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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Backgrounded app - Local Notifications
I'm working on an app that syncs with Apple Health events. Every time an event occurs, the app should send a notification. The problem occurs when the app is backgrounded or force-closed; it can no longer send local notifications, and because these events can occur at any time, scheduled notifications can't be used. I'm just wondering if anyone's found a creative way around this. I know we can't override system behaviour, I'm just thinking of other alternative solutions for the matter.
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PushKit (VoIP) delivery issue — user’s device fails to receive VoIP pushes; logging in on that device suppresses VoIP pushes for all devices of that user
We are facing an issue where VoIP notifications are not delivered to a user's device. If we login with the user credentials on another device the VoIP notifications are being received, if he logs in on his device VoIP notifications are not being received anymore on all devices. So When the user logs in on the affected device, all devices on that account stop receiving VoIP pushes (including the affected one). Logging out on the affected device restores delivery to other devices. What could cause this issue? It's only happening for this user so the configuration and mobile app PushKit code is working as intended.
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170
Oct ’25
How does AccessoryNotifications forward notifications to BLE accessories? What Service/Characteristic should the accessory implement?
Environment: iOS 26.4 beta Xcode 26.4 beta Framework: AccessoryNotifications, AccessorySetupKit, AccessoryTransportExtension Description: I'm implementing notification forwarding to a custom BLE accessory using the new AccessoryNotifications framework in iOS 26.4. I've set up an AccessoryDataProvider extension following the documentation, but I'm unclear about how the data is actually transmitted to the BLE accessory. Current Implementation: Main App - Uses AccessorySetupKit to discover and pair accessories: let descriptor = ASDiscoveryDescriptor() descriptor.bluetoothServiceUUID = CBUUID(string: "FEE0") let displayItem = ASPickerDisplayItem( name: "Notification Accessory", productImage: UIImage(systemName: "applewatch")!, descriptor: descriptor ) accessorySession.showPicker(for: [displayItem]) { error in // Handle error } AccessoryDataProvider Extension - Implements NotificationsForwarding.AccessoryNotificationsHandler: @main struct AccessoryDataProvider: AccessoryTransportExtension.AccessoryDataProvider { @AppExtensionPoint.Bind static var boundExtensionPoint: AppExtensionPoint { Identifier("com.apple.accessory-data-provider") Implementing { AccessoryNotifications.NotificationsForwarding { NotificationHandler() } } } } // NotificationHandler sends messages via: let message = AccessoryMessage { AccessoryMessage.Payload(transport: .bluetooth, data: data) } try await session?.sendMessage(message) Info.plist Configuration: EXExtensionPointIdentifier com.apple.accessory-data-provider NSAccessorySetupBluetoothServices FEE0 Questions: What BLE Service and Characteristic should the accessory advertise? - The documentation mentions specifying transport: .bluetooth, but doesn't explain what Service/Characteristic the accessory needs to implement to receive the notification data. 2. How does AccessoryMessage with transport: .bluetooth actually transmit data? - Is there a specific Apple-defined BLE protocol? - Does the accessory need to run specific firmware or support a particular protocol stack? 3. Is there any documentation about the accessory-side implementation? - The iOS-side documentation is clear, but I couldn't find information about what the BLE peripheral needs to implement. 4. Is MFi certification required for the accessory? - The documentation doesn't explicitly mention MFi, but it's unclear if custom third-party accessories can use this framework. Any guidance on how the BLE communication works under the hood would be greatly appreciated.
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Does UNNotificationRequest have a 64-notification scheduling limit?
Hi, We have a simple calendar reminder app that uses UNNotificationRequest to schedule local notifications for user events. I’m wondering whether UNNotificationRequest has a system-imposed limit of 64 upcoming scheduled notifications, similar to the deprecated UILocalNotification. We’re asking because one of our users is not receiving recently scheduled reminders. Our current workflow is: We schedule notifications on app launch and when the app is about to quit. Before scheduling, we call removeAllPendingNotificationRequests(). We then fetch the 64 nearest upcoming events and schedule them using UNUserNotificationCenter.current().add(...). This approach works fine during our testing, but we’re unsure what might be causing the issue for some users. Any insights would be appreciated. Thanks!
