bug: Capacitor silently crashes if no Android WebView is available

[grigorig]

Bug Report

Platform(s)

Android

Current Behavior

If no WebView implementation is available on Android, Capacitor silently crashes on app startup. You can test this by disabling WebView "apps" in Android settings. Not all phones allow you to disable the Android System WebView, though.

Expected Behavior

Capacitor should display a warning of some sort that advises affected users what's wrong.

[jase88]

Ideally the user gets a hint what he/she needs to do to fix this.

Is this catchable on native side or is a change to the framework itself mandatory?

[sarahnx]

Any update on this issue?

[opindia123]

Any update on this.

[alex-steinberg]

The whole "do something async before Capacitor launches the webview" seems a useful feature, and might help with this bug.

[ionitron-bot[bot]]

Thanks for the issue! This issue is being locked to prevent comments that are not relevant to the original issue. If this is still an issue with the latest version of Capacitor, please create a new issue and ensure the template is fully filled out.