After testing iPads from the 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th generations on both iPadOS 18.5 and 18.6, the original issue appears to be resolved on all but some 7th gen devices. On those affected 7th gen iPads, the NEAppPushProvider extension still consistently fails to access the local network, even after clean installs, restarts, and other troubleshooting previously described. Notably, at least one 7th gen device did not exhibit the issue. I’ve filed a new bug report: FB19375657, including sysdiagnose logs and context. Thanks for the help.

After testing in our tech lab with all devices updated to iOS/iPadOS 18.6, I’m seeing improved behavior overall, but some inconsistencies remain, particularly with older hardware. On iPhone SE (18.6), the issue does not reproduce. Local network access from the extension works as expected. On iPad 10th gen (18.6), the issue is no longer observed. Notably, this device did occasionally fail on 18.5. On iPad 7th gen (18.6), behavior remains inconsistent. The extension is sometimes able to send local network traffic, but in other cases, it fails with the same “Local network prohibited” error. Success seems more likely after switching Wi-Fi networks or if the main app has already made a successful local connection beforehand, but this is not reliable or predictable. So while iPadOS 18.6 clearly improves the situation, it appears that residual issues may still affect older devices. I’ll be extending testing to 8th and 9th gen iPads on Monday and will share any additional findings. Let me know if there are any additional diagnostics or system logs I can provide to help isolate this further.

I’ve updated to iPadOS 18.6 on the devices currently available to me, and the Local Network permission now appears to be working correctly in the extension. I’ll be able to run the full test suite in our lab environment within 24 hours to confirm this. If everything checks out, I’ll mark this as resolved.

After further testing on other devices, I’m unable to reproduce this issue on either an iPhone 16E or an iPhone SE, both running iOS 18.5. However, running the exact same project on an iPad (7th generation, also on iOS 18.5) consistently results in local network traffic being blocked, with the same Local network prohibited message in the logs. Could there be a reason why this behavior would affect iPads specifically?