Background location updates stop in iOS 16.4

Our app gets background location updates and has been working well right up to, and including iOS 16.3.1.

However, testing with iOS 16.4 we are finding that background location updates stop shortly after they start. I have spoken with other developers and they’re noticing the same thing.

Anyone else using background location updates finding this to be a problem?

Answered by Engineer in 749230022

The issue that is described here due to the changes with iOS 16.4 (and above) which affect the behavior of apps tracking location in the background.

Beginning in iOS 16.4, apps calling both startUpdatingLocation() AND startMonitoringSignificantLocationChanges() may get suspended in the background if they are specifying low accuracy and distance filtering in the location manager settings.

If your app needs only low accuracy locations of kCLLocationAccuracyKilometer and up, use startMonitoringSignificantLocationChanges() for that purpose instead.

If your app requires continuous high accuracy locations in the background, you must set the following location manager properties:

  • allowsBackgroundLocationUpdates must be set to TRUE or YES
  • distanceFilter must not be set, or set to kCLDistanceFilterNone
  • desiredAccuracy must be kCLLocationAccuracyHundredMeters or better. If you’re using numeric values, it must be set to less than 1000 meters

Alternatively you can turn on the location indicator which will avoid the issue. You can do this by setting

  • showsBackgroundLocationIndicator to TRUE or YES

If you implement the above changes in your app, its location update behavior will be similar to behavior prior to iOS 16.4. Without these changes, your app may not be able to receive continuous background location updates.

[@Gualtier Malde](https://developer.apple.com/forums/profile/Gualtier Malde) I'm really asking for help! With all due respect, the suggested solutions have not helped. The number of users with the problem is steadily increasing every day. From our data, the increase in the number of users with the problem is not going to stop. Please pay attention to this problem, and maybe something went wrong by design?

@Scott--R did the recommendations above help? Were you able to solve the problem? In my case the recommendations did not help, the reach of users with the problem is growing

Only setting showsBackgroundLocationIndicator to TRUE or YES did not work for me (iOS 16.5.1). I had to unset distanceFilter as well to make it work.

Thank you all for your support and feedback. I've made a lot of tests with IOS versions < 16.4 and IOS versions >= 16.4

The conclusion today is that the best solution was given by Gualtier Malde in this thread, but with one exception: distanceFilter must not be set ONLY (set it to kCLDistanceFilterNone leads to a non-deterministic behavior in 16.4 and upper versions, and stops the location updates or send updates completely erratically.

So with the below code, the location updates in background with IOS > 16.4 work for roughly 5h. After that, it's a mystery why it stops. The debugger spits out nothing ....

  • allowsBackgroundLocationUpdates must be set to TRUE
  • distanceFilter must not be set
  • desiredAccuracy must be kCLLocationAccuracyHundredMeters or better. If you’re using numeric values, it must be set to less than 1000 meters (in my case it's 30 meters)
  • showsBackgroundLocationIndicator to TRUE (when I set it to false ou not set, the behavior got worse)

My app's code now tests which IOS version the device runs and I remove distanceFilter when > 16.4. In the locationManager I also send updates to my backed only every 30s because IOS 16.4 ignores Timer.scheduledTimer ...

At this point of time, I don't know how to do better. I just updated my phone to 16.5 and will run some tests with this version but no hope. It's a shame that with IOS 14.x it works so well ...

If someone has the magic solution, please share.

My problem was unrelated to the main problem discussed here, so with the piece of code below, any IOS release below or above 16.4 work.

Use case for the example: I print latitude and longitude every 30s.

This code so far worked for +24h like a charm, whatever the device moves or not, whatever the app is in the foreground or in the background, whatever the screen is on or off. Of course you must select 'Location updates' for 'Background modes' in 'Signing & Capabilities' of your project's Target. But this is obvious no :)

class TestLocation: UIViewController, CLLocationManagerDelegate{ @objc var locationManager: CLLocationManager = CLLocationManager() override func viewDidLoad() { super.viewDidLoad() // Configure location manager locationManager.delegate = self // requestAlwaysAuthorization() could be done before in your app, which is the case for me but for the example, I put it here (indeed requestAlwaysAuthorization() MUST be done when the app starts to avoid any crash, if you do some stuff before doing startUpdatingLocation()) locationManager.requestAlwaysAuthorization() locationManager.desiredAccuracy = kCLLocationAccuracyBest locationManager.allowsBackgroundLocationUpdates = true locationManager.pausesLocationUpdatesAutomatically = false locationManager.showsBackgroundLocationIndicator = true locationManager.startUpdatingLocation() }

func locationManager(_ manager: CLLocationManager, didUpdateLocations locations: [CLLocation]) {
    guard let currentLocation = locations.last(where: { $0.horizontalAccuracy >= 0 }) else { return }

    if let lastUpdateDate = lastLocationUpdateDate, Date().timeIntervalSince(lastUpdateDate) < 30 {
       return
    }
    else{
        print("Latitude: \(currentLocation.coordinate.latitude), Longitude: \(currentLocation.coordinate.longitude)")
        lastLocationUpdateDate = Date()
    }
}

}

Hope it helps

Background location updates stop in iOS 16.4
 
 
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