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Jan ’26
VoIP / PushKit notification failure on versions of iOS 18
We are trying to figure out a strange issue. Our app has not changed for at least 10 months but my devices and the QA tester device have all stopped receiving push/call notifications for twilio voip The twilio credential and apple voip services certificate are in date and valid It is pointing to the correct bundle id and topic (not changed configuration for years) token passed in to TwilioVoiceSDK.register() is retrieved from PKPushRegistry as per guide Running locally the Twilio Voice SDK successfully registers and retrieves APNs token What is interesting is if I log in with exactly the same client account on an iOS 18.5 device (and an older iPad) call notifications work perfectly (I have made sure all focus modes/dnd are off and notification settings are identical) The only changes myself and QA have made recently is minor iOS 18 version updates - 18.6.2 and 18.7.1 These now receive Invalid device token from APNs when Twilio attempts to create a call/voip notification for the user identity Our devices sometimes switch environments test/prod so I installed the app cleanly on a borrowed 18.6.2 device and got the exact same issue We have tested on these devices most of the year with no issues. I have been in touch with twilio support and added code to explicitly unregister and re register on an affected device to clear any bindings but it didn't help. Have apple made any changes in PushKit or token behaviour for later versions of iOS 18? Thanks
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Nov ’25
Notification Sound Not Routing to Bluetooth / External Speakers Consistently
Hello Apple Developer Support, We are observing inconsistent behavior with push notification sounds routing to Bluetooth / external speakers. Our app sends push notifications with a custom sound file using the sound parameter in the APNs payload. When an iPhone is connected to a Bluetooth speaker or headphones: On some devices, the notification sound plays through the connected Bluetooth/external speaker. On other devices, the notification sound plays only through the iPhone’s built-in speaker. We also tested with native apps like iMessage and noticed similar behavior — in some cases, notification sounds still play through the phone speaker even when Bluetooth is connected. Media playback (e.g., YouTube or Music) routes correctly to Bluetooth, so the connection itself is functioning properly. We would like clarification on the following: Is this routing behavior expected for push notification sounds? Are notification sounds intentionally restricted from routing to Bluetooth in certain conditions (e.g., device locked, system policy, audio session state)? Is there any supported way to ensure notification sounds consistently route through connected Bluetooth/external speakers? The inconsistent behavior across devices makes it difficult to determine whether this is by design or a configuration issue. Thank you for your guidance.
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Questions about VoIP Push compliance rules and CallKit handling
Hello everyone, I’m an iOS developer working on a real-time communication app that supports VoIP calls using CallKit. The app has been in production for more than 5 years. Over the years, some users have occasionally reported that they do not receive incoming call pushes. We have tried multiple optimizations on both the client and server side, but the improvement has been limited. From Apple documentation and discussions online, I understand that iOS may restrict VoIP pushes if the system detects violations of VoIP push usage rules (for example, not presenting a CallKit call after receiving a VoIP push). However, the exact rules and thresholds for these violations are not clearly documented, so I’d like to ask a few questions to better understand the expected behavior. Below is a simplified description of our current call flow. Call Flow Caller When the user initiates a call: We do not use CallKit The call is handled entirely using a custom in-app call UI Callee When the user receives a call: Device locked or app in background A VoIP push wakes the app The app presents the CallKit incoming call UI App in foreground The server still sends a VoIP push The app first reports the call to CallKit After a very short delay, the app programmatically ends the CallKit call Then a custom in-app call UI is presented via the app's long connection The reason we always send a VoIP push (even when the app is in the foreground) is that we want to maximize call delivery reliability.
