Ionic v1 Cordova “prefs:root=” non-public URL scheme ios app rejection

Question

My app for iOS got rejected with the following error:

Guideline 2.5.1 - Performance - Software Requirements Your app uses the "prefs:root=" non-public URL scheme, which is a private entity. The use of non-public APIs is not permitted on the App Store because it can lead to a poor user experience should these APIs change.

I have seen several issues opened on this subject for the native iOS app but not Cordova or Ionic. Is there a way to resolve this in Cordova? Ironically, the build that got reject has only a minor change that shows a number with 3 decimals instead of 2. Everything else is the same. Yet, it got rejected.

Below is the list of all the plugins I have:

card.io.cordova.mobilesdk 2.1.0 "CardIO" cordova-android-support-gradle-release 0.0.2 "cordova-android-support-gradle-release" cordova-plugin-actionsheet 2.3.3 "ActionSheet" cordova-plugin-app-event 1.2.1 "Application Events" cordova-plugin-camera 2.4.1 "Camera" cordova-plugin-compat 1.2.0 "Compat" cordova-plugin-datepicker 0.9.3 "DatePicker" cordova-plugin-device 1.1.6 "Device" cordova-plugin-dialogs 1.3.3 "Notification" cordova-plugin-facebook4 1.9.1 "Facebook Connect" cordova-plugin-file 4.3.3 "File" cordova-plugin-file-transfer 1.6.3 "File Transfer" cordova-plugin-google-analytics 1.8.3 "Google Universal Analytics Plugin" cordova-plugin-googleplus 5.3.1 "Google SignIn" cordova-plugin-inappbrowser 1.7.1 "InAppBrowser" cordova-plugin-ionic-webview 1.2.1 "cordova-plugin-ionic-webview" cordova-plugin-splashscreen 4.0.3 "Splashscreen" cordova-plugin-statusbar 2.2.4-dev "StatusBar" cordova-plugin-touchid 0.4.0 "Touch ID" cordova-plugin-vibration 2.1.5 "Vibration" cordova-plugin-whitelist 1.3.2 "Whitelist" cordova-plugin-x-socialsharing 5.4.1 "SocialSharing" cordova.plugins.diagnostic 3.7.1 "Diagnostic" de.appplant.cordova.plugin.local-notification 0.8.5 "LocalNotification" es6-promise-plugin 4.2.2 "Promise" ionic-plugin-keyboard 2.2.1 "Keyboard" phonegap-plugin-barcodescanner 7.0.0 "BarcodeScanner"

Answer 1

As @Paulw11 suggested -

1. Run grep -r -i 'prefs' ./* under the plugins directory
2. Find references to the prefs
3. Update the plugins.
4. No code changes required.
5. Rebuild it and submit the archive.

Note: You may have to update all the plugins. I would highly recommend making a backup of all the plugins before updating them.