We are facing an issue: push notifications are not being received. We are using the Marketing Cloud SDK for push notifications. On install, the app correctly registers for push notifications. We pass the required information to Marketing Cloud — for example, contact key, token, etc. Marketing Cloud also confirms that the configuration is set up, and we have tried sending push notifications with proper delivery settings. The issue is that after some time, the device gets automatically opted out in the Marketing Cloud portal. When we consulted their team, they said this is caused by the “DeviceTokenNotForTopic” error received from APNs. I have verified the certificates and bundle ID from my end — everything looks correct. Device: iPhone 15, iPhone 17 iOS: 18.7.2, 26.1

My push notifications on Ios devices come through but only silently while all settings are on order. On Android sounds are on. Anyway knows how to fix this on Apple's side?

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) } }

Hi team, We've observed that for all background notifications (where content-available set to true, https://developer.apple.com/documentation/usernotifications/pushing-background-updates-to-your-app#Create-a-background-notification), we never received any response with error string "Unregistered". This differs from non-background pushes, where expired tokens are regularly cleared. Is this the expected behavior (i.e., background notifications will not return an "Unregistered" error), or could this indicate an issue on our side? Thanks in advance for any clarification.

requestUrl:https://api.storekit-sandbox.itunes.apple.com/inApps/v1/notifications/test method:Post responseCode:200 testNotificationToken:06beba6c-7587-44f6-a4b8-f12b11db6061_1745832671126 Request environment: ①APP from: TestFlight ②Apple acount : Sandbox account ③Apple originalTransactionId: 2000000907966801 App Store sandbox server notification configuration is fine(https://*.com/v2/apple_refund_notify), I have tried many times, but have not received any notification from Apple. Is this API not working?

We are currently planning the development of an iOS healthcare application that will require the use of Critical Alerts. I understand that these notifications bypass Do Not Disturb and Silent mode, and therefore require special entitlement from Apple. We understand that Critical Alerts require a special entitlement from Apple. Could you please clarify: Do we need to request and obtain Apple’s approval for Critical Alerts before we begin development of the app? Or can we apply for this entitlement after we have a working build or prototype ready? We want to ensure compliance and streamline our development process, so any guidance on the appropriate timing for the entitlement request would be greatly appreciated.

There's plenty of articles out there about programatically grouping push notifications. However I have tried setting the thread-id in the push payload when sending a push, or setting the threadIdentifier for a received push in a notification service extension to be the same for several pushes. But if within the iPhone Settings / Notifications the user selects to display pushes as List and turns off Notification Grouping, then each notification resulting from the push appears on its own separately. Is there something other than thread-id/threadidentifier that is used to programmatically group them? If not then whats the point of these as grouping and display is actually under the control of user.

I'm experiencing issues with didRegisterForRemoteNotificationsWithDeviceToken not being called on iOS 18.1.1. Here's what I've tried: Basic Setup: Properly configured UNUserNotificationCenter Requested permissions with requestAuthorization(options:) Registered for remote notifications with registerForRemoteNotifications() Environment: Xcode 16.3 iOS 18.1.1 (physical device) Firebase (tried with and without it) Troubleshooting: Verified provisioning profile includes Push Notifications Confirmed APNs certificate is valid Disabled Firebase's method swizzling Tested on a clean project (works fine) Checked device logs (no relevant errors) Code Snippet: // In AppDelegate.swift public func application(_ application: UIApplication, didRegisterForRemoteNotificationsWithDeviceToken deviceToken: Data) { let tokenParts = deviceToken.map { data in String(format: "%02.2hhx", data) } let tokenString = tokenParts.joined() print("📱 Device Token: \(tokenString)") // Store the token for your backend UserDefaults.standard.set(tokenString, forKey: "deviceToken") // Send to backend Task { do { try await APIService.shared.setDeviceToken(tokenString) } catch { print("❌ [AppDelegate] Failed to send device token to backend: \(error)") } } } public func application(_ application: UIApplication, didFinishLaunchingWithOptions launchOptions: [UIApplication.LaunchOptionsKey: Any]? = nil) -> Bool { // IMPORTANT: First handle push notification registration UNUserNotificationCenter.current().delegate = self // Request notification permissions self.requestNotificationPermissions() // Register for remote notifications DispatchQueue.main.async { UIApplication.shared.registerForRemoteNotifications() } return true } private func requestNotificationPermissions() { UNUserNotificationCenter.current().requestAuthorization(options: [.alert, .badge, .sound]) { granted, error in guard granted else { print("❌ Notification permission not granted") return } print("✅ Notification permission granted") } }

