Notifications

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Learn about the technical aspects of notification delivery on device, including notification types, priorities, and notification center management.

Notifications Documentation

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Missing notification – APNs success but not delivered to device
We have a customer reporting that they didn’t receive some of their push notifications. On November 3, 2025, four push notifications were sent — the customer received the first three but not the last one. Our logs show a successful response from APNs, with the apns-id c116d650-efc6-4fb1-8a74-382d5bab4692. A very similar case occurred on October 31, where the customer also claimed not to have received the notification, yet our logs again show success from APNs with apns-id 1468ef43-66d6-40d2-b10a-c96889fcb65a. Wondering if there any way to help us to trace these cases. Thanks
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187
Nov ’25
APNs Returning 200 OK for Uninstalled Apps
We're experiencing an issue with Apple Push Notification service where APNs continues to return 200 OK responses for device tokens belonging to uninstalled applications. Issue Details: When sending push notifications to device tokens, APNs returns 200 OK responses even for devices where our app was uninstalled more than a month ago Thanks in advanced for support
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154
Jul ’25
Not Receiving Incoming VoIP Push Notifications on iOS 18.4 (React Native App)
Hi Apple Dev Team, We have a React Native application that includes call functionality using PushKit and VoIP notifications. We are using APNS to send the VoIP notifications, and everything has been working smoothly on iOS versions up to 18.3.1. However, after updating to iOS 18.4, we are no longer receiving incoming VoIP push notifications on the device. There have been no code changes related to our PushKit or notification logic — the exact same build continues to work correctly on devices running iOS 18.3.1 and earlier. We're trying to understand if anything has changed in iOS 18.4 that affects VoIP push delivery or registration behavior. Would appreciate any guidance, and happy to share code snippets or configuration if needed. Thanks in advance!
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166
Apr ’25
Notification Service Extension not getting invoked on macOS
I’m testing remote push notifications on macOS, and although notifications are received and displayed correctly, my Notification Service Extension (NSE) never gets invoked. The extension is properly added as a target in the same app, uses the UNNotificationServiceExtension class, and implements both didReceive(_:withContentHandler:) and serviceExtensionTimeWillExpire(). I’ve also set "mutable-content": 1 in the APNS payload, similar to how it works on iOS — where the same code correctly triggers the NSE. On macOS, however, there’s no sign that the extension process starts or the delegate methods are called. import UserNotifications class NotificationService: UNNotificationServiceExtension { override func didReceive(_ request: UNNotificationRequest, withContentHandler contentHandler: @escaping (UNNotificationContent) -> Void) { let modified = (request.content.mutableCopy() as? UNMutableNotificationContent) modified?.title = "[Modified] " + (modified?.title ?? "") contentHandler(modified ?? request.content) } override func serviceExtensionTimeWillExpire() { // Called if the extension times out before finishing } } And the payload used for testing: { "aps": { "alert": { "title": "Meeting Reminder", "body": "Join the weekly sync call" }, "mutable-content": 1 }, "MEETING_ORGANIZER": "Alex Johnson" } Despite all correct setup steps, the NSE never triggers on macOS (while working fine on iOS). Can anyone confirm whether UNNotificationServiceExtension is fully supported for remote notifications on macOS, or if additional configuration or entitlement is needed?
