I have a small messaging app and user receives a push notification whenever the user gets a message. Recently I have implemented Realm Database for my app. I am storing all the data that comes from the server into the realm directly and displaying the data to the user from realm. So, after shifting to this way the push notifications are not working. But again if I download the current version that is in the AppStore, the notifications are working. Every message has a messageID and we are sending the messageID as one of the parameter in the push notifications. Can someone help me on what I can do to make the push notifications working again.
Well, for getting push notifications to work, you not only need to configure the app correctly, you also need to configure the backend service & APNS linking correctly to get it to work.
You should try a methodical approach wherein you divide the entire feature implementation of push notifications into smaller sub-tasks like app side logic, backend configuration, Certificates & Provisioning Profile setup, etc. Try to examine each of these sub-task implementation & surely you would find the culprit. Since, you know the existing App Store version of the app is working,you have your task reduced
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I have a cross platform flutter app. I am using FCM to send notifications and they are not arriving on the iOS app in any state (foreground, background, terminated). I am testing on a physical device.
The notifications work on Android, so I know the topic subscription and send code is correct.
I have followed these steps for configuration defined here...
https://firebase.flutter.dev/docs/messaging/apple-integration/
To verify I have:
added and initialized firebase using google-services-info.plist.
created and added my APNS key
created the app identifier in the Apple Developer center and confirmed it matches my apps bundle id (and added push notification
capability for the identifier.
added push notification capability to the app in xcode
added background fetch and background remote notification capabilities to the app in xcode.
It seems like I have addressed every step to configure FCM on iOS. But none of my notifications arrive.
When the app is minimized, no system tray notification is triggered, and when in the foreground the FirebaseMessaging.onMessage is never triggered, like is is when on Android.
An important note is that this is the second iOS app added to this project, and the first iOS app works correctly. Though there is no indication that there are any special steps for a second app.
We saw a similar problem (for a native iOS app) where FCM would deliver to one app in the project but not the other. The mistake we made was not repeating the configuration in Firebase for the other apple bundle id since each app in our project has a different bundle id. Given it works for one of your iOS apps but not the other on the same project, it sounds like you've got the same issue.
Also, a good diagnostic step is to use the Firebase Console to manually send off a Push Notification to a particular app. It means you can then discount errors further upstream in your backend that may not have caused FCM to be invoked.
Have you tried to send testing notifications via firebase console?
You can log your device token in your app.
Background notification must work if you have done correct with firebase and APN settings despite without implementing some methods of AppDelegate file for remote notification on the next step.
Your question is very blur to have a specific answer but you can separate your concerns to find the issue and then try to resolve that:
1. Make sure about the APNs configuration
First, try to send a notification to your iOS app, directly using the APNS key. If you get the notification, it means you have configured the APNS correctly
2. Make sure about the firebase setup
Check with both the Android and iOS app and see if there are connected to the firebase console. You can use the real-time event to confirm that.
3. Make sure you have implemented the correct methods.
Firebase and apple have different methods for push notifications. Make sure you are implementing the correct one. Also, it may vary based on the configuration file of firebase. search for iOS firebase swizzling for more information
4. Make sure you got the right permissions from the user
You should get the notification permission from the user before trying to show any notification. Make sure you've done that
Note that you may have already tried some of these but I've mentioned them for the sake of completeness. Hope it helps you and others.
Since push notifications may not be delivered sometimes (you can lose a few of them), you can not run code after the iPhone is turned on to check if there is new information available from the server, and you can not run code if your iOS App is closed... What can you do if you want to be as more accurate as possible in for example a Chat App in iOS?
I mean, inform the user as faster as possible that he has new info available. Comparisons: WhatsApp is updated without any delay.
You can do background fetch if your App is in background. But if the App is closed and you miss a push, it's not going to be up to date until the next push arrives or user opens the App. The same with silent notifications. If the app is terminated by the user, you are not going to receive it. Is there any way to solve it? It must be because other Apps do it... If there is any "private and secret" API that they are using (I read about this answer when no one know how to do that)... Is there any way to apply to use it?
UPDATE:
I'm using push notifications. The goal is to fix when a push doesn't arrive. Example: User A send chat message to user B. User B doesn't have the App open. The system lose the push. User B is not going to receive the message until he open the App.
