I have an iOS app using push notification but once in a while I'm not getting a notification on my device when I expect to receive one. I would receive all the subsequent notifications. I confirmed with my backend to make sure that all the notifications were sent successfully.
So my question is: is APNs nearly 100% reliable or should I just expect to miss some notifications here and there because of intermittent 3G/wifi connection?
I would think that APNs works as a queueing system and retry if it wasn't successful within the first few times.
The APN service will queue messages up -- but Apple doesn't guarantee delivery of all messages. Only the last message from an application will be kept in the queue when the user is offline. Additionally, old messages may be deleted.
Local and Push Notification Programming Guide
Apple Push Notification Service
includes a default Quality of Service
(QoS) component that performs a
store-and-forward function. If APNs
attempts to deliver a notification but
the device is offline, the QoS stores
the notification. It retains only one
notification per application on a
device: the last notification received
from a provider for that application.
When the offline device later
reconnects, the QoS forwards the
stored notification to the device. The
QoS retains a notification for a
limited period before deleting it.
I have an azure website (and mobile service, service bus, db, active directory etc) that sends push notifications to a xamarin app on a windows phone and an iphone. The first notification is received by both. The second notification is only received by the windows phone, it doesnt make it to the iphone. If I send another notification, it is received by both. So I investigated the behaviour at bit more and found that if I machine gun a series of notifications (hand typed one per 2 seconds) the windows phone received them all but the iphone only receives the first one. But if I wait a while and send a notification it is received by both devices. The next test is to see if the notifications are always received with a 5 minute gap. Sent two messages with a five minutes gap in between, both windows phone and iphone received both notifications.
Related
I am developing an application which requires push notification.
I have provided Push Notification feature but I need to know what if a user has turned off his/her iDevice for 2-3 days or for whatever reason, the device is turned off for few hours/days/minutes etc.
If I send a push notification at that point of time, would the user receive the notification when he turns on his device.
Thanks
If you are sending multiple notifications to the same device or computer within a short period of time, the push service will send only the last one.
Here's why. The device or computer acknowledges receipt of each notification. Until the push service receives that acknowledgment, it can only assume that the device or computer has gone off-line for some reason and stores the notification in the quality of service (QoS) queue for future redelivery. The round-trip network latency here is of course a major factor.
All of this points out that the intent is that a notification indicates to an app that something of interest has changed on the provider, and the app should check in with the provider to get the details. Notifications should not contain data which isn't also available elsewhere, and they should also not be stateful.
Any push notification that isn't delivered immediately was queued for future redelivery because your device was not connected to the service. "Immediately" of course needs to take latency for your connection into account. Outlying cases would be beyond 60 seconds as APNs will time out at that point.
Still you have any query then you can refer the below link
http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#technotes/tn2265/_index.html
If I go abroad for a vacation for a month and my iPhone has no data/Wifi connection or if I have turned off my phone for a long period of time, in both case APNS will not be able to deliver push notification to my iPhone. My question is, will APNS think the device token is "bad", therefore adding it the the feedback server?
No it doesn't.
You send notifications to APNS
APNS sends notifications to each device
The device tells APNS if it rejects the notification (uninstalled app, ...)
From :
If a provider attempts to deliver a push notification to an application, but the application no longer exists on the device, the device reports that fact to Apple Push Notification Service. This situation often happens when the user has uninstalled the application. If a device reports failed-delivery attempts for an application, APNs needs some way to inform the provider so that it can refrain from sending notifications to that device. Doing this reduces unnecessary message overhead and improves overall system performance.
I am developing iPhone application, application registered for receive push notifications.
I send push notification to gateway.sandbox.push.apple.com from server,all ok, but sometimes push notifications not delivered to iPhone (size of notification message is correct, < 256 bytes). Why? Maybe exists limitations for iPhone sandbox(for example count notifications in one hour) ?
There is no guarantee of delivery of push notifications. In addition to other potential causes consider this section of the Local and Push Notification Programming Guide
Quality of Service
Apple Push Notification Service includes a default Quality of Service
(QoS) component that performs a store-and-forward function. If APNs
attempts to deliver a notification but the device is offline, the QoS
stores the notification. It retains only one notification per
application on a device: the last notification received from a
provider for that application. When the offline device later
reconnects, the QoS forwards the stored notification to the device.
The QoS retains a notification for a limited period before deleting
it.
If a device is offline (either turned off or just unreachable) then it will receive at most a single push notification you attempt to send to your application during that time.
Sometimes the fault is on your network provider which is unable to deliver notifications.same problem i was facing with my device when it was connected to wifi, When I connected it to 3g network all notifications were received instantly.
My push notification service in sandbox development phase works well when the device is online. It keeps getting push messages.
However if a message is sent from te provider (server) when the device is offline (no 3g or wifi), the device is not receiving the push message when it gets online.
Any thoughts on this?
UPDATE New rephrased documentation is here
Thanks AL
After going through Apple's Quality of Service https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/NetworkingInternet/Conceptual/RemoteNotificationsPG/Chapters/ApplePushService.html
It retains only one notification per application on a device:
Apple Push Notification Service includes a default Quality of Service (QoS) component that performs a store-and-forward function. If APNs attempts to deliver a notification but the device is offline, the QoS stores the notification. It retains only one notification per application on a device: the last notification received from a provider for that application. When the offline device later reconnects, the QoS forwards the stored notification to the device. The QoS retains a notification for a limited period before deleting it.
How reliable do you find push notification on the iPhone to be? Does it improve when moving from the sandbox to production server?
I am testing (with the sandbox of course) and have found that notifications are often delayed or not received at all. I am not talking about sending multiple messages and only the last one arriving, as the documentation indicates, but any notification never showing up.
Also, I noticed that if I send a notification with an alert, and then send one with just a badge number, that the second notification will close the alert even after it's already opened. Does this happen between apps as well? For instance, if I send an alert for my app, and then the Facebook app sends a badge, will the Facebook badge close my alert window?
I have no development experience with iPhone apps, but I do know that if you have an unofficial unlocked phone (by using pwnage tool/blackrain etc) then the PUSH notifications might NEVER go through. In fact, it does go through, but to another user's iPhone.
This is because when an iPhone is unofficially network unlocked, it uses the Unique ID of some random individual's iPhone, which causes Push notifications to arrive on either phone (and yes, sometimes also on the unlocked phone it was intended for, but usually not)
Not sure if this is the case with you though, but AFAIK the service is pretty reliable if you follow Apple's rules. :)
The push notification seams better on production. You can always test it using ad-hoc distrbution which uses the production chanel to send the notifications.
I can confirm that production push notifications using
Production Push Notification Certificate
Adhoc Distribution Mobile Provisioning
TestFlight deployment
Production APNS server
works well, no need to publish your app to test production notifications
Production push notifications are not always received. If notifications are machine gunned 1 second apart the first one is received and the rest are not sent, thats my experience.
Where as on a windows phone, they are all received using the windows notification service.