Hello Everyone, I have some questions regarding the Apple notification alert update received in October 2024 for the APNs server certificate update. We are using Azure Notification Hub to receive push notifications. I confirmed with the Azure team, and they have already implemented the required changes. However, push notifications are still not working in the sandbox environment. Could you please provide any insights on this? Thanks.

We are attempting to update our app to use the PTT framework, as it has been made clear that this will be required in a future iOS version as opposed to using the Unrestricted VoIP entitlement we are using for several features of our app. However, the behavior of this framework poses some problems with implementing our app's functionality: It is not possible to programmatically join a channel when the app is not in the foreground. This hinders our ability to implement the Automatically activate radio stream feature of our app, which allows users who have opted into this feature to immediately begin hearing live PTT audio from their agency following an incident alert. Having the app constantly "joined to a channel" and using the restoration delegate could potentially work, however this is not ideal as this would result in the PTT UI needing to be displayed at all times, even when no radio stream is activated. We have a "Text to Speech" option that, when enabled, reads out the content of an incident alert after the alert sound has played. This currently happens by triggering an AVSpeechSynthesizer in the PushKit incoming push callback. It may be possible to render TTS audio on the fly in a Notification Service Extension and assign it as the notification's sound, if that is possible this is less of a problem. We also use the PushKit callback to, again if the user has enabled it, activate a "Shake to Respond" feature, allowing a short period of time after receiving an incident alert in which the user can shake their device to indicate that they are responding to the incident. There does not appear to be any way to have the level of background execution required to implement this using an NSE, and this is of course beyond the scope of the PTT framework. What options do we have to be able to continue to provide this functionality, without risk of it being disabled in a future iOS version?

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) } }

I received the email from Apple: “Action Required: Apple Push Notification Service Server Certificate Update”. I'm not quite clear on what exactly I need to do. In my case, I have my own APN service on a DigitalOcean server and I have both .pem and .p12 certificate there. Can anyone help me?

Hello, I received this message below. I reached out to support but they said they can not help with something this specific. Any organization in the same boat? Which of the certificates in the provided link should I use? Hello, We’re reaching out with a final reminder that the Certification Authority (CA) for Apple Push Notification service (APNs) is changing. APNs updated the server certificates in sandbox on January 21, 2025. APNs production server certificates will be updated on February 24, 2025. To continue using APNs without interruption, you’ll need to update your application’s Trust Store to include the new server certificate: SHA-2 Root: USERTrust RSA Certification Authority certificate. To ensure a smooth transition and avoid push notification delivery failures, please make sure that both old and new server certificates are included in the Trust Store before the cut-off date for each of your application servers that connect to sandbox and production. At this time, you don’t need to update the APNs SSL provider certificates issued to you by Apple.

iOS push notification is not working for in App since 03-Apr-2025. We are pushing the message to APNS from our application, but message is not delivered to iOS device. We have performed tests on both PROD and QA environment and following are the observations: PROD successfully pushing the notification to APNS but not receiving the notification on iOS device (100% failure). QA received notification on iOS device always (100% success). Analyzed PROD notification server log at our end and we do not observe any error and it is showing successful also when message is pushed to APNS all the time. Need to check from APNS why push messages are not delivered to iOS devices. Validated the PROD APNS certificate at our end which we are using during call to APNS - it is valid till Oct 2025. Please suggest me any possible solution because I don't have any clue where it is failing and what to do

I am working with Notification Content Extensions and need to ensure that the content fits within the notification without scrolling. I want to know if there is any API that can provide the maximum available height for the notification content area. My goal is to avoid making the content scrollable inside the notification. Is there a way to dynamically retrieve the height of the notification space, so I can properly adjust the content layout and ensure it fits perfectly without requiring the user to scroll?

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!

i got some problem for the LiveAcitvity when i start it with notification. The LiveActivity can not show,but it can work when i update or end a LiveActitvity; And so,i think my configeration is right like the code; thanks in advance

I am developing a CarPlay driving tasks app and is able to display push notifications on CarPlay. I am looking at a way to get a tap action handler for push notifications on CarPlay such that when a user taps the notification and by default the app opens, but I want to present a CPInformationTemplate with data corresponding to the tapped notification.

