I am experiencing an issue with push notifications on my iOS application. The issue is as follows: On Android devices, push notifications are received immediately without any problems. On iOS devices, the behavior is inconsistent: When the app is in the foreground, notifications are received immediately. When the app is in the background or in recent apps with a significant delay of 5–10 hours, push notifications are not received at all. This behavior creates a major challenge for us, as timely notifications are critical for our app’s functionality. We have already verified the following points on our side: Push notification certificates and APNs setup are correct. Payload and server configurations are valid, as notifications are working fine on Android. No restrictions from the server-side, since Android users receive notifications instantly. It seems the issue is specifically related to iOS devices or APNs delivery. Could you please help us identify the cause and provide guidance on how to resolve this?

I'm trying to rewrite a Swift code to Swift 6 language mode and am stuck with this problem. How do I safely pass the bestAttemptContent and contentHandler to the Task? This is from the UNNotificationServiceExtension subclass. final class NotificationService: UNNotificationServiceExtension { var contentHandler: ((UNNotificationContent) -> Void)? var bestAttemptContent: UNMutableNotificationContent? var customNotificationTask: Task<Void, Error>? override func didReceive(_ request: UNNotificationRequest, withContentHandler contentHandler: @escaping (UNNotificationContent) -> Void) { self.contentHandler = contentHandler bestAttemptContent = (request.content.mutableCopy() as? UNMutableNotificationContent) guard let bestAttemptContent = bestAttemptContent else { invokeContentHandler(with: request.content) return } do { let notificationModel = try PushNotificationUserInfo(data: request.content.userInfo) guard let templatedImageUrl = notificationModel.templatedImageUrlString, let imageUrl = imageUrl(from: templatedImageUrl) else { invokeContentHandler(with: bestAttemptContent) return } setupCustomNotificationTask( imageUrl: imageUrl, bestAttemptContent: bestAttemptContent, contentHandler: contentHandler ) } catch { invokeContentHandler(with: bestAttemptContent) } } // More code private func downloadImageTask( imageUrl: URL, bestAttemptContent: UNMutableNotificationContent, contentHandler: @escaping (UNNotificationContent) -> Void ) { self.customNotificationTask = Task { let (location, _) = try await URLSession.shared.download(from: imageUrl) let desiredLocation = URL(fileURLWithPath: "\(location.path)\(imageUrl.lastPathComponent)") try FileManager.default.moveItem(at: location, to: desiredLocation) let attachment = try UNNotificationAttachment(identifier: imageUrl.absoluteString, url: desiredLocation, options: nil) bestAttemptContent.attachments = [attachment] contentHandler(bestAttemptContent) } } } I tried using the MainActor.run {}, but it just moved the error to that run function. The UNNotificationRequest is not sendable, and I don't think I can make it so. Wrap the setupCustomNotification in a Task will move the errors to the didReceive method. It seems like the consuming keyword will help here, but it leads to a compilation error, even with the latest Xcode (16.2). Any pointers?

