[AppleAppStoreBridge] replace regex with string search to extract serialized server data

[NohamR]

The preg_match regex used to extract the serialized-server-data JSON block from Apple's HTML page fails when the JSON payload exceeds ~1MB, hitting PHP's default PCRE backtrack limit (1,000,000). This causes a "Failed to locate serialized server data in HTML page" error on every request.

Replaced the regex-based extraction with strpos/substr string operations, which have no backtrack limit and handle arbitrarily large payloads reliably.

[github-actions]

Pull request artifacts

Bridge	Context	Status
AppleAppStore	1 untitled (current)	✔️
AppleAppStore	1 untitled (pr)	✔️

last change: Thursday 2026-07-02 18:34:50

[NohamR]

This fix is necessary for some App Store pages with lots of versions, such as https://apps.apple.com/us/app/youtube/id544007664.

Type: Exception
Code: 0
Message: Failed to locate serialized server data in HTML page
File: bridges/AppleAppStoreBridge.php
Line: 114
Trace
#0 index.php(73): RssBridge->main()
#1 lib/RssBridge.php(39): RssBridge->{closure}()
#2 lib/RssBridge.php(37): BasicAuthMiddleware->__invoke()
#3 middlewares/BasicAuthMiddleware.php(13): RssBridge->{closure}()
#4 lib/RssBridge.php(37): CacheMiddleware->__invoke()
#5 middlewares/CacheMiddleware.php(44): RssBridge->{closure}()
#6 lib/RssBridge.php(37): ExceptionMiddleware->__invoke()
#7 middlewares/ExceptionMiddleware.php(17): RssBridge->{closure}()
#8 lib/RssBridge.php(37): SecurityMiddleware->__invoke()
#9 middlewares/SecurityMiddleware.php(19): RssBridge->{closure}()
#10 lib/RssBridge.php(37): MaintenanceMiddleware->__invoke()
#11 middlewares/MaintenanceMiddleware.php(10): RssBridge->{closure}()
#12 lib/RssBridge.php(37): TokenAuthenticationMiddleware->__invoke()
#13 middlewares/TokenAuthenticationMiddleware.php(10): RssBridge->{closure}()
#14 lib/RssBridge.php(34): DisplayAction->__invoke()
#15 actions/DisplayAction.php(54): DisplayAction->createResponse()
#16 actions/DisplayAction.php(89): AppleAppStoreBridge->collectData()
#17 bridges/AppleAppStoreBridge.php(195): AppleAppStoreBridge->getAppData()
#18 bridges/AppleAppStoreBridge.php(114)

This has now been fixed (see https://rss-bridge.noh.am/?action=display&bridge=AppleAppStoreBridge&id=544007664&p=mac&country=US&format=Atom).