Hi, My customer has acquired the assets of another company. We therefore need to transfer this company's app to my customer's account. This app primarily functions using WebRTC video, which relies on APN PUSH notifications. I have reviewed the information about transferring an app from one developer account to another, particularly here: https://developer.apple.com/help/app-store-connect/transfer-an-app/overview-of-app-transfer. I understand that we need to generate a new SSL certificate that will be integrated into the app once it has been transferred. Since users will not all update the app immediately, we will have two server certificates running in parallel for some time. Is it allowed to send two notifications to the same iPhone, knowing that one of the two will systematically fail? If not, what is the best practice for successfully migrating VOIP notifications? Thank you in advance, F. BABIN

On December 6, 2024, I received the following email. Does this mean that there is something that needs to be done on the app side or on the Firebase side? Currently, in our project, we are using Firebase to set up push notifications. If anyone knows how to deal with this or has taken any action, could you tell me what specific steps you took? Action Required: Apple Push Notification Service Server Certificate Update As we announced in October, the Certification Authority (CA) for Apple Push Notification service (APNs) is changing. APNs will update the server certificates in sandbox on January 20, 2025, and in production on February 24, 2025. To continue using APNs without interruption, you’ll need to update your application’s Trust Store to include the new server certificate: SHA-2 Root : USERTrust RSA Certification Authority certificate. To ensure a smooth transition and avoid push notification delivery failures, please make sure that both old and new server certificates are included in the Trust Store before the cut-off date for each of your application servers that connect to sandbox and production. At this time, you don’t need to update the APNs SSL provider certificates issued to you by Apple.

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?

Can I using AudioServicesPlaySystemSound for play sound os system on NotificationService?

User is using my app, the goes to System Settings, and changes some of my App's settings (switches, text fields, etc). Does the system send my app any kind of notification? David PS: I tried all kinds of searches on this and found nothing.

We are developing an app that receives push notifications (via Firebase) from configured IoT devices. It is essential that when a specific type of notification is received, a sound is played continuously until the user interacts with the notification. This behavior is crucial for alerting users to certain critical states of the IoT device. We understand that Critical Alerts on iOS can bypass Do Not Disturb and silent mode. However, from our testing and available documentation, the sound from a Critical Alert seems to be limited to around 30 seconds. Our question: Is it possible on iOS to have a Critical Alert (or any other type of notification) continue playing sound until the user interacts with the notification or app? If so, could someone please point us to the appropriate documentation or APIs? Thanks in advance for any guidance.

I am creating an app that uses critical messages, I have been granted this entitlement and I am adding the certificate and in the info.plist. In the app I request authorization to send messages to specific numbers. When I try the app in production from Xcode this works fine and I can send the critical messages. However, when I am using the app in the test flight the authorization does not seem to be remembered on the background. Moreover, I go to security/privacy settings and I grant permission to the selected number (I see that it only shows one number even when I have to granted, its like it removes the previous one) however when I exit the setting page the permission is reset (and therefore denied), I think this is a bug. Can you look into that. Both this removing granted permission (HIGH PRIORITY, this message can only be sent in the background, therefore the user can not grant it and why the maximum telephone number to be granted to send messages is reset also to a single one LOWER PRIORITY). Thanks

i hava a app using Gateway.push.apple.com to push Notifications,but it is not working sine last month, i test the api show push Notifications success but my device can't receive the Notifications ,is this api not working anymore ? but why the api show push Notifications success ?

Background: ① We initiate push notification requests by generating tokens using the p8 certificate. ② The lowest version of the server we use is Ubuntu 16.04, and the image is Alpine Linux 3.15. ③ Currently, the root certificate USERTrust_RSA_Certification_Authority.pem is default in the system and has the same MD5 value as the provided download file. The time for both is 2019. My questions: ① Which certificate should we download and add to the server's trust store, Root Certificates? ② Does the system we are using default include this certificate? ③ What operations are needed for this server certificate replacement?

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.