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195
Nov ’25
Clarification on APNs MDM Push Certificate per-customer requirement for MSP/multi-tenant MDM
Hello Apple Developer Community, We’re building an MDM product (SaaS, multi-tenant). I’d like clarification on the APNs MDM push certificate usage model for service providers (MSPs). Question: Is it acceptable for an MDM vendor to use a single APNs MDM push certificate owned by the vendor to manage devices for multiple, independent customer organizations? Or is it required/recommended that each customer (company) must obtain and use its own APNs MDM push certificate (issued under the customer’s Apple ID) for their tenant? Why we’re asking: We understand that many guides show the process where each customer logs into the Apple Push Certificates Portal with their own Apple ID, uploads a CSR provided by the MDM, and then renews yearly. Practically, for a small team and early-stage deployments, using one vendor-owned certificate across multiple tenants would be simpler. We want to ensure we’re not violating any policy, terms, or technical requirements (e.g., certificate ownership, topic binding, device token isolation, audit/compliance expectations). What we need from Apple (or authoritative sources): An official Apple document or policy that clearly states whether per-customer certificates are mandatory vs strongly recommended for MSP/multi-tenant MDMs. If per-customer is mandatory, please point to the relevant clause or section. If a vendor uses a single certificate for multiple organizations, what risks or consequences should we expect (e.g., compliance issues, supportability, potential program violations, off-boarding problems, etc.)? Context: We’re sending only MDM wake notifications (standard MDM flow). We understand certificates expire yearly and must be renewed with the same Apple ID to avoid device re-enrollment. We want to follow Apple’s best practices while keeping early operations manageable. Any guidance, links to official documentation, or clarification from Apple engineers/moderators would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
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191
Oct ’25
Notifications False Sucecss Delivery
We operate a social network application, SportsYou with over 3 million monthly active users and are experiencing significant issues with push notification delivery through APNs. We have a large number of users reporting they are not receiving push notifications. Our infrastructure uses AWS SNS integrated with APNs to deliver notifications. However, AWS CloudWatch consistently reports successful delivery (Success response), even though users confirm they never received the notifications. Because we receive success responses from AWS SNS, our system does not attempt to recreate or refresh the device endpoints. This leaves us unable to detect or recover from these delivery failures automatically. This issue is widespread and inconsistent. It affects users across multiple variables including different iOS versions, different device models, and different versions of our application. We cannot identify a clear pattern that would help us isolate the root cause. With millions of active users, even a small percentage of delivery failures represents thousands of users experiencing a degraded service. This is significantly impacting user engagement and satisfaction. We need guidance on how to properly diagnose this issue and ensure reliable notification delivery to our users. Specifically, we'd like to understand why we're receiving success responses when notifications aren't being delivered, and what steps we can take to detect and prevent these failures.
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146
Oct ’25
Live Activity "Push to Start" is received but UI never appears (Silent Crash)
Hello everyone, I'm implementing the "Push to Start" feature for Live Activities, and I've run into an issue where the activity seems to be processed by the system but never appears on the Lock Screen or in the Dynamic Island. I suspect there's a silent crash happening in my widget extension immediately after launch, but I'm unable to capture any logs or crash reports in the Xcode debugger. Here is the flow and all the relevant data: 1. The Process My app successfully requests a pushToStartToken using Activity<EJourneyLiveActivityAttributes>.pushToStartTokenUpdates The token is sent to our server. The server uses this token to send a "start" event APNs push notification. The device console logs (from liveactivitiesd) show that the push is received and the system is "Publishing event". Expected Result: The Live Activity UI appears on the device. Actual Result: Nothing appears. The UI is completely absent. 2. Device Console Logs Here are the logs from the device console, which indicate a successful receipt of the push: pushServer default 12:08:22.716353+0200 liveactivitiesd Received push event for com.wavepointer.ejourney.staging::pushToStart pushServer default 12:08:22.716818+0200 liveactivitiesd Reduced budget for com.wavepointer.ejourney.staging::pushToStart to: 7 pushServer default 12:08:22.723458+0200 liveactivitiesd Publishing event: timestamp: 2025-07-24 08:57:19 +0000; activityIdentifier: 53C3EE9D-623C-4F38-93AE-8BB807429DAA; eventType: start(...) 