IOS, mobile safari, private: continually asks to login after returning

pocketlim

iOS 18.6
Mobile Safari
Kagi 2.2.8
Usage: Private browsing

Steps to reproduce:

Always be in private browsing
Search something using Kagi
Kagi shows results of search. Good 👍
Use the phone, swap to other apps, do anything else here except use safari
After an unspecified amount of time, return to Safari, to the previous search results page
Kagi asks me to login again. I’ve already added my session token to the extension for private browsing and clearly Kagi already verified me and gave me results. So WHY???
If you login at this point, it just returns you to the same search results provided earlier. Please, you already had the results, stop wasting my time.

This has happened with every version of Kagi on Mobile Safari in private browsing and I’m tired of this.

If it had the search results already, and it already clearly verified me to be able to show me those results, it SHOULD NOT ASK ME TO LOGIN AGAIN. EVER

From Step 5 above:

Kagi shows me the same search results without asking me to login again. Because asking me to login again at this moment is POINTLESS and WASTES YOUR PAYING USER’S TIME AND EFFORT

pocketlim

Note that all new private browsing tabs do not ask for login on initial search. This is working as intended 👍

This happens only when I’m going back to an older tab that had search results already provided by a prior Kagi search, as described in the reproduction steps.

[deleted]

It's not a Kagi issue, but a Safari one. Safari is losing cookies, a quick search shows that's a common issue.

pocketlim

Is there a way to prevent this from happening or any workarounds?

Do you have more information on the topic, or a specific Kagi search term I could use to find out more about Safari dropping cookies in private browsing?

CanadianUser73

pocketlim when safari decides a private tab is inactive it just kills it along with all the cookies. Safari private mode cookies live on a per-tab basis (vs chrome where all private tabs share session)

CanadianUser73

I’m running into this too and it’s annoying.

I think root cause is with the Kagi safari extension. The login token (personal private Kagi link) is saved by the extension, but the extension is only triggered when a search redirection occurs. So if you literally copy and paste a Kagi search url into safari private tab it will not log you in. You can also just go to Kagi.com and you won’t get the logged in page.

The safari extension needs to be fixed so that on Kagi.com domains it will attempt to log in.