New Tag Scanned problems from PWA

[SIREtheKnight]

Hello Web-NFC group,

We recently noticed an issue when scanning NFC tags. We have an Angular PWA that also has NFC functionality implemented with directions from web-nfc. It has been working great so far. But we believe from something changed in the Android universe from v15 and onwards, which causes the Android OS to take priority and launch a "New Tag Scanned" popup before our logic can intercept the scanned tag and use it.

Our application has a NFC button, which the user presses. We launch logic to scan the tag. As the tag is scanned, a Android popup appears with the title "New Tag Scanned". Sometimes, the tag is scanned and used properly in our PWA, but most times, this popup appears.

Is this something you have noticed? The desired functionality is to not have the "New Tag Scanned" popup appear at all.

The issue appears on browsers Chrome and Opera on Android v15 and upwards.

[beaufortfrancois]

Can you share a screenshot of this "New Tag Scanned" popup?

[SIREtheKnight]

Thanks for the quick response 😄 The New Tag Scanned popup looks like this

This appears after scanning a tag. You cannot interact with the text it has scanned. I believe it is Androids way of letting the user know "A tag has been scanned but there is no app that is listening to it".

This behaviour can be replicated with generic web nfc example like this website:
https://googlechrome.github.io/samples/web-nfc/

Take an Android phone of version 15(?) and above, click the Scan button and scan a tag close to your phone. The "New Tag Scanned" popup will sometimes appear, and sometimes the web nfc example will properly read and log the scanned tag.

[beaufortfrancois]

I'm not able to reproduce with my Android 16 phone (Pixel 7) sadly. Can you reproduce with other devices?

[SIREtheKnight]

I'm not able to reproduce with my Android 16 phone (Pixel 7) sadly. Can you reproduce with other devices?

Interesting, I will see if I can find other devices and test them on the web nfc example linked above. Im sitting with a Galaxy 22 which has Android version 16 installed. Out of curiosity, what kind of physical tag did you read?

[beaufortfrancois]

NFC tags like https://www.amazon.fr/dp/B074BYLWGG?th=1

[SIREtheKnight]

Findings so far:

I asked a colleague to borrow his phone (Galaxy 25, Android Version 16) and his phone was not able to scan the tag I had at all with the same NFC settings I have on my Galaxy 22 device. This lead me to think that perhaps the issue is with the tag.

I am using the app NFC Tools to get information about my tag. The tag in question is of tag type ISO 15693 (NXP - ICODE SLIX). It has technologies available: NfcV, Ndef.

I read in the w3c documentation (https://w3c.github.io/web-nfc/#ndef-compatible-tag-types) where you have the list of compatible tag types. My tag is of type NFC Forum Type 5. It should be supported.

But it seems that things changed with Android version 15 and version 16:

1. Android v15 introduces a new NFC Tag Permission System,
   Apps must be explicitly allowed (by user or policy) to receive certain tag technologies.
   The OS now evaluates tag type, protocol, and data format before sending it to the app.
   Some tag types (including ISO 15693) are considered “restricted” unless explicitly allowed.

2. Android 16 added the “New Tag Scanned” popup as part of this system
   The popup appears when:
   A tag is detected
   But the system needs user confirmation before routing it to an app
   OR the app is not on the allow-list

3. Chrome’s Web NFC is NOT updated for the new Android NFC rules
   Web NFC on Chrome:
   Was designed for NFC-A/B (NTAG, Mifare, etc.)
   Has partial, unofficial support for NFC-V under old Android APIs
   Has not yet been updated to request the new required permissions
   Therefore: Web NFC is now “blocked” from ISO 15693 tags on many phones

These last Android v15 and v16 bullets were something I wrote with ChatGPT about, so keep that in mind about the accuracy of them. But from what I gathered elsewhere on the net, there seems to be some truth to it at least.

TL:DR, It seems some devices (Galaxy 22, Android V16) can scan my tag and get the "New Tag Scanned" error while others (Galaxy 25, Android V16) cannot scan it at all. There seems to be some inconsistencies when using web-nfc across Android devices on Chrome from V15+. It might be related to the tag type.

Is there something you can recognize here? Ill continue to look into getting different devices and testing further on my tag

[beaufortfrancois]

I wonder if we're hitting https://developer.android.com/develop/connectivity/nfc/nfc?hl=en#tag-preference

[beaufortfrancois]

And maybe this as well:

Note: Starting Android 16, scanning NFC tags that store URL links (i.e URI scheme is "htttps://" or "http://") will trigger the ACTION_VIEW intent instead of ACTION_NDEF_DISCOVERED intent.

[SIREtheKnight]

I wonder if we're hitting https://developer.android.com/develop/connectivity/nfc/nfc?hl=en#tag-preference

I tried to check this:

Note: The NFC tag scan app allow list is accessible under Settings > Apps > Special app access > Launch via NFC.

However, on my device I dont have such a path. I have a "Special access" with some categories underneath. But none of these categories relate to Nearby devices or NFC. And we have a PWA, we mainly visit it through Chrome, so I'm not sure it would show up under a access list.

I did try to give Chrome explicit permissions to allow it to scan "Nearby devices", but it didnt change anything. Im still getting a New Tag Scanned popup.

[SIREtheKnight]

New findings from today:

TL:DR All the phones and android versions where I encountered the issue don't have the problem anymore.

Devices I tested on where I received an "New Tag Scanned" popup when scanning my NFC tag:

• Samsung Galaxy 25, Android Version 16
• Samsung Galaxy 22, Android Version 16

I tested on both of these devices today, and none of them encounter the "New Tag Scanned" popup anymore. So seemingly overnight, the problem disappeared.

What changed:
For one of the phones, Galaxy 22, I was prompted with a new software update. I did some testing, and it had a Android security patch level from 1 October 2025. Before I installed the new update, I made sure to check this version and test the issue. I was able to replicate the "New Tag Scanned" popup consistently. After installing the software update, the phone changed to Android security patch level from 1 November 2025. After this was installed, I can no longer replicate the issue. No popup appears, and the data from the tag is read and processed fine. Tested on both web-nfc-example website (linked further above) and our own PWA application. So it looks like a security update fixed the issue.

Why?
I wanted to get an idea of what this security update changed (https://source.android.com/docs/security/bulletin/2025-11-01). But because its security, they dont mention any affected/changed feature sets. I was hoping they would mention something about "NFC" or activities or intent or anything related. But they dont write about those details.

Any thoughts on this? Does this happen often? Anything that can clarify why this happens?

[beaufortfrancois]

I sadly don't know how to get a changelog from Android that would help us pinpoint the change that fixed this issue. I'm happy though it works now!

[SIREtheKnight]

Same, but kinda annoying that it resolves on its own after I made all this detective work 😄 It would be nice to have some friends at Google, Android and Apple for frontend compatibility questions 😅 Thanks for helping me looking into it.

For people coming back to this issue, update your android phone to latest Android version and security patch level. Go to Settings -> About phone -> Click on Software update. Issue for me was fixed on Android v16 security patch level from 1 November 2025. These details can be viewed in Settings -> About phone -> Software information