3. APNs Payload This is the exact payload being sent from our server: { "aps": { "event": "start", "timestamp": 1753347375, "attributes-type": "EJourneyLiveActivityAttributes", "attributes": { "journeyId": "test123453" }, "content-state": { "distanceInMeters": 1000, "depTime": 1752745104, "arrTime": 1752748704, "depStop": "Arth, Am See", "arrStop": "Oberarth, Bifang", "depZone": "571", "arrZone": "566", "co2Save": 5.0, "co2SavePerc": 44, "companyName": "WP Innovation", "countryCode": "CH", "categoryId": 5, "subcategoryId": 3, "stationStartAssoc": "Assoc1", "stationEndAssoc": "Assoc2" } } } 4. ActivityAttributes Struct To prevent decoding errors, I have made all properties in my ContentState optional and added a custom decoder. @available(iOS 16.1, *) struct EJourneyLiveActivityAttributes: ActivityAttributes, Hashable { public struct ContentState: Codable, Hashable { var distanceInMeters: Int = 0 var depTime: Int = 1752843769 var arrTime: Int = 1752843769 var depStop: String = "" var arrStop: String = "" var depZone: String = "" var arrZone: String = "" var co2Save: Double? var co2SavePerc: Int = 0 var companyName: String = "Test" var countryCode: String = "CH" var categoryId: Int = 3 var subcategoryId: Int = 4 var stationStartAssoc: String? var stationEndAssoc: String? } var journeyId: String? } What I've Tried I have carefully checked that my Codable struct matches the JSON payload. I've made all properties optional to avoid crashes from missing keys. I have tried attaching the Xcode debugger to the widget extension process (Debug -> Attach to Process...) before sending the push, but no logs, errors, or crash reports appear in the Xcode console. The process seems to terminate before it can log anything. My question is: What could cause the widget extension to fail so early that it doesn't even produce a crash log in the attached debugger? Are there other methods to debug this kind of silent failure? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
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265
Jul ’25
Push Notification Problem
Hello, i'm facing issues, when trying to integrate push notification feature into my app. the following message is shown and I don't know how to fix it: ExportArchive "Runner.app" requires a provisioning profile with the push notifications feature (Encountered error while creating the IPA) Thankful for any help! Best regards
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338
Mar ’25
Notification Service Extension and the main thread
Question, if I am writing async code in the notification service extension, I understand it terminates after 30 seconds. If I want to wait until these async methods finish before calling the content handler, I believe an option I have is to use dispatch groups. However I am open to other solutions if there are better options. My question is, if I use dispatch groups, is there any issue in using the main queue here? Or does the main thread not make sense to use in the context of the NSE? dispatch_group_notify(group, dispatch_get_main_queue(), ^{ if (self.contentHandler) { self.contentHandler(self.bestAttemptContent); } }); Or is it recommended to instead use a different queue in the NSE? dispatch_queue_t nseQueue = dispatch_queue_create("com.blah.blah.nse.queue", DISPATCH_QUEUE_SERIAL); dispatch_group_notify(group, dispatch_get_global_queue(QOS_CLASS_(SOMETHING), 0), ^{ ... }); OR am I over thinking this? :) Thanks ahead of time, relatively new to iOS so just looking to learn/understand better.
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297
Jun ’25
AlarmKit plays system error tone instead of custom sound files (iOS 26.0)
AlarmKit custom sounds are universally broken in iOS 26.0 stable - instead of playing your custom sound, it plays a system error/timeout beep. I've spent days investigating why custom sounds result in what sounds like an error beep (like when you cancel an operation or hit a timeout) instead of the actual audio file. I can now prove this is an Apple bug, not implementation error. Evidence: Test 1: My Implementation Followed Apple's documentation exactly Tried both bundle and Library/Sounds (as documented) Result: System error beep (not my audio) Test 2: Professional Apps Tested ADHDAlarms (popular AlarmKit example by jacobsapps) https://github.com/jacobsapps/ADHDAlarms Their airhorn.mp3 custom sound: same error beep (not an airhorn) Their default sound: works perfectly Test 3: Device Testing Physical iPhone (iOS 26.0 - 23A341): broken iOS Simulator: broken Not device-specific Files are found correctly, but the actual audio file is never played. Instead, you hear what sounds like a system error/cancellation tone. What I've Eliminated Not a Library/Sounds vs Bundle issue (both broken) Not a file format issue (.mp3, .caf, .m4a all broken) Not an implementation issue (professional apps broken too) Not a device issue (simulator and device both broken) Not a file size issue (5KB to 2MB all broken) The Documentation Lie: Apple's docs for AlertConfiguration.AlertSound.named(_:) state: "Choose a file that's in your app's main bundle or the Library/Sounds folder" https://developer.apple.com/documentation/activitykit/alertconfiguration/alertsound/named(_:) Both locations are broken. Tested on: iOS 26.0 (23A341), Xcode 26.0.1, Swift 6.2 Impact: This affects any app trying to: Provide personalized wake-up sounds Use custom alarm tones Create meditation/sleep apps Differentiate from default iOS alarms Current Status: Multiple bug reports filed: FB19900024, FB18237648, FB19779004 Apple engineer claimed "fixed in latest beta" in August Still broken in iOS 26.0 stable (September) Workaround: None that I know of. You must use .default sound. For apps needing custom audio, play it with AVAudioPlayer after the alarm fires and user opens the app. Question: Has ANYONE gotten custom AlarmKit sounds working in iOS 26.0 stable? If so, plzzz help I'd be so grateful.