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UNNotificationAttachment preview intermittently missing (attachment-store URL becomes unreadable)
I have been fighting this problem for two months and would love any help, advice or tips. Should I file a DTS ticket? Summary We attach a JPEG image to a local notification using UNNotificationAttachment. iOS reports the delivered notification as having attachments=1, but intermittently no image preview appears in Notification Center. In correlated cases, the attachment’s UNNotificationAttachment.url (which points into iOS’s attachment store) becomes unreadable (Data(contentsOf:) fails) even though the delivered notification still reports attachments=1. This document describes the investigation, evidence, and mitigations attempted. Product / Component UserNotifications framework UNNotificationAttachment rendering in Notification UI (Notification Center / banner / expanded preview) Environment App: OnThisDay (SwiftUI, Swift 6) Notifications: local notifications scheduled with UNCalendarNotificationTrigger(repeats: false) Attachment: JPEG generated from PhotoKit (PHImageManager.requestImage) and written to app temp directory, then passed into UNNotificationAttachment. Test contexts: Debug builds (direct Xcode install) TestFlight builds (production signing) iOS devices: multiple, reproducible with long runs and user clearing delivered notifications Expected Result Delivered notifications with UNNotificationAttachment should consistently show the image preview in Notification Center (thumbnail and expanded preview), as long as the notification reports attachments=1. If the OS reports attachments=1, the attachment’s store URL should remain valid/readable for the lifetime of the delivered notification still present in Notification Center. Actual Result Intermittently: Notification Center shows no image preview even though the app scheduled the notification with an attachment and iOS reports the delivered notification as having attachments=1. When we inspect delivered notifications via UNUserNotificationCenter.getDeliveredNotifications, the delivered notification’s request.content.attachments.first?.url exists but is unreadable (attempting Data(contentsOf:) returns nil / throws), i.e. the backing attachment-store file appears missing or inaccessible. In some scenarios the attachment-store file is readable for hours while the notification is pending, and then becomes unreadable after the notification is delivered. Reproduction Scenarios (Observed) Next-day reminders show attachment-store unreadable after delivery 1. Schedule a one-shot daily reminder for next day (07:00 local time) with UNCalendarNotificationTrigger(repeats: false) and a JPEG attachment. 2. During the prior day, periodic background refresh tasks verify the pending notification’s attachment-store URL is readable (pendingReadable=true). 3. After the reminder is delivered the next morning, the delivered snapshot shows the delivered notification’s attachment-store URL is unreadable (readable=false) and Notification Center shows no preview. Interpretation: the attachment-store blob appears to become inaccessible around/after delivery, despite being readable while pending. Evidence and Instrumentation We added non-crashing diagnostic logging (Debug builds) around: Scheduling time Logged that we successfully created a UNNotificationAttachment from a unique temp file. Logged that UNUserNotificationCenter.add(request) succeeded. Queried pendingNotificationRequests() and logged the scheduled request’s attachment url.lastPathComponent (iOS attachment-store filename). Delivered time (when app becomes active) Called UNUserNotificationCenter.getDeliveredNotifications and logged: delivered count, attachment count attachment url.lastPathComponent whether Data(contentsOf: attachment.url) succeeds (readable=true/false) Content fingerprinting Fingerprinted the exact JPEG bytes we wrote (SHA-256 prefix + byte count). Logged the iOS attachment-store filename (url.lastPathComponent) returned post-scheduling. Decode validation probe (later addition) When Data(contentsOf:) succeeds, we validate it decodes as an image using CGImageSourceCreateWithData and log: UTI (e.g. public.jpeg) pixel width/height magic header bytes What we tried / Mitigations Proactive “self-heal” for pending notifications Change: during background refresh/foreground refresh, verify the pending daily reminder’s attachment-store URL readability. If it’s unreadable, reschedule with a new attachment (same trigger). Rationale: if iOS drops the store file before delivery, recreating could repair it. Result: We observed cases where pending remained readable but delivered became unreadable after delivery, so this doesn’t address all observed failures. It is still valuable hardening. Increase scheduling frequency / reschedule closer to fire time (proposed/considered) We discussed adding a debug mode to always recreate the daily reminder during background refresh tasks (or only within N hours of fire time) to reduce the time window between attachment creation and delivery. Status: experimental; not yet confirmed to resolve the “pendingReadable=true → delivered unreadable after delivery” failure. Impact The primary UX value of the daily reminder is the preview photo; missing previews degrade core functionality. Failures are intermittent and appear dependent on OS attachment-store behavior and Notification Center actions (clearing notifications), making them difficult to mitigate fully app-side. Notes / Questions for Apple 1. Is iOS allowed to coalesce/deduplicate UNNotificationAttachment storage across notifications? If so, what is the retention model when delivered notifications are removed? 2. If a delivered notification still reports attachments=1, should its attachment-store URL remain valid/readable while the notification is still present in Notification Center? 3. In “next-day” one-shot scheduling scenarios, can the attachment-store blob be purged between scheduling and delivery (or immediately after delivery) even if the notification remains visible? 4. Is there a recommended pattern to ensure attachment previews remain stable for long-lived scheduled notifications (hours to a day), especially when using UNCalendarNotificationTrigger(repeats: false)? Minimal Code Pattern (simplified) 1. Generate JPEG (PhotoKit → UIImage → JPEG Data). 2. Write to a unique temp URL. 3. Create attachment: UNNotificationAttachment(identifier: <uuid>, url: <tempURL>, options: [UNNotificationAttachmentOptionsTypeHintKey: "public.jpeg"]) 4. Schedule notification with a calendar trigger for the next morning.
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Jan ’26
Can I listen to user choice when asked for update permissions on Live Activity?