We are developing a messaging app which sends End-to-End encrypted data. The application supports multiple types of E2EE data, including text messages and voice over IP calls. Apple's article titled “Sending End-to-End Encrypted VoIP calls” (https://developer.apple.com/documentation/callkit/sending-end-to-end-encrypted-voip-calls) states that the following steps are required to support E2EE VoIP calls: Request permission to receive remote notifications through the User Notifications framework Register for VoIP calls using PuskKit Add a Notification Service Extension target to your app. Add the com.apple.developer.usernotifications.filtering entitlement to the NSE target’s entitlements file. We have completed steps one through three. We are still missing the filtering entitlement. As of right now the system does not allow us to use reportNewIncomingVoIPPushPayload(_:completion:) method because of the missing entitlement.
 Below is a short description of how our messaging app works: User sends a message to another user. The message is encrypted on device and sent to our server. The server receives the message and sends a notification request to APNs if needed. The server cannot decrypt the message. As an additional security feature we do not pass the encrypted message in the notification payload. The notification payload only contains a localizable generic placeholder message string and default sound in the ‘aps’ dictionary part. Upon receiving a notification from our server, the NSE makes a request to our server and fetches the latest messages (encryption keys have already been exchanged between the participants of the conversation) and determines what to do next (display a banner, or pass a call to CallKit). E2EE VoIP calls are a core feature of our app, so it is imperative that we receive the filtering entitlement. Our capability request has been rejected twice now. The latest request was rejected because: Support for VoIP calls should be provided by PushKit. For more information, please consult the documentation page "Responding to Notifications from PushKit". We cannot support VoIP calls by solely relying on PushKit. Our server cannot make a distinction when to use ‘voip’ (call) and ‘alert’ (text message) apns-push-types. Therefore, the application must be able to use reportNewIncomingVoIPPushPayload(_:completion:) function, where com.apple.developer.usernotifications.filtering entitlement is needed. We have sent the above text to support two weeks ago and made yet another request. Has anyone been able to get the capability as of late? What are the magic words that need to be included in the capability request? Can someone here help us? We made the first request on 3rd of September so this process has taken two months. Our planned release date is coming up and the absence of the capability is holding us back. We already have a released desktop and Android versions so changing the server implementation is really not an option.

My Mac app has a launch agent (within the app bundle) that works great without the app running. There are some occasions where I need to display an alert and ask the user to launch the app to handle the issue. I thought about using UNUserNotificationCenter but I'm not able to make it work from the agent. I'm asking for authorization as follows: [center requestAuthorizationWithOptions:(UNAuthorizationOptionAlert | UNAuthorizationOptionSound | UNAuthorizationOptionBadge) completionHandler:^(BOOL granted, NSError * _Nullable error) { NSLog(@"authorization request completion. Granted: %@, error: %@ (%@)",granted?@"YES":@"NO",error, [error localizedDescription]); }]; And I'm trying to post the notification as follows: content.title = @"Your App Name"; content.body = @"Click the button to open the app"; content.sound = [UNNotificationSound defaultSound]; UNNotificationRequest *request = [UNNotificationRequest requestWithIdentifier:[[NSUUID UUID] UUIDString] content:content trigger:nil]; [center addNotificationRequest:request withCompletionHandler:^(NSError * _Nullable error) { if (error) { NSLog(@"Error showing notification: %@ %@", error, [error localizedDescription]); } }]; When running I'm getting asked to authorize, I authorize and all seems OK in system settings but I'm not able send any notifications. addNotificationRequest results in UNErrorCodeNotificationsNotAllowed error. I tried this with the authorization request inside the main app, or inside the agent, with the same results. When trying to post the notification from within the app, it does work, but that's not what I need. Is posting notifications from within the launch agent not possible at all, or is there anything here that I'm missing. TIA

We are in the process of transferring our app to a new Apple Developer Organization account. Our app uses the Apple Push Notification service (APNs) with a .p8 authentication key configured on our server to send push notifications. We would like to confirm: Once the app transfer is completed, will push notifications continue to work temporarily using the existing .p8 key on our server, until we generate and configure a new .p8 key under the new organization's account? Understanding this behavior is critical for us to ensure a smooth transition and avoid any disruption in push notification delivery for our users. Thank you for your guidance and support.

We’re sending PTT notifications from our server and are receiving HTTP 403 from APNs for certain phones with the reason field BadEnvironmentKeyInToken. I can’t find this reason documented in Apple’s public error list. I’d like to confirm what this error specifically means and how to resolve it. Any guidance or clarification would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. Here is the document I was referring to. https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/NetworkingInternet/Conceptual/RemoteNotificationsPG/CommunicatingwithAPNs.html

The APP was not awakened by system after start a liveactivity and the liveactivity has showed on lock screen.so the updatetoken wont send to our inner server and the liveactivity can not update,often like this,but sometimes it can work. it makes me confuse,and i don't know how should i can do,because the liveactivity like a black box,i can not analyse the data link.for example ,inner server send a start liveactivity,but it can not accept a updatetoken unless the user lanuch APP. i hope the liveactivity can start and update on background. And i have developed it as described in the document. Hope to get your help，thank you very much.

