I'm seeing a strange issue on our customer web sites exclusively caused by iOS devices/browsers.
It appears that the device ( iphone, ipad or Mac ) is sending a request to random web pages that the end-user might have have visited days/weeks before.
The difference with these 'ghost' requests compared to a normal user visit is that it blocks cookies from being set, and this blocking of cookies is causing us a few issues. The request also ignores any re-direct that we have in place for pages that get called out of sequence.
I've analysed the Request headers of these calls and can see that the ClientIP making them appears only one time in the whole day's logging, suggesting they're not emanating from something human.
Can anyone think of anything that Apple have introduced that might be calling pages in the background, oblivious to the Apple device owner? For example, could the device be updating a cache of 'recently visited' pages? Or calling bookmarks that it wants to check are still valid?
A similar question has been posted here about a month ago, similar in that the question also relates to unexplained IOS 10 & iphone/ipad behaviour where cookies are blocked. iOS 10.1.1 and Safari 602.1 Causing redirect issues
This issue here is sort of related : Why am I getting error for apple-touch-icon-precomposed.png
EDIT - After a posted the original question, our website was taken offline, with zero public access, still seeing calls to the web site but also the 404 requests to Apple .png files, for example :
GET /apple-touch-icon-120x120.png - 80 - MobileSafari/602.1+CFNetwork/808.2.16+Darwin/16.3.0 NSC_WT_w16_ONY!Qpuufs!Mpbe!Cbmbodf=ffffffffaf171a5b45525d5f4f58455e445a4a423660;+_ga=GA1.2.877279263.1483398113 - 404 0 2 93
GET /apple-touch-icon.png - 80 - MobileSafari/602.1+CFNetwork/808.2.16+Darwin/16.3.0 NSC_WT_w16_ONY!Qpuufs!Mpbe!Cbmbodf=ffffffffaf171a5b45525d5f4f58455e445a4a423660;+_ga=GA1.2.877279263.1483398113 - 404 0 2 93
All very mysterious.
Thanks,
EDIT : As requested, an example log.
A 'random' call to the web page 'Basket' - a real end user wouldn't get here until stepping through earlier pages.
IIS log
GET Basket.aspx - Mozilla/5.0+(iPad;+CPU+OS+10_0_2+like+Mac+OS+X)+AppleWebKit/602.1.50+(KHTML,+like+Gecko)+Version/10.0+Mobile/14A456+Safari/602.1 - 302 0 0 1840
Application log of the request-header :
2016-12-09 14:03:47<b>
Connection=keep-alive
Accept=text/html,application/xhtml%2bxml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8
Accept-Encoding=gzip,+deflate
Accept-Language=zh-cn
Host=myhost.com
User-Agent=Mozilla/5.0+(iPad; CPU OS 10_0_2 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/602.1.50 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/10.0 Mobile/14A456 Safari/602.1
DNT=1
Client-IP=111.111.111.175
The ClientIP above appears no-where else in the app log. In a normal sequence the end user ClientIP would appear throughout, as they went from page to page.
For comparison, here's how the IIS log looks for a normal, non 'Out of nowhere' type request to the Basket page. Note all the session cookies etc.
GET Basket.aspx - Mozilla/5.0+(Linux;+Android+6.0.1;+SM-G920F+Build/MMB29K)+AppleWebKit/537.36+(KHTML,+like+Gecko)+Chrome/55.0.2883.84+Mobile+Safari/537.36 ASP.NET_SessionId=hp2oavmjzwmddc2i13fvoali;+__utmt=1;+__utma=115308357.1145894731.1481187841.1481187841.1481187841.1;+__utmb=115308357.7.10.1481187841;+__utmc=115308357;+__utmz=115308357.1481187841.1.1.utmcsr=google|utmccn=(organic)|utmcmd=organic|utmctr=(not%20provided);+__utma=54570542.442608478.1481187884.1481187884.1481187884.1;+__utmb=54570542.34.10.1481187884;+__utmc=54570542;+__utmz=54570542.1481187884.1.1.utmcsr=myCustomer.com|utmccn=(referral)|utmcmd=referral|utmcct=/whatson/stuffhere/ 200 0 0 155
