I have integrated BlueMix push notifications into my iOS app, and I have verified that the app can receive notifications. However, after some period of time, the app stops receiving them.
When I query the registered device list via REST API at https://mobile.ng.bluemix.net/imfpush/v1/apps/xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxx/devices the device IDs I expect to be there are now gone from the list. What happened to the devices? Do they become unregistered by some automated process? Is there something I can do from the app side to make sure these devices do not become unregistered?
There are currently some temporary issues with the Cloudant cluster that are manifesting themselves throughout the Bluemix Mobile Services. We're currently working with that team to get a resolution as fast as possible and will update when we know more.
To confirm that this is what is affecting your app: if you retry the request multiple times do you sometimes see some or all of the devices or are you getting an empty list each time?
Also to be clear; there is no intentional mechanic in the IBM Push Notifications service to prune or automatically delete device registrations.
Related
I'm trying to detect uninstalls of our iOS app.
I read this document which gives some useful information. However, how can I understand from the error codes returned whether the user uninstalled versus disabled push notifications/has no connectivity?
I think you'll want to use the Feedback Service. When a user deletes an app, the service provider should ideally stop sending notifications to that device. But Apple does not notify the service that "this device is not using your app, dont send notifications". Technically, a device which has uninstalled your app will not make it onto this list until the next time a push notification goes to the device. So you need to poll for this info using the Feedback Service.
Periodically, you will need to hit Apple Notification servers asking it to give you IDs that have deleted your app. Once you get them you mark them in your DB as deleted thereby not sending any more notifications. This Feedback Service will tell devices that have been unregistered (app uninstalled). The part I'm not sure about is whether a user who has turned off push notifications in settings will register the same. I believe they will not show up in the feed from the Feedback Service. I am certain, however, that users who are offline and the push notification is not delivered will not be included in the list.
It would be a simple test in your dev region to try the app, disable push notifications for the app, and then see if the device shows up in the feed.
Take a look at Apple's documentation
From Apple Documentation -
Apple Push Notification Service includes a feedback service that APNs
continually updates with a per-application list of devices for which
there were failed-delivery attempts. The devices are identified by
device tokens encoded in binary format. Providers should periodically
query the feedback service to get the list of device tokens for their
applications, each of which is identified by its topic. Then, after
verifying that the application hasn’t recently been re-registered on
the identified devices, a provider should stop sending notifications
to these devices.
Access to the feedback service takes place through a binary interface
similar to that used for sending push notifications. You access the
production feedback service via feedback.push.apple.com, port 2196;
you access the sandbox feedback service via
feedback.sandbox.push.apple.com, port 2196. As with the binary
interface for push notifications, you must use TLS (or SSL) to
establish a secured communications channel. The SSL certificate
required for these connections is the same one that is provisioned for
sending notifications. To establish a trusted provider identity, you
should present this certificate to APNs at connection time using
peer-to-peer authentication.
Make sure you also read up on - Issues with Feedback Service
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.
I am trying to develop an iOS app that delivers time critical alerts to staff when certain events occur (handled by a server on the clients site, on the client network). This notification needs to be delivered to the iOS device even when the internet is down (since the alert is time critical it cannot wait for internet to come back up), some client's site do lose internet access often enough for this to be an issue. I don't believe that this is achievable via iOS Push Notification since it requires connection to internet. And the issue with local notification is if the device is asleep for some reason they will not get the alert, unless I have an infinite background operation running. Now battery life on devices is not an issue as they will be rotating multiple devices, so if one dies they can log into another iTouch, and charge the old one. The issue I see is that you cannot have an infinite background task running (to deliver the local notifications) and have it in the app store without some sort of VOIP service also added, and this would be given to our clients so it doesn't really fall under the enterprise license. I have email Apple dev support with this question and have not received any response. Does anyone have any idea the best way to achieve this time sensitive notification (without internet access) with an iOS device?
I have an iOS app with a Rails backend (and frontend). I am using Parse for push notifications.
I am trying to figure out the best way to only send push notifications that will be received; that is, I want to avoid sending them to:
Users who only use the web app and don't have the iOS app
Users who had the iOS app but then uninstalled it
The way that the Parse Push API works is that I can broadcast a notification on a certain channel, and any device that is listening to that channel will receive the notifications. Therefore, I am planning to make separate channels for each user.
Obviously, I am going to need to store some sort of information on the server side about who is running the iOS app. I'm curious as to whether anyone out there has experience solving a problem like this and can offer any wisdom. Thanks!
Parse already stores information about who is running iOS and Android apps. Check out the Data Browser, there is an Installation table with a deviceType field.
Have the iOS app register a unique (per-user) channel. If you're only sending push notifications on user channels, it will only be sent to users who have installed the iOS app.
There's not much you can do for users who had the iOS app but uninstalled it. Apple doesn't provide a way for applications to run any code before being uninstalled, so you can't unregister the device with Parse. I'm not sure if Parse does this, but Urban Airship polls the APNS servers and removes devices that have had the app uninstalled after a certain amount of days.
I implemented push notification in my app.
It is working fine.
Now the problem is even after i deleted my app from device it is getting the push notifications.
So is there any way to unregister the app from push notification when it is deleted from the device.
Hoping for your help.
Thanks in advance.
In Apple push notification there is something called - Feedback Service. So when a user deletes an app, the service provider should ideally stop sending notifications to that device. But Apple does not notify the service that "this device is not using your app, dont send notifications". So instead you need to poll for this info.
Every day you might need to hit Apple Notification servers asking it to give you device Ids who have deleted your app. Once you get them you mark them in your DB as deleted thereby not sending any more notifications. Hope this is what you wanted.
From Apple Documentation -
... Apple Push Notification Service includes a feedback
service that APNs continually updates with a per-application list of
devices for which there were failed-delivery attempts. The devices are
identified by device tokens encoded in binary format. Providers should
periodically query the feedback service to get the list of device
tokens for their applications, each of which is identified by its
topic. Then, after verifying that the application hasn’t recently been
re-registered on the identified devices, a provider should stop
sending notifications to these devices.
Access to the feedback service takes place through a binary interface
similar to that used for sending push notifications. You access the
production feedback service via feedback.push.apple.com, port 2196;
you access the sandbox feedback service via
feedback.sandbox.push.apple.com, port 2196. As with the binary
interface for push notifications, you must use TLS (or SSL) to
establish a secured communications channel. The SSL certificate
required for these connections is the same one that is provisioned for
sending notifications. To establish a trusted provider identity, you
should present this certificate to APNs at connection time using
peer-to-peer authentication.
Be sure to checkout - Issues with Feedback Service
Having not seen this answer so far, there is a small note in the Apple "Troubleshooting Push Notifications" document.
In short, if you delete the last push enabled app, the persistent connection from the device to Apples push server is broken before the server is told that the app has been deleted.
Solution: keep at least one push enabled app on your device.
There is the explanation from the document:
Issues with Using the Feedback Service
If you remove your app from your device or computer and then send a push notification to it, you would expect to have the device token rejected, and the invalidated device token should appear on the feedback service. However, if this was the last push-enabled app on the device or computer, it will not show up in the feedback service. This is because deleting the last app tears down the persistent connection to the push service before the notice of the deletion can be sent.
You can work around this by leaving at least one push-enabled app on the device or computer in order to keep the persistent connection up. To keep the persistent connection to the production environment up, just install any free push-enabled app from the App Store and you should then be able to delete your app and see it appear in the feedback service.
Recall that each push environment has its own persistent connection. So to keep the persistent connection to the sandbox environment up, install another development push-enabled app."