The iOS documentation shows notification actions buttons with the text center aligned: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/usernotifications/declaring-your-actionable-notification-types But there's no apparent way for an app to control this. The buttons are controlled and rendered by the system and the text is always left aligned. Is there some way to get the text center aligned?

I have a messaging app that has been working successfully for several years. It still works for most users, but about one month ago one of my users started experiencing issues receiving notifications. From my investigation, the user's Notification Service Extension (NSE) has not been triggered since they started reporting the issue. I was able to access the user's phone and connected it to the console to check for any logs related to the NSE being triggered or a push notification being received, but there were no relevant logs. I have already verified that notifications are enabled for the app and that Do Not Disturb is not active. I also tried sending a test notification using the CloudKit Console. The notification was successfully delivered to other push notification tokens, but it did not work for this specific device’s token. I have also confirmed that the push token on the server matches the one on the device and that it is being used with the APNs production environment. The issue for this user started in iOS version 26.2 and are still ongoing in version 26.3.1 . Has anyone encountered a similar issue or have suggestions on how to further diagnose this?

Here are some questions we received and answers: Q1: Is there a limit to the number of alarms that can be scheduled using AlarmKit? There is no set number as a limit, but this does not mean you can schedule a limitless number of alarms. Depending on device state, available resources, etc., the device may impose a limit, and restrict an app trying to schedule too many alarms simultaneously. When you hit a limit and not able to schedule more alarms, you will receive the maximumLimitReached error. Q2: Will the scheduled alarms persist after system or app events that may terminate an app, for example, a reboot, force quit, or app crash? Yes, all alarms are expected to persist regardless of app or device state changes, once they are successfully scheduled. Q3: Will alarms work if scheduled by an app that is hidden, or requires a passcode or Touch ID/Face ID to launch? Hidden or passcode required apps do not work with AlarmKit. Currently, any scheduled alarms by such apps will silently fail. Q4: When an alarm is dismissed (either by swiping or pressing the power button), can an app detect this action and execute code in response? What about force closed apps? When an alarm is dismissed, the stopIntent set in the AlarmConfiguration is called. Any code in the perform method of this AppIntent would execute. Q5: Is there a focus mode that AlarmKit cannot break through? No. AlarmKit alarms can break through all focus modes. Q6: What is the expected behavior when alarms from multiple apps overlap? Which one gets priority? Which alarm would get activated when multiple alarms are scheduled for the same time is non-deterministic. There is no way to guarantee which app or which alarm will "win". Q7: What do pressing the physical buttons do when an AlarmKit alarm is active? Any physical button that causes a reaction from AlarmKit will stop the currently alerting alarm. Q8: If there are multiple alarms active at one time, which ones do physical buttons interact with? Pressing a physical button will dismiss all currently alerting alarms Argun Tekant /  DTS Engineer / Core Technologies Change History: 2025-08-15: First posted

Hello, I am developing a driver-based application targeting iOS 14+, where users receive time-sensitive trip offers (approximately 10–15 seconds to respond). We would like to implement behavior similar to approval-based apps (e.g., MyGate-style interaction), with the following requirements: When the device is locked: A highly visible notification that allows quick Accept / Decline action. When the device is unlocked (foreground or background): A notification that remains prominently visible (sticky-style) at the top of the screen until the user takes action (Accept / Decline) or the offer expires. Our goal is to ensure the offer remains noticeable and actionable within the short response window. I would appreciate clarification on the following: On iOS 14, is there any supported mechanism to present a true full-screen blocking interface while the device is locked (without using CallKit or Critical Alerts entitlement)? Is there a supported way to make a notification persistent or non-dismissible until the user takes action or the offer expires? Are there any App Review concerns with presenting a blocking modal immediately after the user interacts with a notification? We want to ensure full compliance with Apple’s platform guidelines and avoid unsupported or discouraged patterns. Thank you for your guidance.

