Easiest way to detect Internet connection on iOS?

Question

I know this question will appear to be a dupe of many others, however, I don't feel the simple case is well explained here. Coming from an Android and BlackBerry background, making requests through HTTPUrlConnection instantly fail if there is no connection available. This seems like completely sane behavior, and I was surprised to find NSURLConnection in iOS did not emulate it.

I understand that Apple (and others who have extended it) provide a Reachability class to assist with determining the network state. I was happy to first see this and fully expected to see something like bool isNetworkAvailable(), but instead to my surprise I found a complex system requiring notification registrations and callbacks, and a bunch of seemingly unnecessary details. There must be a better way.

My app already gracefully handles connection failures, including no connectivity. The user is notified of the failure, and the app moves on.

Thus my requirements are simple: Single, synchronous function I can call before all HTTP requests to determine if I should bother actually sending the request or not. Ideally it requires no set up and just returns a boolean.

Is this really not possible on iOS?

Answer 1

Here is a good solution for checking connectivity using Swift, without using Reachability. I found it on this blog.

Create a new Swift file in your project called Network.swift (for example). Paste this code inside that file:

import Foundation

public class Network {

    class func isConnectedToNetwork()->Bool{

        var Status:Bool = false
        let url = NSURL(string: "http://google.com/")
        let request = NSMutableURLRequest(URL: url!)
        request.HTTPMethod = "HEAD"
        request.cachePolicy = NSURLRequestCachePolicy.ReloadIgnoringLocalAndRemoteCacheData
        request.timeoutInterval = 10.0

        var response: NSURLResponse?

        var data = NSURLConnection.sendSynchronousRequest(request, returningResponse: &response, error: nil) as NSData?

        if let httpResponse = response as? NSHTTPURLResponse {
            if httpResponse.statusCode == 200 {
                Status = true
            }
        }

        return Status
    }
}

You can then check for connectivity anywhere in your project by using:

if Network.isConnectedToNetwork() == true {
    println("Internet connection OK")
} else {
    println("Internet connection FAILED")
}

Answer 2

Seeing as this thread is the top google result for this type of question, I figured I would provide the solution that worked for me. I was already using AFNetworking, but searching didn't reveal how to accomplish this task with AFNetworking until midway through my project.

What you want is the AFNetworkingReachabilityManager.

// -- Start monitoring network reachability (globally available) -- //
[[AFNetworkReachabilityManager sharedManager] startMonitoring];

[[AFNetworkReachabilityManager sharedManager] setReachabilityStatusChangeBlock:^(AFNetworkReachabilityStatus status) {

    NSLog(@"Reachability changed: %@", AFStringFromNetworkReachabilityStatus(status));


    switch (status) {
        case AFNetworkReachabilityStatusReachableViaWWAN:
        case AFNetworkReachabilityStatusReachableViaWiFi:
            // -- Reachable -- //
            NSLog(@"Reachable");
            break;
        case AFNetworkReachabilityStatusNotReachable:
        default:
            // -- Not reachable -- //
            NSLog(@"Not Reachable");
            break;
    }

}];

You can also use the following to test reachability synchronously (once monitoring has started):

-(BOOL) isInternetReachable
{
    return [AFNetworkReachabilityManager sharedManager].reachable;
}

Answer 3

Someone has solved this in a simple, reusable way before. DDGReachability.

EDIT: Or tonymillion/Reachability.

Answer 4

I extracted the code and put into one single method, hope it would help others.

#import <SystemConfiguration/SystemConfiguration.h>

#import <netinet/in.h>
#import <netinet6/in6.h>

...

