Getting Net::Err_Connection_Refused (Http://Localhost:8080) on Android 4.4.2 Version

getting net::ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED (http://localhost:8080) on android 4.4.2 version

Your problem is caused by the cordova-plugin-ionic-webview plugin that is part of every new or updated Ionic app.

This used to apply only to iOS, where it replaced the UIWebView with WKWebView, but on July 23rd 2018 they released version 2.0 of the plugin, that also included changes to the webview used on Android.

The Android webview now uses a local webserver at localhost:8080 to show your app instead of requesting the files directly from the file system.

Unfortunately this change also included this bit in the documentation:

Requirements
- […]
- Android: Android 5.0+ and cordova-android 6.4+

So cordova-plugin-ionic-webview just doesn’t support Android earlier than 5.0 any more, which of course means your app will not work on Android 4.x.

One solution is to downgrade the plugin to the last version that supported Android 4.x:

ionic cordova plugin add cordova-plugin-ionic-webview@1.2.1

More elaborate information and alternative solutions:

https://ionic.zone/debug/ionic-and-android-4

Ionic app doesn't hit on server when using cordova

You need something to proxy the localhost:8080 requests from the android device back to your dev box where the livereload server is running.

You can do this through port forwarding via the chrome browser by opening chrome://inspect/#devices on your dev box, or else configure port forwarding directly on the phone's connection properties itself. I use this to watch traffic via Fiddler on windows dev boxes.

Also, ionic livereload server can be configured to route non-ionic traffic by configuring service proxies.

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