When should a service worker self destruct?

Question

I found this repo describing HOW to destroy a service worker. But I didn't find any resources describing WHEN a worker should destroy/uninstall/unregister itself.

When I develop websites, I often use port 8080. I can be working on site X that has a service worker, then work on site Y that doesn't have a service worker but the original and now incorrect service worker persists.

The logic for a service worker deciding to uninstall itself is a bit tricky because we want to:

• Allow the service worker to work offline.
• Allow the service worker to survive a captive wifi portal.
• Detect the browser is online but this site should not have a service worker, or that the service worker should be a different one.

Is there a standard mechanism or convention around this?

Fashionable

redfin.engineering/… may help if u review that one – Fenny

Answer 1

The simple answer is that normally it would never destroy itself.

This seems to be a problem for you as you are developing multiple sites and then testing them all as localhost:8080.

Their are a few ways to address this particular problem:

The first would be to set up aliases for each site you develop in /etc/hosts.

127.0.0.1  local.site-a.com
127.0.0.1  local.site-b.com

Another option is to configure each project to run on a different port when testing.

The last option would be to include the code you linked to in your question, in each project that does not have a service worker. Although would this approach you would then ideally need to make your build process only include it in Dev builds.

Viehmann

I think a site that's in production might have a service worker, and a new version of it might not. In that case, it would be a pain to figure out and fix after the fact. That's why I can't accept this as an answer, it doesn't solve the problem. – Fashionable

That is the use case for the script you linked to in your question – Viehmann

@Fashionable Maybe you should edit your question to give a clearer context, if you don't accept the answer. – Puto

I asked "when should a service worker self destruct?" and this answer is claiming "never" or "manually". It would be a valid answer if it were absolutely the only way, but I believe there can be an automated self-destruct solution. – Fashionable

Answer 2

you have to register a javascript file in serviceworker which checks the local path of site X before running your javascript file.

navigator.serviceWorker.register('/checking.js').then(function(registration) {
  // Registration was successful
  }

In checking.js

if(window.location.href == "YOUR X SITE FILE PATH"){
 //Run the javascript file which you have created for site X 
}

Remember during production you have to change the parameter of serviceWorker() to your respective js file

Ferguson

I'm not sure what you mean by the parameter of serviceWorker() and I'm not sure what in your answer would cause the service worker to trigger self destruction (unregister and refreshing the pages). – Fashionable

developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/primers/service-workers here it says that serviceworker will terminated when it is not in use. So by checking the local path of your site X you have to run service worker only then. – Ferguson

#49741431 you can check this for unregister the serviceworker if you are using site Y or any else sites – Ferguson