Is There a Way to Handle AppsFlyer Dynamic Links in Flutter/Dart Without Native AppDelegate Code on iOS?

[YawarOsman]

Description

In our Flutter app using the appsflyer_sdk package, dynamic links fail to work when the app is launched from a terminated state on iOS. Specifically, when the app is fully closed and then opened via a dynamic link, the link data isn't captured unless specific initialization code is added to the AppDelegate.swift file.

---

Problem Details

• When the app is in memory (running or in the background), dynamic links work as expected.
• When the app is terminated, dynamic links are not captured unless the following code is included in AppDelegate.swift:

let afLib = AppsFlyerLib.shared()
afLib.appleAppID = "6746770983"
afLib.appsFlyerDevKey = "aBMTads******tP7NzpK"
afLib.waitForATTUserAuthorization(timeoutInterval: 10)
afLib.isDebug = true
afLib.start()

What I'm Asking

Is there a way to handle dynamic links entirely in Flutter/Dart for iOS when the app is launched from a terminated state, without adding native code to AppDelegate.swift? Or is the native initialization in AppDelegate the only way to capture deep link data in this scenario?

For example:
Can the appsflyer_sdk package be configured in Dart to catch initial deep link data on iOS without native setup?

My Flutter code initializes the AppsFlyer SDK in Dart with the same keys and settings, but it seems to miss deep link data when the app is terminated because the Flutter engine starts too late. Here's a snippet of my Dart initialization:
dart

final appsFlyerOptions = AppsFlyerOptions(
  afDevKey: dotenv.env['APP_FLYER_DEV_KEY']!,
  appId: dotenv.env['APP_FLYER_APP_ID']!,
  showDebug: true,
  timeToWaitForATTUserAuthorization: 10,
  disableAdvertisingIdentifier: false,
  disableCollectASA: false,
);
_appsflyerSdk = AppsflyerSdk(appsFlyerOptions);
await _appsflyerSdk.initSdk(
  registerConversionDataCallback: true,
  registerOnAppOpenAttributionCallback: true,
  registerOnDeepLinkingCallback: true,
);

Additional Notes
This issue is iOS-specific; Android doesn’t require extra native code and works fine

[github-actions]

👋 Hi @YawarOsman and Thank you for reaching out to us.
In order for us to provide optimal support, please submit a ticket to our support team at support@appsflyer.com.
When submitting the ticket, please specify:

• ✅ your AppsFlyer sign-up (account) email
• ✅ app ID
• ✅ production steps
• ✅ logs
• ✅ code snippets
• ✅ and any additional relevant information.

[techouse]

I was able to do it using app_links, but it still requires a few lines of Swift code, i.e.

import AppsFlyerLib
import app_links

@main
@objc class AppDelegate: FlutterAppDelegate {
  override func application(
    _ application: UIApplication,
    didFinishLaunchingWithOptions launchOptions: [UIApplication.LaunchOptionsKey: Any]?
  ) -> Bool {
    // MARK: - App Links
    if let url = AppLinks.shared.getLink(launchOptions: launchOptions) {
        // check if the url hostname contains ".onelink.me"
        if url.host?.contains(".onelink.me") == true {
            // If the URL is an AppsFlyer OneLink, handle it with AppsFlyerLib
            AppsFlyerLib.shared().handleOpen(url, options: launchOptions)
        } else {
            // Use AppsLinks to handle the URL
            AppLinks.shared.handleLink(url: url)
        }
    }

    return super.application(application, didFinishLaunchingWithOptions: launchOptions)
  }
}

[KRMiiz]

How to solve this problem?

[YawarOsman]

I couldn't solve the issue so i just quit AppFlyer and try to find another alternative, and the support team is just sucks

[pazlavi]

As mentioned in our deep link page in this repo, from 6.4.0, you don't need to do anything on the native side to support deep links!
If you choose to write custom logic on the native side to support other frameworks and invoke the deep link manually, you should use the AppsFlyerAttribution class and not the AppsFlyerLib.