Push notifications for iOS work in Pusher, but not in PushTry or with PushSharp

[dpdragnev]

Hello,

When I run our NS 6.5 on Android, the generated token works fine and I can send push notifications from our server (using PushSharp). However, on iOS, I get the APN token and I can use it in Pusher (with the generated .p12 sandbox certificate), but when I try to send the push notification via https://www.pushtry.com/ , using the same certificate and token, I get a generic error.

The same happens if I try to send a notification via our internal API (using PushSharp with the same certificate). I get "Apns notification error. Connection Error.".

Here is my setup:

{
    "using_ios": true,
    "using_android": true,
    "analytics": true,
    "firestore": false,
    "realtimedb": false,
    "authentication": false,
    "remote_config": true,
    "performance_monitoring": true,
    "external_push_client_only": true,
    "messaging": false,
    "in_app_messaging": true,
    "crashlytics": false,
    "storage": false,
    "functions": false,
    "facebook_auth": false,
    "google_auth": false,
    "admob": false,
    "dynamic_links": false,
    "ml_kit": false
}

I know PushTry and PushSharp are out of the scope of this plugin, but I am wondering why our server cannot send the notifications, but Pusher can.

I checked and re-checked my Apple and Firebase setups and everything is according to the documentation. I am really out of ideas on how to make this work.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you

[bradmartin]

Are you using the token given during the getCurrentPushToken() method? I ran into something where a third party push service did not work with this token and I had to take the token from the actual iOS delegate method when the user allows permissions to register my device with this service on iOS.

[dpdragnev]

Yes, I am using getCurrentPushToken(). This is a good suggestion. I will try that.

In the meantime, I turned the messaging on and used the FCM, not APNs token with the HTTP call to the firebase messaging api. This works, but I was just curious why this was happening.

Thanks @bradmartin

[bradmartin]

Setting up the app delegate snippet:

if (global.isIOS) {
  // Custom iOS App Delegate
  @NativeClass()
  class MyDelegate extends UIResponder implements UIApplicationDelegate {
    public static ObjCProtocols = [UIApplicationDelegate];

    /// THIS IS WHERE YOU GET THE TOKEN FOR PUSH
    applicationDidRegisterForRemoteNotificationsWithDeviceToken(
      application,
      deviceToken: NSData
    ) {
      const token = deviceToken.debugDescription.replace(/[< >]/g, '');
      const eventData = {
        eventName: 'iosAppDidRegisterForRemoteNotifications',
        object: this,
        data: {
          token
        }
      };

      Application.notify(eventData);
    }

/// THIS IS WHEN THE USER DECLINES PUSH PERMISSION :(
    applicationDidFailToRegisterForRemoteNotificationsWithError() {
      const eventData = {
        eventName: 'iosAppDidFailRegisterForRemoteNotifications',
        object: this
      };

      Application.notify(eventData);
    }

/// THIS LOCKS THE ORIENTATION :)
    applicationSupportedInterfaceOrientationsForWindow(application, window) {
      return UIInterfaceOrientationMask.Portrait;
    }

    applicationWillFinishLaunchingWithOptions(
      application: UIApplication,
      launchOptions: NSDictionary<any, any>
    ): boolean {
      const eventData = {
        eventName: 'iosAppWillFinishLaunching',
        object: this,
        data: {
          application,
          launchOptions
        }
      };
      Application.notify(eventData);

      return true;
    }

    applicationDidFinishLaunchingWithOptions(
      application: UIApplication,
      launchOptions: NSDictionary<any, any>
    ): boolean {
      const eventData = {
        eventName: 'iosAppDidFinishLaunching',
        object: this,
        data: {
          application,
          launchOptions
        }
      };
      Application.notify(eventData);

      return true;
    }

    applicationDidBecomeActive(application: UIApplication): void {
      const eventData = {
        eventName: 'iosAppDidBecomeActive',
        object: this,
        data: {
          application
        }
      };
      Application.notify(eventData);
    }

    applicationWillEnterForeground() {
      const eventData = {
        eventName: 'iosAppWillEnterForeground',
        object: this
      };
      Application.notify(eventData);
    }

    applicationDidEnterBackground(application: UIApplication): void {
      const eventData = {
        eventName: 'iosAppDidEnterBackground',
        object: this,
        data: {
          application
        }
      };
      Application.notify(eventData);
      return;
    }

    applicationWillTerminate() {
      const eventData = {
        eventName: 'iosAppWillTerminate',
        object: this
      };
      Application.notify(eventData);
    }
  }
  Application.ios.delegate = MyDelegate;
}

Here is a custom app delegate in a production app where I was getting the token after the user confirms push permission on iOS, I added a comment to the delegate method so you can see. Using import { Application } from '@nativescript/core I then just emit the events, and have event listeners in my first actual app page, where I init the firebase instance and add the callback (which starts the permission prompt on iOS)

import { Application } from '@nativescript/core;

  // the user confirmed wanting to allow notifications on iOS
        Application.on('iosAppDidRegisterForRemoteNotifications', args => {
          someMethodToSendMyPushTokenToBackend(args.data.token);
        });

Hopefully this helps you. I didn't have time to look into the firebase plugin to sort through it all, this was just what got the app working on iOS. The backend is Kinvey if you're curious.

[dpdragnev]

Thank you @bradmartin Appreciate you taking the time to provide me with this code.