Push notifications seems to be your only way even if you do loose a few of them, which I don't know how you would since they are pushed to apples secure server... but what do I know. As long as the user turns on the push notifications you should be fine. They may be delayed due to apples way of handling them. Honestly push seems to be the future, having your app constantly every minute or two check for new messages is a huge battery water in conjunction with normal texting apps. Your app should provide the best live data but since apple restricts to push notifications when the app is off or not running just stick to push notifications and only push major events to the user. I believe you can set up a job scheduler using quartz or schedulator to setup your server to push notifications to your app.
I am working on an app which fetches student info from a server, like absences and events and grades. I have no access to the server, I only have the API.
I am asked to implement push notifications in the app, such that if a teacher marks a student absent, that student get a notification about that. I searched and found several approaches:
1- Background fetch: I tried using background fetch to check if the student logged in to the app was marked absent today, if yes, show a local notification. It worked when I simulated w background fetch, but never worked on the physical device.
2- I searched for using Apple Push Notification Service, and they all wanted me to build a server, and I dont know how to start. Can I build a server which pushes notifications to devices in a way facebook does it? That is, one user triggers a notification at another user, in other words: I dont want to use broadcast notifications.
3- Using third party, like backendless, firebase or any alternatives. Would that be a useful approach?
With Backendless your app (on the student side) can register itself to receive push notifications. This is done with an API call that registers the device on the servers provided by Backendless. Then you would build an additional application (could be a browser web app or a mobile app) for the teachers. The system allows to send targeted notifications, so when a student is marked as absent, you could use the API to deliver a push notification specifically to the student's device. Would be happy to discuss in detail, you can post your question to the Backendless support forum.
For my app I have designed Push service using Java APNS library.
Or You could use Microsoft Azure Mobile services to push a notifications to devices.
Suppose I have an e-commerce ios app (like snapdeal, flipkart etc.) and I want to make my app notified when there is any change in the data stored on the server.
For instance, take an example of price change of any product in any category, so how can I update the price for that product without putting it to user's knowledge, whether the user is on that particular screen (currently seeing that product for which the price is changed) or on any other screen.
is it possible to do? if YES, how can I achieve that?
Thanks in advance!!
You have to use Apple Push Notification Service to do that.
It allows your server to send data to your app, that warns user or not (you choose), and your app is awake by this push a can work on background mode.
In order to allow you app to work in background, you have to enable Background fetch options
From Apple Background execution guide :
Apps that need to check for new content periodically can ask the system to wake them up so that they can initiate a fetch operation for that content. To support this mode, enable the Background fetch option from the Background modes section of the Capabilities tab in your Xcode project. (You can also enable this support by including the UIBackgroundModes key with the fetch value in your app’s Info.plist file.)
Edit about BaaS
As mentioned in comments, implementing the whole push notification system yourself can be difficult, especially if you are doing it for the first time.
That's why you can use a BaaS (Backend as a Service) that handle push notification for you like Parse.com, Firebase or whatever you want. It simplify a lot the process, but it remains APNS on the back, so it's important to understand how it works.
I'd recommend, like Mr. Blackus said in his answer, to use Apple Push Notification service. However, I will add one bit of information -
Don't use the service to send the actual data, only send a small packet of information telling your application to request more data from the server.
The process should be something like this:
Server asks Apple service to send Push notification to your app.
App receives push notification (but does not show any badge to the user).
App interprets the data sent from the server as a "refresh data" notification.
Fire POST or GET request upon determining type of notification received.
Update your data from the request response.
1.) Polling - app asks for list of products whose prices has changed. You can setup a timer, which triggers itself after every X seconds.
2.) Socket connection - between app and the server. App can generate a unique token (such as identifierForVendor), and use it in the socket conenction. Server can notifiy all the apps (using this token), to notify about the changed prices.
Approach 2 is better, as it is less expensive ( in terms of networking).
Hope this helps.
we have an app which gets its configuration from a portal.
This is neither an MDM Portal nore any MDM Functionality is available in the app.
If the app starts for the first time, it contacts the portal and gets its initial configuration.
After this, it is polling the portal in a regular intervals to receive changes, if there is any.
I want to stop the polling. If there is a change, the Portal should PUSH it to its Apps. This can be done by Push Notifications, I can send some hint to the app, that there is new configuration to take it, but if the app does not run, the user can ignore this or according to the documentation, the PN is not a reliable system for vital information.
What could be the solution, did anyone have the same situation and solved it ?
You should use the silent push notifications (using content-available APNS payload key).
Of course this is not guaranteed to be received so you should also implement some sort of data versioning / etag / date last updated mechanism which you poll when the app is opened in order to download the latest data manually if your silent notification was not received.