push notification not working on ios 9 devices - ios

Question

Ever since iOS 9.0 - 9.2 was implemented users of my app that are using it no longer receive push notifications.
My code works fine when sending to Android devices as I am separating the two platforms (iOS and Android) into 2 different arrays and processing them accordingly.
The result from the APNs server does not return an error at all.
Are there known issues documented on what could have changed on the push notification server? If so please provide links to them.
Below is the code that i am using to send the push notifications(PHP):
public function send_notification($message) {
$title = 'My App';
$platform = '';
$users = mysql_query("select * FROM push_devices");
$no_of_users = mysql_num_rows($users);
// Initialize the array for storing the platform specific tokens
$iOSusers = array();
$androidUsers = array();
if($no_of_users > 0){
// Seperate the tokens
while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($users)) {
$platform = $row['platform'];
if($platform == 'Android' || $platform == 'android'){
// Add to android list
$androidUsers[] = $row['push_id'];
}
if($platform == 'iOS' || $platform == 'ios'){
$iOSusers[] = $row['push_id'];
}
}// endwhile
}
if(!empty($androidUsers)){
$messageAndTitle = array(
'message' => $message,
'title' => $title
);
// Set POST variables
$url = 'https://android.googleapis.com/gcm/send';
$fields = array(
'registration_ids' => $androidUsers,
'data' => $messageAndTitle,
);
$headers = array(
'Authorization: key=' . ***GOOGLE_API_KEY***,
'Content-Type: application/json'
);
$ch = curl_init();
// Set the url, number of POST vars, POST data
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, $headers);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
// Disabling SSL Certificate support temporarly
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST, false);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, false);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSLVERSION, 3);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, json_encode($fields));
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, false);
// Increase the timeout
curl_setopt($ch, CUROPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT, 1000);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 0);
// Execute post
$result = curl_exec($ch);
if ($result === FALSE) {
die('Curl failed: ' . curl_error($ch));
}
echo $result . '<br/>';
// close the connection
curl_close($ch);
}
// Handle iOS push
if(!empty($iOSusers)){
$ctx = stream_context_create();
stream_context_set_option($ctx, 'ssl', 'local_cert', **PUSH_CERT_FILE**);
stream_context_set_option($ctx, 'ssl', 'passphrase', **PUSH_PARAPHRASE**);
// Open a connection to the APNS server
$fp = stream_socket_client(
PUSH_SERVER, $err,
$errstr, 60, STREAM_CLIENT_CONNECT|STREAM_CLIENT_PERSISTENT, $ctx);
if (!$fp)
exit("Failed to connect: $err $errstr" . PHP_EOL);
//echo 'Connected to APNS' . PHP_EOL;
$badgeCount = 2;
$badge = (int)$badge;
// Create the payload body
$body['aps'] = array(
'alert' => $message,
'badge' => $badge,
'sound' => 'default'
);
// Encode the payload as JSON
$payload = json_encode($body);
// Build the binary notification
//Note: $deviceToken is an array for android push
foreach ($iOSusers as $token) {
$msg = chr(0) . pack('n', 32) . pack('H*', $token) . pack('n', strlen($payload)) . $payload;
// Send it to the server
$result = fwrite($fp, $msg, strlen($msg));
//echo 'Device token: ' .$deviceToken[0];
if (!$result)
echo 'Message not delivered' . PHP_EOL . $token . '<br/>';
else
echo 'Message successfully delivered' . PHP_EOL . $token . '<br/>';
}
fclose($fp);
} // iOS
}

Answer 1

There are hundreds of thread over the Internet about notifications not working on iOS 9, but I think that the problem is server-side.
I noticed an issue with Push notifications on my iPhone 5 (iOS 7.1.2) in the last couple of weeks, and I discovered that the problem is originating from the Apple Push Notification Server.
I am now receiving about 10% of notifications on Whatsapp and 0% on Facebook Messenger, but I am sure other apps are involved too.
With another app (Bspotted), installed more recently, I'm receiving 100% of notifications.
So I've downloaded the profile PersistentConnectionLogging.mobileconfig in order to enable logging for push notifications.
Turns out that the Apple Push Server is sending notifications with TOKEN (null), so of course the apps can't handle them:
copyTokenForDomain push.apple.com (null)
Moreover, it seems that all notifications I received with token null (on Whatsapp and Messenger) came from Android devices. I received a message on Whatsapp from an iPhone, and it was the first notification I received in two weeks.
Maybe is a coincidence, because now I managed to receive 10% of notifications on Whatsapp also from Android devices (for two weeks it was 0%).
I tried all of this:
Reset in-app notifications
Reset iOS app notifications
Reinstall the app
Reset iOS network configuration
Forced iPhone restart
Uninstall the app, set the date 2 days forward, reinstall the app (in order to force the app to ask for permission on notifications)
I hope this will help.
Best Regards