When I turn the Ringtone and Alerts volume all the way up, I expect standard notifications to play at the loudest level the device allows. In theory, this should match the volume of a critical alert with its sound.volume set to 1.0 in payload. However, I’ve noticed that non-critical notifications still play quieter than critical alerts under these conditions. Critical alerts with volume: 1.0 sound noticeably louder than standard notifications, even though the Ringtone and Alerts slider is already set to maximum. And I couldn't find a documentation for this behavior anywhere. Is this expected behavior on iOS? And is there any way to make non-critical notifications play at the same maximum loudness as critical alerts? Thanks in advance for any clarification.

I’m building a standalone Apple Watch smart alarm app that should trigger alarms on the watch in response to Bluetooth or internet events. This means the app operates in the background and attempts to trigger an alarm when such an event occurs. As far as I know, the appropriate API for this is WKExtendedRuntimeSession.notifyUserWithHaptic:repeatHandler. However, I can’t seem to start an extended runtime session while the app is in the background. I’m getting the following error: -[WKExtendedRuntimeSession _invalidationReasonAndDelegateCallbackErrorForError:outCallbackError:]:729: WKExtendedRuntimeSession hit internal error. Error Domain=com.apple.CarouselServices.SessionErrorDomain Code=17 "startSession cannot be called on a scheduled session" UserInfo={NSLocalizedDescription=startSession cannot be called on a scheduled session} Calling notifyUserWithHaptic directly also similarly fails. It seems notifyUserWithHaptic is intended to be scheduled during a foreground session to trigger at a later time, rather than being called ad hoc from a background context. Is there any way to create a proper alarm view on the Apple Watch from a background execution context?

Notification coordination between iOS and watchOS is not working properly watchOS and iOS try to coordinate between phone and watch notifications. The concept here is that if there is a main app and a companion app, they could both be sending a notification, then the notification would alert on both, which is a deviation from how notification mirroring is handled if there is an iOS app but no watch app. The watch waits for the iOS notification to fire so they can determine if this is the same notification that needs to be deduped, displayed on one device but not the other, or separate notifications to be displayed both. If there is no notification on the phone, the watch will timeout after 13 seconds and alert anyway. If you have an iOS companion app, the best solution to this is to send the same notification on both devices simultaneously, and ensuring the UNNotificationRequest.identifier matches on both notifications. This will let the systems determine how to handle the notification correctly and quickly, and the notification will alert right away. https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/765669 According to the above article, "when a notification arrives on watchOS alone first, it coordinates with iOS," but in reality, it doesn't work properly. Detailed process of this phenomenon watchOS receives a notification. On watchOS, the notification is not immediately shown to the user. iOS receives a notification with the same UNNotificationRequest.identifier as in (1). The notification in (3) does not appear on either iOS or watchOS. However, the notification from (3) does appear in iOS Notification Center. Thirteen seconds after watchOS received the notification, the notification from (1) is shown to the user on watchOS. In the end, the iOS and watchOS notifications are not consolidated and each remains in its respective notification center. Up to (3) there are no issues. Starting with (4), both iOS and watchOS exhibit a lot of odd behavior. This phenomenon occurs with both local notifications and push notifications. When iOS receives the notification first, there is no problem. The notification for watch received later is processed appropriately, and the watchOS notification is not additionally displayed to the user. Expected proper process Same as above. Same as above. Same as above. The notification in (1) is integrated into the notification in (3). The notification in (3) is alerted to the user immediately. 2 sample projects to reproduce Only the main code is attached. Sample project1: local notifications Swift code for local notification app (iOS, watchOS) - App.swift.txt Sample project2: push notifications This sample project is implemented using Firebase Functions and Firebase Cloud Messaging. Swift code push notification app (iOS, watchOS) - App.swift.txt Server side JavaScript code for FirebaseFunction - index.js.txt Tested devices and OS This phenomenon occurred in both of the following patterns. Pattern 1 Xcode 26.0 iPhone 16 (iOS 26.0) Apple Watch series 10 (watchOS 26.0) Pattern 2 Xcode 16.4 iPhone 11 (iOS 18.6) Apple Watch SE 2nd gen (watchOS 11.6) Question Is this phenomenon a bug? Or is my understanding or implementation incorrect? Feedback Assistant number FB20339772

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

There's a list of bug reports: FB19778882 FB19813796 FB19852724 FB19767262 FB20378888 FB20379383 FB20394663 Me and many other users have issue with push notifications. To reproduce this you should do this steps: Lock iPhone and make it idle for 10+ minutes; Send any message from other device via third-party app that uses push notifications (WhatsApp, Telegram and etc.); After few attempts you can see, that messages don't deliver. They delivers immediately when I unlock iPhone or go to the app. This bug reproduces on iOS 18.7 and 27. As I think iPhone goes to deep sleep after 10+ minutes after it locked and don't get push notifications. I've tried everything: many of settings, DFU without backup, but nothing helps to resolve this issue. Pay attention, please, cause this bug is very annoying and present on iOS 18.7 (that is the last for many devices) and latest iOS 26. Thanks!

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.

Hi Apple team, We’re shipping a Live Caller ID Lookup extension on iOS 18 and have a question about the automatic refresh of configuration/PIR parameters. Questions 1. Is there any documented interval/TTL (min/max) for the system’s automatic refresh of /config and PIR parameters, or is it entirely opportunistic (battery/network/usage)? I can’t find a cadence in the IdentityLookup docs. 2. Does iOS honor server cache headers (e.g., Cache-Control/Expires) to influence when it re-fetches? 3. Which events also trigger a refresh (enable/disable in Settings, OS/app update, device reboot, token/epoch change)? 4. Are there rate limits or best-practice limits for calling refreshExtensionContext and refreshPIRParameters?