I am developing a CarPlay driving tasks app and is able to display push notifications on CarPlay. I am looking at a way to get a tap action handler for push notifications on CarPlay such that when a user taps the notification and by default the app opens, but I want to present a CPInformationTemplate with data corresponding to the tapped notification.

Hi, We received the following message. Hello, We’re reaching out with a final reminder that the Certification Authority (CA) for Apple Push Notification service (APNs) is changing. APNs updated the server certificates in sandbox on January 21, 2025. APNs production server certificates will be updated on February 24, 2025. To continue using APNs without interruption, you’ll need to update your application’s Trust Store to include the new server certificate: SHA-2 Root: USERTrust RSA Certification Authority certificate. Note, that we are using Firebase to deliver push notifications and the connection is done via APN keys, not certificates. Is there anything that we need to update in the application to mitigate the risk of not delivered push notes ?

Issue: I am making an application that stores data locally from notifications fired from the server. Everything works fine in the foreground but the background is having problems with not being triggered when notifications are fired. So we tried firing 2 notifications at the same time, including default and silent types. But the problem continues to arise on ios 18, when firing multiple times like that, the trigger is not handling all notifications, leading to data loss. I tried on ios 15 and it worked fine. Environment: Device or Simulator: Iphone 11 pro max (iOS 18.3.2 Steps to Reproduce: Open app, allow received notification. Move app to background mode or terminate app. Sent 2 notifications: a. Default notification payload: { "aps": { "content-available": 1 }, ”notification”: {…}, “alert”: {..}, “data": "some_value" } b. Silent notification payload: { "aps": { "content-available": 1 }, ”data": "some_value" } What I've Tried: Trigger notification in function: application(_:didReceiveRemoteNotification:fetchCompletionHandler:) Handle write data to local storage in above function, put it in background thread also. Thanks in advance!

I am using push notification in my app. User token gets properly registered and is sent to server. Notification are also sent by server and recieved on device as expected. The problem occurs when user uninstalls the app. iOS does not provide any option to handle uninstall event. On top of that when server send notification to such device token APNS feedback service sends success message. Meaning APNS sends push notifications to uninstalled app.I have an API to unregister the device on server since no event is triggered I am unable to call it.Please suggest a way out.

Hello, I'm using 'App Store Server Notifications V2'. I have a question about 'CONSUMPTION_REQUEST' notification in 'notificationType'. I was wondering if there would be any impact on refunds if I received this notification and didn't respond. (Always refund etc..)

In the new AlarmKit API, how do you localize NSAlarmKitUsageDescription? In the case of other usage descriptions, such as NSLocationWhenInUseUsageDescription, you can use an InfoPlist.xcstrings file, but this does not appear to work for NSAlarmKitUsageDescription.

I have my app configured as a Driving Task app with the entitlement and provisioning profile correctly set up. I am also requesting the ".carPlay" notification authorization option and setting up the carplay notification category with the ".allowInCarPlay" category, both without error. When testing with the iPhone and carplay simulators the user notifications I send are appearing on the phone but not in carplay. When I check the notification settings with UNUserNotificationCenter.current().getNotificationSettings() I see that carplay is shown to be not supported ("carPlaySetting: NotSupported"). The CarPlay Developer Guide 2025-06-09 (which is the version currently referenced in the Apple docs) states that "Starting in iOS 18.4, notifications are also supported in CarPlay driving task apps". Has this discrepancy been addressed anywhere, or is this an open issue? My software versions: MacOS: Sequoia 15.6 XCode: 16.4 iPhone Simulator: iPhone 16 with iOS 18.6

