Push notification is not arriving at my app, even though the server responds with 200/OK

Question

woolfman007 OP

Created Aug ’21

Replies 3

Boosts 0

Views 4.1k

Participants 3

I want to enable push notifications in my iOS app. I followed the resp. walkthrough as closely as possible.

To test things, I tried the command line approach first like described here: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/usernotifications/sending_push_notifications_using_command-line_tools

The APNS server responds with 200/OK, but no notification will ever arrive at my device.

I definitely assume my request is correct; if I tamper with the device token (e.g. by altering its last digit), the server responds with 400/BadDeviceToken like one would expect.

This is what I get from the APNS server:

curl -v --header "apns-topic: $TOPIC" --header "apns-push-type: alert" --header "authorization: bearer $AUTHENTICATION_TOKEN" --data '{"aps":{"alert":"test"}}' --http2 https://${APNS_HOST_NAME}/3/device/${DEVICE_TOKEN}
*  Trying 17.188.138.73...
* TCP_NODELAY set
* Connected to api.sandbox.push.apple.com (17.188.138.73) port 443 (#0)
* ALPN, offering h2
* ALPN, offering http/1.1
* successfully set certificate verify locations:
*  CAfile: /etc/ssl/cert.pem
 CApath: none
* TLSv1.2 (OUT), TLS handshake, Client hello (1):
* TLSv1.2 (IN), TLS handshake, Server hello (2):
* TLSv1.2 (IN), TLS handshake, Certificate (11):
* TLSv1.2 (IN), TLS handshake, Server key exchange (12):
* TLSv1.2 (IN), TLS handshake, Request CERT (13):
* TLSv1.2 (IN), TLS handshake, Server finished (14):
* TLSv1.2 (OUT), TLS handshake, Certificate (11):
* TLSv1.2 (OUT), TLS handshake, Client key exchange (16):
* TLSv1.2 (OUT), TLS change cipher, Change cipher spec (1):
* TLSv1.2 (OUT), TLS handshake, Finished (20):
* TLSv1.2 (IN), TLS change cipher, Change cipher spec (1):
* TLSv1.2 (IN), TLS handshake, Finished (20):
* SSL connection using TLSv1.2 / ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384
* ALPN, server accepted to use h2
* Server certificate:
* subject: CN=api.development.push.apple.com; OU=management:idms.group.533599; O=Apple Inc.; ST=California; C=US
* start date: Feb 8 21:41:22 2021 GMT
* expire date: Mar 10 21:41:22 2022 GMT
* subjectAltName: host "api.sandbox.push.apple.com" matched cert's "api.sandbox.push.apple.com"
* issuer: CN=Apple Public Server RSA CA 12 - G1; O=Apple Inc.; ST=California; C=US
* SSL certificate verify ok.
* Using HTTP2, server supports multi-use
* Connection state changed (HTTP/2 confirmed)
* Copying HTTP/2 data in stream buffer to connection buffer after upgrade: len=0
* Using Stream ID: 1 (easy handle 0x7fe09f80f200)
> POST /3/device/49C52E009C0107AB0ACCF178703E32790B4F3F155E7897F1F4ABAA3B1D9170D8 HTTP/2
> Host: api.sandbox.push.apple.com
> User-Agent: curl/7.64.1
> Accept: */*
> apns-topic: de.nexoft.viveto
> apns-push-type: alert
> authorization: bearer eyAiYWxnIjogIkVTMjU2IiwgImtpZCI6ICJaTTNDR0hTVEQ5IiB9.eyAiaXNzIjogIjNaVzhDUVZEWUoiLCAiaWF0IjogMTYyOTI5NjI1NCB9.MEYCIQCXP7L0-v_wY8F_WGFuZ-phJomzyO-43k0b7Xl9dvosVwIhANErbCHYfnG5ccfKTl14BCEhyWbDzPZSSLkJrSaQhCSb
> Content-Length: 24
> Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
> 
* Connection state changed (MAX_CONCURRENT_STREAMS == 1)!
* We are completely uploaded and fine
* Connection state changed (MAX_CONCURRENT_STREAMS == 1000)!
< HTTP/2 200 
< apns-id: 4C4AF738-9624-4643-8F76-18FFAD630C4F
< 
* Connection #0 to host api.sandbox.push.apple.com left intact
* Closing connection 0

Boost

Answer 1

Engineer OP

Apple

Aug ’21

A 200/OK response simply means that there was no obvious issues with your push request, but is not a guarantee that the notification can reach the device, or whether it will be shown on the device even if received.

Your device could be temporarily unreachable (which could cause the notification to be delivered later or lost, depending on the circumstances), the user may have disabled notifications for the device (or in do-not-disturb), may have disabled notifications for your app, and may have even deleted your app. It is also possible to silence all notifications for an app by disabling all visibility options.

A typical issue we see that developers run into during development of an app is using different bundle ids for testing and then using tokens for one version of the app but have installed another version.

Issues like this won't cause error returns from APNs, but will need to be debugged on device.

0

Answer 2

woolfman007 OP

Aug ’21

Thanks a lot, that helped. I was able to figure it out - I made a mistake in my initialization code within the app. Now everything works like a charm.

0

Answer 3

On3K OP

Jun ’22

What was the change you made int he initialization code? I have a similar issue and have not been able to resolve it.

1