- (BOOL)isInternetReachable
{    
    struct sockaddr_in zeroAddress;
    bzero(&zeroAddress, sizeof(zeroAddress));
    zeroAddress.sin_len = sizeof(zeroAddress);
    zeroAddress.sin_family = AF_INET;

    SCNetworkReachabilityRef reachability = SCNetworkReachabilityCreateWithAddress(kCFAllocatorDefault, (const struct sockaddr*)&zeroAddress);
    SCNetworkReachabilityFlags flags;

    if(reachability == NULL)
        return false;

    if (!(SCNetworkReachabilityGetFlags(reachability, &flags)))
        return false;

    if ((flags & kSCNetworkReachabilityFlagsReachable) == 0)
        // if target host is not reachable
        return false;


    BOOL isReachable = false;


    if ((flags & kSCNetworkReachabilityFlagsConnectionRequired) == 0)
    {
        // if target host is reachable and no connection is required
        //  then we'll assume (for now) that your on Wi-Fi
        isReachable = true;
    }


    if ((((flags & kSCNetworkReachabilityFlagsConnectionOnDemand ) != 0) ||
         (flags & kSCNetworkReachabilityFlagsConnectionOnTraffic) != 0))
    {
        // ... and the connection is on-demand (or on-traffic) if the
        //     calling application is using the CFSocketStream or higher APIs

        if ((flags & kSCNetworkReachabilityFlagsInterventionRequired) == 0)
        {
            // ... and no [user] intervention is needed
            isReachable = true;
        }
    }

    if ((flags & kSCNetworkReachabilityFlagsIsWWAN) == kSCNetworkReachabilityFlagsIsWWAN)
    {
        // ... but WWAN connections are OK if the calling application
        //     is using the CFNetwork (CFSocketStream?) APIs.
        isReachable = true;
    }


    return isReachable;


}

Answer 5

I think this could help..

[[AFNetworkReachabilityManager sharedManager] startMonitoring];

if([AFNetworkReachabilityManager sharedManager].isReachable)
{
    NSLog(@"Network reachable");
}
else
{   
   NSLog(@"Network not reachable");
}

Answer 6

It is possible and it is really simple if you look at it when finishing the implementation, which is again - very simple, since the only items you need are two boolean variables: internet reachability and host reachability (you often need more than one of these). Once you assemble your helper class that can determine the connections status, you really don't care again of the implementation needed for knowing these procedures.

Example:

#import <Foundation/Foundation.h>

@class Reachability;

@interface ConnectionManager : NSObject {
    Reachability *internetReachable;
    Reachability *hostReachable;
}

@property BOOL internetActive;
@property BOOL hostActive;

- (void) checkNetworkStatus:(NSNotification *)notice;

@end

And the .m file:

#import "ConnectionManager.h"
#import "Reachability.h"

@implementation ConnectionManager
@synthesize internetActive, hostActive;

-(id)init {
    self = [super init];
    if(self) {

    }
    [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self selector:@selector(checkNetworkStatus:) name:kReachabilityChangedNotification object:nil];

    internetReachable = [[Reachability reachabilityForInternetConnection] retain];
    [internetReachable startNotifier];

    hostReachable = [[Reachability reachabilityWithHostName:@"www.apple.com"] retain];
    [hostReachable startNotifier];

    return self;
}

- (void) checkNetworkStatus:(NSNotification *)notice {
    NetworkStatus internetStatus = [internetReachable currentReachabilityStatus];
    switch (internetStatus)

    {
        case NotReachable:
        {
            NSLog(@"The internet is down.");
            self.internetActive = NO;

            break;

        }
        case ReachableViaWiFi:
        {
            NSLog(@"The internet is working via WIFI.");
            self.internetActive = YES;

            break;

        }
        case ReachableViaWWAN:
        {
            NSLog(@"The internet is working via WWAN.");
            self.internetActive = YES;

            break;

        }
    }

    NetworkStatus hostStatus = [hostReachable currentReachabilityStatus];
    switch (hostStatus)

    {
        case NotReachable:
        {
            NSLog(@"A gateway to the host server is down.");
            self.hostActive = NO;

            break;

        }
        case ReachableViaWiFi:
        {
            NSLog(@"A gateway to the host server is working via WIFI.");
            self.hostActive = YES;

            break;

        }
        case ReachableViaWWAN:
        {
            NSLog(@"A gateway to the host server is working via WWAN.");
            self.hostActive = YES;

            break;

        }
    }

}

// If lower than SDK 5 : Otherwise, remove the observer as pleased.

- (void)dealloc {
    [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] removeObserver:self];
    [super dealloc];
}

@end