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188
Oct ’25
APNS Notifications not received on macOS Device
Hello Team, We are currently experiencing an issue where some of our devices are not receiving push notifications. We are sending notifications via the Apple Push Notification portal (https://developer.apple.com/notifications/push-notifications-console/) using the following two requests. However, in both cases, the notifications are not being delivered to the devices. Scenario 1 : When we send a request with apns-push-type set to alert, we receive the following error. Request : curl -v --header "authorization: bearer ${AUTHENTICATION_TOKEN}" --header "apns-topic: com.testcompany.sampletest" --header "apns-push-type: alert" --header "apns-priority: 10" --header "apns-expiration: 0" --data '{"aps":{"alert":{"title":"Test Notification Title","subtitle":"Test Notification Sub Title","body":"Test Notification Body"}}}' --http2 https://api.push.apple.com:443/3/device/*devicetoken* Response: { "code": 400, "message": "bad-request", "reason": "The device token is inactive for the specified topic. There is no need to send further pushes to the same device token, unless your application retrieves the same device token.", "requestUuid": "c4ae39b4-87e1-4269-a1e9-163f60ec0385" } Scenario 2 : However, if we send the request with apns-push-type set to background, the request is processed successfully by APNs, but no notification is received on the device. Request : curl -v --header "authorization: bearer ${AUTHENTICATION_TOKEN}" --header "apns-topic: com.testcompany.sampletest" --header "apns-push-type: background" --header "apns-priority: 10" --header "apns-expiration: 0" --data '{"aps":{"alert":{"title":"Test Notification Title","subtitle":"Test Notification Sub Title","body":"Test Notification Body"}}}' --http2 https://api.push.apple.com:443/3/device/*devicetoken* Response: Getting a message that The notification sent successfully but no notification is received on the device. In both cases (with alert and background push types), the push notification does not reach the device. Additionally, when we validated the device token using the APNs Device Token Validator, it appears to be valid and returns the following message. "Device Token is valid for sending Alert & Background push-type notifications in the Production environment" Affected Device: macOS version : MacOS 15.3.1 Processor : Apple M1 Could you please assist me in resolving this issue? Thanks
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248
Oct ’25
Email VIP Alerts on iPhone Lock Screen
From iPhone iOS 18.3 , 18.3.1, and 18.4 Dev2, VIP Mail alerts will not wake a phone display to notify of a new mail received for a VIP contact. The phone will sound an audible tone indicating the mail was received, and if you manually wake the screen by tapping and then dragging upward to show notifications you will then see the VIP mail alert. However if the screen is sleeping, it will not light up or wake to indicate or display the new mail. The problem was briefly resolved in 18.4 Dev1, but problem returns in Dev2. We see this across all iPhone 16 Pros and iPhone SE2 with iOS 18.3 or higher. Is this something acknowledged by Apple as on track for resolution in iOS 18.4 Final Release? Thank you.
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489
Mar ’25
[iOS 26 beta] Unexpected Behavior: didRegisterForRemoteNotificationsWithDeviceToken Invoked Before User Notification Authorization on iOS 26 Beta
I'm encountering an issue with our legacy Objective-C codebase that uses UIApplicationDelegate. Here are the steps to reproduce the issue: Uninstall the application from the device. Install and launch the application. As part of the launch event, the client requests notification permission. The permission prompt is still displayed, even though the client receives a remote notification token (which appears to be a cached one). I followed the same steps with a sample app built with Swift (SwiftUI), and this issue did not occur. In the Swift app, I consistently received a delegate<didRegisterForRemoteNotificationsWithDeviceToken> call after the user allowed the notification permission. Could you please provide some insights into why this might be happening with only our client?
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284
Jul ’25
APNS is delivering expired voip push notification.
I have tried setting a 'apns-expiration' to current time + 30 seconds and also a value '0'. But still my voip app receives the voip push notification after 2-3 minutes. Till this time, caller has already hung up the call. But the receivers phone still rings on receiving the push notification as we have to report it to CallKit. Am I missing something or there is no way and even 'apns-expiration' does not guarantee timely delivery of Voip push notifications or discard if it is expired. I have set 'apns-priority' to 10 already as recommended.
