how-to-detect-and-handle-http-status-codes-in-uiwebviews

@interface ViewController () <UIWebViewDelegate, NSURLConnectionDataDelegate>

@property (nonatomic) BOOL validatedRequest;
@property (nonatomic, strong) NSURL *originalUrl;

@end

@implementation ViewController

- (void)viewDidLoad
{
    [super viewDidLoad];

    // since `shouldStartLoadWithRequest` only validates when a user clicks on a link, we'll bypass that
    // here and go right to the `NSURLConnection`, which will validate the request, and if good, it will
    // load the web view for us.

    self.originalUrl = [NSURL URLWithString:@"http://www.stackoverflow.com"];
    NSURLRequest *request = [NSURLRequest requestWithURL:self.originalUrl];
    [NSURLConnection connectionWithRequest:request delegate:self];
}

#pragma mark - UIWebViewDelegate

// you will see this called for 404 errors

- (void)webViewDidFinishLoad:(UIWebView *)webView
{
    self.validatedRequest = NO; // reset this for the next link the user clicks on
}

// you will not see this called for 404 errors

- (void)webView:(UIWebView *)webView didFailLoadWithError:(NSError *)error
{
    NSLog(@"%s error=%@", __FUNCTION__, error);
}

// this is where you could, intercept HTML requests and route them through
// NSURLConnection, to see if the server responds successfully.

- (BOOL)webView:(UIWebView *)webView shouldStartLoadWithRequest:(NSURLRequest *)request navigationType:(UIWebViewNavigationType)navigationType
{
    // we're only validating links we click on; if we validated that successfully, though, let's just go open it
    // nb: we're only validating links we click on because some sites initiate additional html requests of
    // their own, and don't want to get involved in mediating each and every server request; we're only
    // going to concern ourselves with those links the user clicks on.

    if (self.validatedRequest || navigationType != UIWebViewNavigationTypeLinkClicked)
        return YES;

    // if user clicked on a link and we haven't validated it yet, let's do so

    self.originalUrl = request.URL;

    [NSURLConnection connectionWithRequest:request delegate:self];

    // and if we're validating, don't bother to have the web view load it yet ...
    // the `didReceiveResponse` will do that for us once the connection has been validated

    return NO;
}

#pragma mark - NSURLConnectionDataDelegate method

// This code inspired by http://www.ardalahmet.com/2011/08/18/how-to-detect-and-handle-http-status-codes-in-uiwebviews/
// Given that some ISPs do redirects that one might otherwise prefer to see handled as errors, I'm also checking
// to see if the original URL's host matches the response's URL. This logic may be too restrictive (some valid redirects
// will be rejected, such as www.adobephotoshop.com which redirects you to www.adobe.com), but does capture the ISP
// redirect problem I am concerned about.

- (void)connection:(NSURLConnection *)connection didReceiveResponse:(NSURLResponse *)response
{
    NSHTTPURLResponse *httpResponse = (NSHTTPURLResponse *)response;

    NSString *originalUrlHostName = self.originalUrl.host;
    NSString *responseUrlHostName = response.URL.host;

    NSRange originalInResponse = [responseUrlHostName rangeOfString:originalUrlHostName]; // handle where we went to "apple.com" and got redirected to "www.apple.com"
    NSRange responseInOriginal = [originalUrlHostName rangeOfString:responseUrlHostName]; // handle where we went to "www.stackoverflow.com" and got redirected to "stackoverflow.com"

    if (originalInResponse.location == NSNotFound && responseInOriginal.location == NSNotFound)
    {
        NSLog(@"%s you were redirected from %@ to %@", __FUNCTION__, self.originalUrl.absoluteString, response.URL.absoluteString);
    }
    else if (httpResponse.statusCode < 200 || httpResponse.statusCode >= 300)
    {
        NSLog(@"%s request to %@ failed with statusCode=%d", __FUNCTION__, response.URL.absoluteString, httpResponse.statusCode);
    }
    else
    {
        [connection cancel];

        self.validatedRequest = YES;

        [self.webView loadRequest:connection.originalRequest];

        return;
    }

    [connection cancel];
}

@end