This is an intermittent behavior with the progressive web app version of my site.
I made a website with React. Then I visited it with my iPhone 5 and saved it to my Home screen with Safari's "Add to Home Screen" feature. The behavior is different between (1) visiting the site using the home screen shortcut and (2) opening Safari and going to the page that way.
Doing (1) has the problem. If I do that and then go to the Home screen and touch the shortcut and go back to the website, the page turns all white for about 1-5 seconds, the internet connecting indicator spins and the page appears. Sometimes the page returns to the state I left it and sometimes it reloads entirely. Doing (2), the page doesn't reload at all and doesn't try to access the internet. Same with accessing the site using Chrome.
It seems to completely reload more often if more time has passed since I .
According to Chrome developer tools, a Service Worker is activated and Lighthouse gives the site a perfect PWA score.
I have questions... Why is the behavior different when accessing the page these two ways? Why is it trying to access the internet or doing anything at all every time I switch from the Home screen or another app to this app? Why is it totally reloading the page sometimes? How do I make it not do this? I want it to work offline and I want it to not attempt connect to the internet unnecessarily.