We would like to better understand the discrepancy between a Push To Start and the subsequent Updates where I see a number of recipients drop greatly. Our assumption is that this is a result of the end user not clicking the "Allow" prompt when a push to start widget is shown on the screen for the first time, but we currently do not have a way to listen to the user's choice when prompted. Is there any way of tapping into this, to determine if this is in fact where the variance is coming from, or if there is actually just a problem with the request to retrieve the update token from our end?
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Apr ’25
Critical Alerts Entitlement
Hi Team, We’re following up on our request for the Critical Alert entitlement for our app, which we plan to use to notify users about critical states of their devices. It’s been almost 4 weeks since we submitted the request, and we wanted to check on the typical review timeline so we can plan our upcoming work accordingly. If there’s anything we can provide or clarify to help complete the review or make the process easier, we’d be happy to assist. or the right forum to reach out to.
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Jul ’25
Silent Push Notification Handling Behavior
I'm observing that when a silent push notification is sent to our app, is is started up in the background for 30 seconds before being suspended until the app is launched by the user. This causes data to persist from the silent push notification to the user app launch. I couldn't find documentation on this behavior for silent push notifications, and was wondering if it's possible to have the app terminate after handling the silent push notification. Is there documentation on the general flow of silent push notifications as well? I'm able to handle the edge cases if the app has to be suspended until user launch, but just want to confirm that this is the expected behavior before I go about handling it this way.
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Apr ’25
Only the last notification is being delivered
Good morning all! We are facing a specific case dealing with push notifications to iOS devices. In my scenario: I turn off my device's internet Send multiple push notifications via server using Firebase. I turned ON my device's internet again. I only see the last push notification I sent. This is an expected scenario? There is any documentation that supports this statement? Thank you all!
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Mar ’25
Server notifications v2 UNSUCCESSFUL_HTTP_RESPONSE_CODE
Hello. I'm currently implementing Apple Notification v2 to prepare for refunds for in-app purchases, but I'm not receiving requests from Apple servers to my backend server. I've applied HTTPS (TLS 1.2) and correctly registered production/sandbox notification URLs on App Store Connect. After requesting a test notification, when I check the status of testNotificationToken, I receive an UNSUCCESSFUL_HTTP_RESPONSE_CODE as follows: {"signedPayload":"......":[{"atteptDate":1752128001970,"sendAttemptResult":"UNSUCCESSFUL_HTTP_RESPONSE_CODE"}]} The endpoint for receiving notifications is set to accept POST requests with application/json format, and it responds with 200 (OK) without any content. However, Apple notifications are not coming through. Could anyone help me with this issue?
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Jul ’25
Audio Session in Notification Service Extension
Is there anyway that I could use AVAudioSession, AVAudioPlayer or anything similar in Notification Service Extension? I am trying to implement Audio Playback in the Notification Service Extension to play specific audio file when receiving Notification regardless the app state(foreground, background or killed), but I am not able to activate audio session in Notification Service Extension. NSError *sessionError = nil; BOOL success = [[AVAudioSession sharedInstance] setCategory:AVAudioSessionCategoryPlayback error:&sessionError]; success = [[AVAudioSession sharedInstance] setActive:YES error:&sessionError]; if (!success) { NSLog(@"Error activating audio session: %@", sessionError); } Below is the error that I got when I am trying to run the code above in Notification Service Extension. Error Domain=NSOSStatusErrorDomain Code=561015905 "Session activation failed" UserInfo={NSLocalizedDescription=Session activation failed}
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May ’25
Cannot receive APNs notification
Hi all, We encountered an issue where APNs (Apple Push Notification service) push messages cannot be received during development. The specific description is as follows: Our app runs on an iPad that connects to the cellular network using a SIM card and accesses the Internet through the company's MDM, which provides APN setting proxies. During operation, we found that the device fails to receive push messages from APNs. Network packet capture revealed that the connection attempt by apsd to port 5223 failed. According to Apple's documentation (https://support.apple.com/zh-cn/102266), when port 5223 cannot be connected to, it will fall back to port 443 and use a proxy. However, our packet capture showed that when port 5223 was unreachable, the apsd service on the iPad did not attempt to establish a connection to port 443. Since the iPad device currently cannot establish a connection with APNs, it consistently fails to receive push messages from APNs. We tried disconnecting the SIM card and using a Wi-Fi environment, and in this case, the iPad device was able to receive push messages from APNs normally. Could you advise us on how to proceed with troubleshooting in this situation?
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Jul ’25