: function(){return this.$store.state.cvURL;},

Does anyone know how to get functionality back in iOS? Is there a workaround built in recent versions of webpack or vue for this? Thanks!

Answer 1

Update: after some help off SO, an acquaintance turned up this similar problem, which also came up with a solution: turning the base64 URI into a blob and passing that data url. Which also solves my problem. Though that SO doesn't have an accepted answer, so I can't vote to close my own question as a duplicate, alas.