Hello, we have recently started signing and building our applications using Xcode 16.3. Since we made this change, we’ve noticed that the applications have stopped receiving silent push notifications (content-available: 1) when they are distributed via TestFlight or the App Store, even though we haven’t changed anything in the way these notifications are sent. As I mentioned, this started happening after migrating our project from Xcode 15 to Xcode 16.3. Regular push notifications are still working as expected, but silent ones are not being received by the apps. We are desperate because we rely on these silent notifications to inform the apps of updates, and we haven’t been able to identify the root cause of the issue.

I am unable to connect to APNs sandbox push endpoint from our backend servers. It works fine when hitting the request from my local machine but it fails from the infra servers. Here are the complete curl details. Endpoint: https://api.sandbox.push.apple.com:443 CURL request and response: curl -v https://api.sandbox.push.apple.com:443 Trying 17.188.168.149:443... Connected to api.sandbox.push.apple.com (17.188.168.149) port 443 ALPN: curl offers h2,http/1.1 Cipher selection: ALL:!EXPORT:!EXPORT40:!EXPORT56:!aNULL:!LOW:!RC4:@STRENGTH TLSv1.2 (OUT), TLS handshake, Client hello (1): CAfile: /etc/pki/tls/certs/ca-bundle.crt CApath: none OpenSSL SSL_connect: SSL_ERROR_SYSCALL in connection to api.sandbox.push.apple.com:443 Closing connection curl: (35) OpenSSL SSL_connect: SSL_ERROR_SYSCALL in connection to api.sandbox.push.apple.com:443 There are no issues with Production endpoint. Can someone help? Verified all certificates. Everything worked fine until 29th July but started failing since 30th July

Hi Apple team and fellow developers, We previously had Location Push Service Extension enabled and working in production. After transferring the app to a new Apple Developer team, the production App ID was transferred, but the Location Push entitlement was not retained. We've also created a new App ID for development, and now need Location Push access enabled for both the transferred production ID and the new development ID. We’ve already submitted the Location Push Access form with all relevant details. Unfortunately, the App Transfer documentation didn’t make it clear that Location Push access would be lost, and now we’re blocked from making new builds — even for the existing production app. ❓ Questions: Is it possible to re-enable Location Push for a transferred App ID? What’s the expected timeline for entitlement approval? Can Apple staff confirm the request status or let us know if any further action is needed? Thanks in advance — this entitlement is critical for our app’s functionality and release pipeline. Best, Aidar

Currently working on a dating app which needs voip for audio and video calls for ios. the voip notifications only comes to the app in active and inactive mode but doesnt wake the device in background or terminated mode. After debugging i noticed that com.apple.developer.voip entitlement wasnt included which i later added, trying to create a build i get the eas error that the entitlement wasnt added to the identifier capabilities. My issue now is that i can't seem to find the voip capability to check in the identifiers capabilities list for the bundle id.d

