CLGeocoder reverseGeocodeLocation results when no Internet connection is available

Question

I am seeing odd results when trying to reverse geocode a location if the network is not available:

• seen on iOS 5.0.1

• Airplane mode ON

  [geocoder reverseGeocodeLocation:whatever completionHandler:^(NSArray *placemarks, NSError *error) {
  if (error) 
  {
       // Alert(@"No Internet connection")!;
  
       // I should get a kCLErrorNetwork, but I get a kCLErrorGeocodeFoundPartialResult
       // with a placemark array containing a CLPlacemark *
       // with only a latitude and longitude (the ones I entered)...
  }
  else
  {
       // ...
  }
  

This is not documented; at least I couldn't find it.

It is not a big issue per se, since I can't expect it to properly reverse geocode an address without network, but it prevents me from displaying an informative message to the user.

Answer 1

That's an iOS 5.0.x behavior. In 5.1 and later, it turns kCLErrorNetwork as you would have expected. If you use the macros from https://stackoverflow.com/a/5337804/1271826 you could theoretically do something like:

[geocoder reverseGeocodeLocation:whatever completionHandler:^(NSArray *placemarks, NSError *error) {

    if (error) 
    {
         if (error.code == kCLErrorNetwork || (error.code == kCLErrorGeocodeFoundPartialResult && SYSTEM_VERSION_LESS_THAN(@"5.1")))
         {
             Alert(@"No Internet connection!");
         }
    }
    else
    {
         // ...
    }
}];

That way, you'll handle the network error regardless of what iOS version the user is running (though, obviously, only 5.0 and later, given that CLGeocoder was introduced in iOS 5.0).