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407
Mar ’25
APNs Background Push Success but Wallet Pass Fails with ‘Unable to Deserialize JSON Payload’ on Device
I'm working on implementing Apple Wallet passes using background push notifications. My server successfully sends the push notification using APNs. The response from the server is HTTP/2 200, and the device receives the push — I can confirm this from device logs. However, the device logs show the following error: "Failed to parse JSON message payload for topic " "Unable to deserialize JSON message payload" My payload is below 2 payload. //string payload = "{"aps":{"content-available":1}}"; string payload = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(new { aps = new Dictionary<string, object> { { "content-available", 1 } } }); string curlArgs = $"-s -o nul -w \"%{{http_code}}\" " + $"--data-binary \"{payload}\" " + $"-H \"apns-topic: {bundleId}\" " + $"-H \"apns-push-type: background\" " + $"-H \"apns-priority: 5\" " + $"-H \"content-type: application/json\" " + $"-H \"authorization: bearer {jwt}\" " + $"--http2 https://api.push.apple.com/3/device/{token}"; I’ve confirmed that: The device has the Wallet pass installed. The apns-topic header is set to my passTypeIdentifier. The apns-push-type is background and apns-priority is 5. Steps to Reproduce: Install Wallet pass on iOS device. Send background push to device using the above payload. Observe the device logs using Console.app or log stream. See error: unable to deserialize JSON message payload. Is there a specific payload format expected for Wallet passes? Or any additional fields required in the push payload to avoid this deserialization error?
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158
Jul ’25
Background Push Notifications for Emergency App Delayed Despite Critical Alert Entitlement
I’m using Appnotic from my server to send notifications for an emergency service, where it is critical that notifications are delivered immediately. My payload looks like this: "aps": { "alert": "Test alert", "sound": { "critical": 1, "name": "sound.wav", "volume": 0.5 }, "content-available": 1, "category": "alert" }, "topic": "com.fireservicerota.FSR-Primary-Alerting", "custom_payload": { "id": "11", "type": "alert", "incident_id": 23434, "incident_response_id": 2652343, "expiration_time": "2024-06-06T16:59:05+01:00" } } I already have the critical alert entitlement and background processing enabled. Everything seems fine when debugging, but I’m experiencing issues: • Some notifications never arrive • Around 60% of notifications arrive with noticeable delay Since this is an emergency app, delivery speed is crucial. What could be causing this inconsistency?
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143
Apr ’25
push notifications are not receiving to device
iOS push notification is not working for in App since 03-Apr-2025. We are pushing the message to APNS from our application, but message is not delivered to iOS device. We have performed tests on both PROD and QA environment and following are the observations: PROD successfully pushing the notification to APNS but not receiving the notification on iOS device (100% failure). QA received notification on iOS device always (100% success). Analyzed PROD notification server log at our end and we do not observe any error and it is showing successful also when message is pushed to APNS all the time. Need to check from APNS why push messages are not delivered to iOS devices. Validated the PROD APNS certificate at our end which we are using during call to APNS - it is valid till Oct 2025. Please suggest me any possible solution because I don't have any clue where it is failing and what to do
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183
Apr ’25
Xcode16.1&iOS18.1.1 Debugging App, unable to respond “didRegisterForRemoteNotificationsWithDeviceToken” delegation
I am an iOS development engineer. Recently, I updated the Xcode version to 16.1 (16B40) and updated my debugging device (iPhone 15) to iOS 18.1.1. However, I found that I could not respond to the delegate method. I confirmed that my code, certificate, Xcode settings, and network environment had not changed. Simply executing application.registerForRemoteNotifications() in func application(_ application: UIApplication, didFinishLaunchingWithOptions launchOptions: [UIApplication.LaunchOptionsKey: Any]?) -> Bool did not receive a response(didRegisterForRemoteNotificationsWithDeviceToken or didFailToRegisterForRemoteNotificationsWithError ). In the same environment, when I switched to another device for debugging (iOS 17.0.3), the delegate method would respond. I really don't know what to do, I hope someone can help me, I would be very grateful. Please note: Everything is normal when using devices before iOS 18.1.1 version
4
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885
Oct ’25
Broadcast Push Notifications - Update ignored
I want to update my lockscreen LiveActivity via Broadcast Push Notification, but updating always fails - but ending always works. Payload with "update" is completely ignored: {"aps":{"timestamp":1685952000,"event":"update","content-state":{"currentSlotName":"Debug1","nextSlotName":"Debug2"}}} Same payload with "end" works, the view is refreshed with the new content-state: {"aps":{"timestamp":1685952000,"event":"end","content-state":{"currentSlotName":"Debug1","nextSlotName":"Debug2"}}} Via the MacOS Console I am able to see that both events happen to end up on the device. I am sending these Broadcast Push Notifications via Apple's Push Notifications Console.
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291
Mar ’25