We are observing an issue where the iOS Notification Service Extension (NSE) is terminated by the system during startup, before either didReceive(_:withContentHandler:) or serviceExtensionTimeWillExpire(_:) is invoked. When this occurs, the notification is delivered without modification (for example, an encrypted payload is shown to the user). System logs frequently contain the message “Extension will be killed because it used its runtime in starting up”. During testing, we observed that CPU-intensive operations or heavy initialization performed early in the extension lifecycle — especially inside init() or directly on the main thread in didReceive often cause the system to kill the NSE almost immediately. These terminations happen significantly earlier than the commonly observed ~30-second execution window where the OS normally invokes serviceExtensionTimeWillExpire(_:) before ending the extension. When these early terminations occur, there is no call to the expiry handler, and the process appears to be forcefully shut down. Moving the same operations to a background thread changes the behavior: the extension eventually expires around the usual 30-second window, after which the OS calls serviceExtensionTimeWillExpire(_:). We also observed that memory usage plays a role in early termination. During tests involving large memory allocations, the system consistently killed the extension once memory consumption exceeded a certain threshold (in our measurements, this occurred around 150–180 MB). Again, unlike normal time-based expiration, the system did not call the expiry handler and no crash report was produced. Since Apple’s documentation does not specify concrete CPU, memory, or startup-cost constraints for Notification Service Extensions or any other extensions beyond the general execution limit, we are seeking clarification and best-practice guidance on expected behaviors, particularly around initialization cost and the differences between startup termination. NSE Setup: class NotificationService: UNNotificationServiceExtension { static var notificationContentHandler: ((UNNotificationContent) -> Void)? static var notificationContent: UNMutableNotificationContent? static var shoudLoop = true override func didReceive(_ request: UNNotificationRequest, withContentHandler contentHandler: @escaping (UNNotificationContent) -> Void) { NotificationService.notificationContentHandler = contentHandler NotificationService.notificationContent = request.content.mutableCopy() as? UNMutableNotificationContent NotificationService.notificationContent!.title = "Weekly meeting" NotificationService.notificationContent!.body = "Updated inside didReceive" // Failing scenarios } override func serviceExtensionTimeWillExpire() { NotificationService.shoudLoop = false guard let handler = NotificationService.notificationContentHandler, let content = NotificationService.notificationContent else { return } content.body = "Updated inside serviceExtensionTimeWillExpire()" handler(content) } }

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.

Observations​​: When our app calls the APNs API for push notifications, we observed significant fluctuations: July 15-25​​: The success response volume ​​increased by 20%​​ compared to the baseline before July 15. ​​After July 25​​: Success rates returned to baseline levels. July 30​​: Success response volume ​​decreased by 10%​​ compared to the pre-July 15 baseline. ​​ Excluded Factors​​: No changes in target audience size or characteristics (business factors ruled out). Server logs confirm consistent API request parameters and frequency. ​​Key Questions​​: Were there any ​​adjustments to response metrics​​ (e.g., success status code definitions) during this period? Have other developers reported similar issues? Were there server-side configuration updates or known incidents on Apple’s end?

Hello, previously i have tested the purchase via test flight and the server notification was sent to my sandbox url. Now when I made the purchase from live app, my server did not receive any notification even though the production url was the same as the sandbox url. The purchase was for a consumable product. Please help, thanks.

Hello Apple Developer Team, Based on the mandate to update the APNs certificate by February 24, 2025 for certificate-based authentication, a question from the team has been brought up that maybe Apple or the community can help answer. Since our implementation uses token-based authentication, I’m seeking clarification on a couple of points: 1. Does the certificate update affect token-based connections at all? 2. What is the rationale behind updating certificates for certificate-based authentication, and are there any implications or benefits for developers using token-based authentication? Understanding these details will help us ensure our system remains compliant and optimally configured. Any guidance or further clarification you can provide would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

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