I am developing a VoIP service. Usually, when receiving a VoIP Push, Callkit is exposed immediately after receiving the message and the app is designed to be used. However, there is an extremely intermittent phenomenon (not well reproduced) where the app does not wake up even when receiving a VoIP Push. And after a long time, the app wakes up and Callkit is activated. (A long time after receiving the call…) Has anyone experienced the above phenomenon? I wonder if there are any reported parts depending on the OS version. (I have identified that it does not occur in the 17.x version, but it is difficult to guarantee because it occurs extremely intermittently) The app is not running in the background, but... Could this be happening if there are a lot of pending operations in the background? I need help urgently

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

The following issue has occurred: Push notifications are not being received on certain devices. What could be the possible causes? Push notifications are being sent from our own server, and we are receiving normal responses from APNs. Users have confirmed that notifications are enabled on their devices, and they report no network issues. This problem is occurring for multiple users.

When subscription renewing , can do purchase_date faster than notification_date quickly? I received my app user purchase notification this purchase date is 2025-08-31 06:42:54(UTC) but notification date is 2025-08-30 22:45:01(UTC) how can you do this? I can't understand it please let me explain

Hi Apple engineering team, I contacted Developer Support regarding the status of our entitlements request, and they recommended that I post here for visibility. It’s been just over two weeks since we submitted the request, and we haven’t received any updates yet. We understand these requests can take time, but it’s unclear what the typical timeline looks like or if there’s any way to check on the progress. Is there a way to get an update or better understand where we are in the process? We’re trying to plan our release and would really appreciate any guidance on what to expect. Thanks in advance for your help.

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.

My App supports two services that is Push Notification for Alerts and a Voip Call feature whose notification also comes in the same way as of PushNotification but video rendering is done with GoogleWebRTC. The App was working perfectly fine but from past few months these services are not working.[ Nothing is changed in App and on the server side to push the notifications] Issues: VoIP (Video call) not working: I have apns certificate which is valid in today's date and stays with the backend Server. My server sends the payload notification to APNS but on iPhone am unable to receive it. I have checked the App registration part also and is able to receive the token for the same. Framework used are: PushKit, UserNotifications, GoogleWebRTC . I don't understand where is the gap, the backend triggers the APNS but there no response. Ports enabled on server are: 443, 5223, 2197, 2195, 2196. Similarly Push notification were also not working, So I tried to change it to register on Firebase for device registration token And did some coding at backend to send the notification to that device. It was working perfectly fine from last few weeks, but it suddenly stopped. I checked the JSON Payload and tried to send it through PostMan, in both it says 200 Success. And in Application end am waiting for breakpoint to hit in userNotificationCenter(_: , willPresent, completionHandler). What all I have checked: 1)My server to APNS server connectivity. 2)Verified the apns certificate. The certificate was created in October 2024, whose expiry is in Nov 2025 and it support both Sandbox and Production environment. 3)Checked required delegates are implemented in App. With the capability enable in it, is also sending registration token to backend. Kindly guide me where I can check in this flow. Thanks in Advance!

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.

Hello everyone, I have been working on a macOS app that utilizes push notifications for the past year. Up until recently, everything was functioning correctly. However, now I'm experiencing issues where push notifications are either not being delivered at all or are experiencing significant delays, sometimes up to 10 minutes. Setting the priority header to 10 hasn't made any difference. I am currently using development push notifications, but the issue persists when switching to the production environment. I'm curious if anyone else has encountered similar problems. When checking the push console, it frequently reports that the device is offline, even though it's actually online ("discarded as device was offline"). Occasionally, notifications are delivered promptly, but this is becoming increasingly infrequent. This issue has been consistently reported by our testers, particularly after they updated to macOS Sonoma. Any insights or assistance you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

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!

Hey Together, I have seen that critical notifications need to be confirmed by apple to be used. Sadly I couldn't figure out where to ask for that. Context: I have a sports tournament app for Beach Handball. There are a couple of Courts like up to 20-25. The main use for that in my app would be to notify first aiders/Medics. Right now they are called in via Speakers or by the referees just writing that into a WhatsApp chat. As this takes a long time and the speakers can be deactivated due to rain, power shortage or even the medics sometimes are not in range to exactly hear the speakers calling them. To Speed up this process I want them to download the App, Register via an E-Mail or a One Time Code. Now if a referee needs immediate Help from the Medics on their court they can send the Critical alert to the Medics without having to write a chat into a WhatsApp group, to get a call through the speakers 10 minutes later which the medics may not even hear. A couple of weeks ago we had a player falling on her back/neck/head and they couldn't figure out if she broke her neck or not. Luckily the medics were right next to the court and saw that. but what would happen if they were a couple hundred of meters away and did not notice that? I mean the PA system was off due to a power shortage. someone trying to move her? Risking her death? And while we are at it we could add those notifications if a team is missing to a court for a game that already should've started. Critical because it is urgent. Those notifications are handled with care.

Hi everyone, I am having issues with all my MacOS devices (3 so far) and push notifications. My app is in development and when i send a Test APN (From the Push Notification Console) to any of my MacOS devices (using the device token), the log is "discarded as device was offline". Fun fact, if i run the command : sudo kill apsd I receive the previously "discarded" Push notification immediately. Is it a known bug or something is wrong in my configuration ? Note : my debugProfile.entitlements is fine and the value is set to "development", i have already reloaded my certificate by cleaning the project and rebuilding (according to ChatGPT) but nothing works... I am using Xcode 26.0.1 and MacOS 26.0.1 on my 3 different MacOS devices all having this issue. Thanks in advance, Tom

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.