Understanding CloudKit Communication

Question

Created Jun ’20

Replies 4

Boosts 0

Participants 2

I have been playing around with CloudKit and I was under the impression that the user needed to be logged-in into iCloud in order to use CloudKit, but I don't think it's true.

I'm testing an app that successfully communicates with the private database in CloudKit, I can read and write records to it. To my surprise I logged-off from my iCloud account and from the Sandbox Account and I can still read and write records from CloudKit which was unexpected, I was thinking that after logging off I wouldn't be able to communicate with CloudKit, in fact, I deleted the app from my phone, recompiled in Xcode and the app can still communicate with CloudKit.

Is this normal behavior, does CloudKit works without the user being logged into iCloud?

Thanks

Answered by fsdolphin in 613940022

Here is the code I'm using...

Connection to the Private Database

Code Block let privateDatabase = CKContainer.default().database(with: .private)

Reading records

Code Block `privateDatabase.perform(query, inZoneWith:nil){( results , error) in ... }

Writing Records

Code Block privateDatabase.save(ckRecord){ (record, error) in ...}

What I ultimately need to know is whether I need to check if the user is logged in or not when accessing the database to avoid redundant code/checks.

Thanks

Boost

Answer 1

OP

Apple

Jun ’20

Hello there,

An iCloud account is required to read or write from the private and shared databases, or to write in the public database.

Enqueueing database operations which attempt to perform any of the following actions should produce an error.

See:
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/cloudkit/ckerrorcode/ckerrornotauthenticated

Can you share specific code which succeeds without a signed-in iCloud account on the device?

1

Answer 2

fsdolphin OP

Jun ’20

Accepted Answer

Here is the code I'm using...

Connection to the Private Database

Code Block let privateDatabase = CKContainer.default().database(with: .private)

Reading records

Code Block `privateDatabase.perform(query, inZoneWith:nil){( results , error) in ... }

Writing Records

Code Block privateDatabase.save(ckRecord){ (record, error) in ...}

What I ultimately need to know is whether I need to check if the user is logged in or not when accessing the database to avoid redundant code/checks.

Thanks

0

Answer 3

OP

Apple

Jun ’20

PrivateDatabase operations should be expected to fail if the user is not signed into an iCloud account on the device running the code. As mentioned earlier, CKErrorNotAuthenticated is the error you should expect to see. If you are seeing these operations succeed on a device in which no iCloud account is signed in, please file a report via Feedback Assistant for further investigation.

You don't need to explicitly check for account status prior to each operation, but you should handle CKErrorNotAuthenticated.

Additionally, see this video from WWDC16 (starting at 41:08) for advice on best practices around registering for CKAccountChanged notifications to better handle these kinds of cases.

1

Answer 4

fsdolphin OP

Jun ’20

Thank you for the clarification.

FYI - I accidentally marked my previous response as the correct answer and I don't see a way of changing it, I need to mark your last comment as the correct answer.

0