Refusing to open IndexedDB database due to potential corruption

[luke-rogers]

Operating System

iOS 18.*

Environment (if applicable)

Mobile Safari Version 16.1

Firebase SDK Version

11.6.1

Firebase SDK Product(s)

Firestore

Project Tooling

Angular

Detailed Problem Description

After the changes introduced in PR #8871, we’ve observed a significant number of IndexedDB initialization failures caused by this new conditional block:

if (
  this.lastClosedDbVersion !== null &&
  this.lastClosedDbVersion !== event.oldVersion
) {
  throw new Error(
    `refusing to open IndexedDB database due to potential ` +
      `corruption of the IndexedDB database data; this corruption ` +
      `could be caused by clicking the "clear site data" button in ` +
      `a web browser; try reloading the web page to re-initialize ` +
      `the IndexedDB database: ` +
      `lastClosedDbVersion=${this.lastClosedDbVersion}, ` +
      `event.oldVersion=${event.oldVersion}, ` +
      `event.newVersion=${event.newVersion}, ` +
      `db.version=${db.version}`
  );
}

This logic is now throwing for many first-time users of our app, particularly on iOS devices, where we see:

• event.oldVersion = 0
• lastClosedDbVersion = 17
• event.newVersion = 17
• db.version = 17

Impact

We’ve seen this error reported from 69 unique users, many of whom appear to be encountering it on first app open, likely with a fresh install. This completely blocks their ability to use the app, even though the database is likely in a clean state.

Steps and code to reproduce issue

We've been unable to reproduce it ourselves

[google-oss-bot]

I couldn't figure out how to label this issue, so I've labeled it for a human to triage. Hang tight.

[MarkDuckworth]

@luke-rogers, are there other frameworks in the mix here, like Ionic or Capacitor?

[luke-rogers]

Yes, there are other frameworks like Ionic and Capacitor.

Most of of these events are coming for users in the browser though. 88% of the events are from 'web'.

Here is how we initialise Firebase. We only user indexedDBLocalPersistence when Capacitor.isNativePlatform() is true.

function initializeFirestoreDb() {
    return initializeFirestore(getApp(), {
        ignoreUndefinedProperties: true,
        localCache: persistentLocalCache({
            cacheSizeBytes: CACHE_SIZE_UNLIMITED,
            tabManager: persistentMultipleTabManager(),
        }),
    });
}

function initializeAuthProvider() {
    return Capacitor.isNativePlatform()
        ? initializeAuth(getApp(), { persistence: indexedDBLocalPersistence })
        : getAuth();
}

[dconeybe]

That seems plausible that #8871 is the culprit here. That PR was first included in version 11.6.1 (released April 24, 2025). Are you able to downgrade to version 11.6.0 (or earlier) in the meantime, while investigation is underway?