In the app we are developing, we update the device token upon app launch using didRegisterForRemoteNotificationsWithDeviceToken. Previously, after an iOS major update, if the app was left without being launched, users experienced an issue where notifications would not be received. Later, we confirmed that running didRegisterForRemoteNotificationsWithDeviceToken during app launch updates the device token and restores the ability to receive notifications. Therefore, we believe that the device token may change due to an iOS major update. We want to understand the detailed conditions under which the device token is updated due to an iOS update: Does the same issue occur after iOS minor updates as well? Does it always happen during iOS major updates? We reviewed the official documentation, but there was no detailed description of the device token update conditions. Additionally, we contacted Apple, but received no clear answers. If anyone has experienced the same situation, we would appreciate any information you can share.

Hello! I'm currently trying to add local push notifications to my iOS app (React Native + Expo). Most of the guides and documentation I found online revolve around remote notification capabilities and APNS - I don't need this. The app will register a background task to periodically check if it should trigger a notification, fully local. I'm running into issues when adding the push notification capabilities, saying I need a new provisioning profile and to modify the App ID, which prompts me to set up certificates to communicate with APNS - which I don't need. So I was wondering: Is it possible to build an app without the remote notification setup that can still trigger local notifications? Or is it kind of all-or-nothing, and I need to set up remote notifications as well even if I only need to trigger them locally? Couldn't really find much online about this, and before I invalidate my current certificates and go through a bunch of redundant setup, I thought I'd ask here. Help would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!

Hi, I’m having issues with push notifications on my phone across multiple apps. When someone sends me a message, I only receive the notification 10 to 15 minutes later. For example, on WhatsApp, people say that my chat only shows one checkmark when they send me a message. I don’t know what else to do. I’ve already contacted Apple Support, visited an Apple-affiliated physical store, and followed all the recommended procedures. This is my first time using an iPhone—I bought it for professional use, but it’s practically useless if I don’t receive notifications instantly. They even told me that if I send it in for warranty service, there’s a 90% chance they won’t detect the issue, and the iPhone will come back with the same problem.

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.

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) } }

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.

Hello, I am trying to utilize the Critical Messaging API to allow my user to message 1 or multiple pre registered contacts automatically. An issue I am having with this in testing is that when the application attempts to fire off texts to the phone numbers the success rate changes from trial to trial, with no variable changing. Sometimes I can send a Critical Message to multiple phone numbers in rapid succession, sometimes the message is only sent to 1 contact, and sometimes I get no successes. Each failure always returns the MSCriticalMessaging.notSupported error. The API documentation states, "The send(_:to:) method only works if the app is backgrounded, if it’s called from foreground the framework returns a MSCriticalMessagingError.notSupported error." If my app is always backgrounded in these tests, what other issues may cause this notSupported error return, and why does the outcomes success rate vary?

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.

After updating to iOS 26 beta 1, I can't receive any push notifications from most applications. I can receive notifications from like Calendar, which uses local & reserved notifications, but I can't receive any remote-based notifications.

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

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

Hi all, We’re implementing in-app subscriptions in our iOS app using App Store Server Notifications V2 in the production environment. Everything is generally working well — we receive notifications such as DID_CHANGE_RENEWAL_STATUS, CANCELLATION, etc., and we log all incoming notifications into our own database. However, we've encountered a single case where the INITIAL_BUY notification was not received for a specific user. Interestingly, we did receive the later notifications (DID_CHANGE_RENEWAL_STATUS and CANCELLATION) for that same user. Here is our setup: App Store Server Notifications V2 Notification endpoint is stable and functioning normally (receives and logs other notifications) Notifications are reliably stored in our database The issue occurred only once for one user Environment: Production We've already contacted Apple Developer Support, but were informed that this issue is out of scope for direct support, and were directed to the Developer Forums. Our questions: Under what conditions might the INITIAL_BUY notification fail to be sent or delivered? Is there any known behavior or scenario where Apple may skip the INITIAL_BUY notification? Any recommendations on how to further investigate or verify whether it was sent from Apple’s side? We’ve confirmed that the notification never hit our server (no logs, no DB record), and our system was healthy at the time. Any insight would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

We are developing a walkie-talkie style iOS app using CallKit and PushKit for real-time voice communication. The app is intended for internal company use and requires unrestricted VoIP push capabilities to reliably deliver incoming call alerts, even in background or locked states. Our app's use case follows Apple’s guidelines, and we are not using PushKit for messaging or background data. We have already enabled "Push Notifications" in Capabilities and confirmed the provisioning profile, but are unable to enable com.apple.developer.pushkit.unrestricted-voip. Could someone from Apple or the community advise on the current process to request this entitlement for a production app? Developer Team ID: 3KX7Q4LX88 App Bundle ID: com.ksc-sys.rcc.TakumiTalk Developer Name: KOHEI TAKAOKA Company: R C C, Y.K

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, I am working on a project that involves using external device to connect over BLE with users iPhone. I would like to be able to notify users on our device about eg. incoming calls, messages etc. I have been succesfull in using ANCS to achieve that but I am a little worried around consistency of this solution, especially taking into account following line from documentation: Due to the nature of iOS, the ANCS is not guaranteed to always be present. As a result, the NC should look for and subscribe to the Service Changed characteristic of the GATT service in order to monitor for the potential publishing and unpublishing of the ANCS at any time. I have not been able (yet?) to find or identify circumstances when ANCS would not be avilable or would be "removed in runtime", hence would it be possible to request some guidance and clarification on the conditions when ANCS can be unavailable or removed? Thank you!

Back story: I'm developing an app that communicates with a personal medical device. We use critical alerts when we have hardware issues that could result in harm to the patient. The audio file is a 30 second file to make sure the patient is aware. If the app is open when they occur, we pop up a modal message in the app. When the user dismisses the notice, we call UNNotificationCenter::removeDeliveredNotifications(withIdentifiers:) to remove the critical alert and also to stop the audio file that is playing. This normally works fine. However we discovered that if the patient leaves critical alert enabled but disables notifications for our app, that we can still post the critical alert and it goes off. However when the user dismisses the message, the removeDeliveredNotifications call does not work. I did some debugging and if call getDeliveredNotifications with this permission combination, it return 0 (normally it would return 1). Does anyone know of another way to remove the critical alert in this situation? (or should I be submitting this as a bug?)

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.

Hello, We are facing issue that sometimes a voip notification gets delivered after it is expired. The issue can be simply demonstrated we set the device to flight mode, and after 20s we disable flight mode. We still receive the voip notification. We are setting the expiration header as following apns-expiry=0, so from my understanding it should not be delivered if the device was not able to receive the notification in the fist attempt. I have read following thread https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/778512, from which I understand this is a long standing issue. Hence my question is, is there any way how we can notify the call kit that the call is actually no longer valid, and do not display the call to the user at all? Currently we are forced to always display CallKit call when the notification comes, and some of our users are confused that they see a missed call which they did not have any chance to pick up. Please let me know if you need any more information. Best Regards, Adam Chlupacek

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.

Hi, We recently updated our app icon, but the push notification icon has not been updated on some devices. It still shows the old icon on: • iPhone 16 Pro — iOS 26 • iPhone 14 — iOS 26 • iPad Pro 11” (M4) — iOS 18.6.2 • iPhone 16 Plus — iOS 18.5 After restarting these devices, the push notification icon is refreshed and displays the new version correctly. Could you advise how we can ensure the push notification icon updates properly on all affected devices without requiring users to restart? Thank you.