We are currently developing a WebAPI service that uses APNs (HTTP/2) to send push notifications to iOS devices. (Using PushSharp's HTTP/2 support) The WebAPI service is running on IIS using .net framework 4.8 and c#. The connection to APNs is always maintained, and the connection is checked every 30 minutes using a dummy token Ping. KeepAlivePeriod = 30 minutes and KeepAliveRetryPeriod = 10 seconds have also been set. However, the following issues are occurring. Although the Ping sent immediately before was successful, a TimeoutException occurs in the notification request sent a few minutes later. There is no explicit disconnection notification from APNs, and the connection appears to be silently disconnected. Once a TimeoutException occurs, it occurs frequently afterwards. Below is an excerpt from the log. Apple Notification Failed for some unknown reason 1-1: One or more errors occurred. Apple Notification Failed for some unknown reason 1-2:System.TimeoutException: The operation timed out. In light of this issue, I would like to be advised on the following two points. Are there any official specifications regarding the lifecycle and expiration date of APNs HTTP/2 connections? Even if pings are sent periodically, is there a timeout or other setting that disables the connection on the APNs side? What are the conditions that would cause APNs to silently terminate a connection? For example, could this be due to inactivity, TLS restrictions, network maintenance, etc.? If you have any official documentation or technical guidelines to improve the reliability of this system, we would appreciate it if you could share them with us. Thank you in advance.

Hi, I'm experiencing an issue with my app. I use Firebase as my server, and it is great. Still, there is one issue: when I send push notifications from my app to users, the users will get the notification if the app is open, but not when it is closed. I have tried many solutions to fix it, even asking AI, but the issue is still there. I would be happy to give you access to Firebase and the Xcode workspace, as I have no clue how to fix it.

Version: iOS 18.1 and later (works as expected on iOS 18.0 and earlier) Area: SpringBoard / Notification Center / App Icon Rendering Description: When changing the app's alternate icon using UIApplication.setAlternateIconName(_:completionHandler:), the icon is updated correctly on the Home Screen and App Switcher. However, in Notification Center, the old app icon is still shown for notifications, even after the change has completed. This issue only occurs on iOS 18.1 and later. In iOS 18.0 and earlier, Notification Center correctly reflects the updated icon. - Steps to reproduce: Create an iOS app with alternate app icons configured in the Info.plist. Use UIApplication.shared.setAlternateIconName("IconName") to change the icon at runtime. Send a notification. Pull down Notification Center and observe the icon shown beside the notification. - Expected Behavior: Notification Center should reflect the updated (alternate) app icon immediately after the change. - Actual Behavior: Notification Center continues to display the old (primary) app icon. The new icon appears correctly on the Home Screen and App Switcher. Restarting the device does cause Notification Center to update and reflect the correct icon, which suggests a cache or refresh issue in SpringBoard or Notification Center. - Notes: Issue introduced in iOS 18.1; not present in 18.0. Reproduces on both physical devices and simulators. Occurs with both scheduled local notifications and remote notifications. Restarting the device updates the Notification Center icon, but this is not a viable user-facing workaround.

I am currently testing the Declared Age Range / Parental Consent flow in the Sandbox environment, and I am experiencing an issue where the RESCIND_CONSENT App Store Server Notification is not being delivered to my server. 🔍 Test Environment iOS version: iOS 26.2 (Sandbox environment) App Store Server Notifications: Sandbox environment 🔄 Test Scenario App Settings > Developer > Sign in with a Sandbox account Launch the app In App Settings > Developer > Sandbox Account > Management > Revoke App Consent, enter the app’s Bundle ID, tap the Revoke Consent button, and confirm that the revocation completion popup message is displayed Check whether App Store Server Notifications are received by the server Confirm that the RESCIND_CONSENT notification is not received by the server ✅ Expected Result The App Store Server sends a RESCIND_CONSENT notification to the Sandbox endpoint The notification payload includes appTransactionId The server can block app access based on the corresponding appTransactionId ❌ Actual Result No RESCIND_CONSENT notification is received in the Sandbox environment ❓ Questions Is this behavior an intended limitation of the Sandbox environment, or is it a known issue or bug? Is it possible that RESCIND_CONSENT notifications will only be delivered starting January 1, 2026? Additionally, when a RESCIND_CONSENT server notification is received, I currently update my database with the appTransactionId and the registration date. When a minor attempts to access the app, I check the latest appTransactionId status, and if the most recent state indicates consent has been revoked, I block app access and prompt the user to request parental consent again using PermissionKit.