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 Here is the PCAP file. Additionally, Here is the outbound public IP : 3.251.214.255 apple_push_sandbox_pcap.txt

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?

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

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 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!

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.

In iOS 26, I can check the notification that arrives to the user when the AirPods or Apple Watch is fully charged. When tap the notification, notification only expands and does not include actions such as moving to an app. I checked the documents of UserNotification and UNNotificationServiceExtension, but I couldn't find what I wanted. I can expand by long-tapping as default, but I'm looking for a way to expand it without entering the app when I tap the notification. I wonder if there is an API that I missed or if it's not publicly supported. thank you for your support.

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.

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 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!

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.

My Mac app has a launch agent (within the app bundle) that works great without the app running. There are some occasions where I need to display an alert and ask the user to launch the app to handle the issue. I thought about using UNUserNotificationCenter but I'm not able to make it work from the agent. I'm asking for authorization as follows: [center requestAuthorizationWithOptions:(UNAuthorizationOptionAlert | UNAuthorizationOptionSound | UNAuthorizationOptionBadge) completionHandler:^(BOOL granted, NSError * _Nullable error) { NSLog(@"authorization request completion. Granted: %@, error: %@ (%@)",granted?@"YES":@"NO",error, [error localizedDescription]); }]; And I'm trying to post the notification as follows: content.title = @"Your App Name"; content.body = @"Click the button to open the app"; content.sound = [UNNotificationSound defaultSound]; UNNotificationRequest *request = [UNNotificationRequest requestWithIdentifier:[[NSUUID UUID] UUIDString] content:content trigger:nil]; [center addNotificationRequest:request withCompletionHandler:^(NSError * _Nullable error) { if (error) { NSLog(@"Error showing notification: %@ %@", error, [error localizedDescription]); } }]; When running I'm getting asked to authorize, I authorize and all seems OK in system settings but I'm not able send any notifications. addNotificationRequest results in UNErrorCodeNotificationsNotAllowed error. I tried this with the authorization request inside the main app, or inside the agent, with the same results. When trying to post the notification from within the app, it does work, but that's not what I need. Is posting notifications from within the launch agent not possible at all, or is there anything here that I'm missing. TIA

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

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 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.

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!

I am sending push notification using HTTP/2 to https://api.push.apple.com:443 api but I am getting Operation TimeOut error in response . Can someone help

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 everyone! I’m integrating push notifications for a taxi-driver app and ran into a blocking CarPlay issue. When the iPhone is connected to CarPlay (wired or wireless), the push arrives on the phone without any sound and nothing is shown or announced on the CarPlay screen. If I unplug CarPlay, the same push plays the default sound and shows a normal banner on the lock screen, so the payload itself looks valid. Environment iPhone 13 Pro, iOS 18.0 CarPlay head-unit: Xcode 16.2 CarPlay Simulator App built with Flutter 3.22 + firebase_messaging: ^15.2.5 Deployment target: iOS 14.0 Xcode capabilities enabled: Push Notifications, Time-Sensitive Notifications App settings on the device: Allow Notifications -› Sounds ON, Show in CarPlay ON Siri › Announce Notifications › CarPlay: master toggle ON + my app added to the allowed list Driving Focus = Off (same result if it’s On) Native setup in AppDelegate.swift UNUserNotificationCenter.current().requestAuthorization( options: [.alert, .sound, .badge, .carPlay] ) { _,_ in } let carPlayCategory = UNNotificationCategory( identifier: "CARPLAY_ORDER", actions: [], intentIdentifiers: [], options: [.allowInCarPlay] ) UNUserNotificationCenter.current().setNotificationCategories([carPlayCategory]) UNUserNotificationCenter.current().delegate = self application.registerForRemoteNotifications() APNs payload that I send via FCM { "aps": { "alert": { "title": "New test order", "body": "Location info test" }, "sound": "default", "category": "CARPLAY_ORDER", "interruption-level": "time-sensitive", "relevance-score": 1 } } What could be the problem? Please help me solve the error

This error has been continuously occurring for about 9 hours. We have not replaced the certificate, modified the server code, or changed the firewall policy. Some requests succeed, but many are timing out, with several timeouts occurring every minute. We are unable to find the cause. Please help. APNS Exception io netty channel ConnecttimeException: Connection timed out
APNSOutboundHandler api.push.apple.com/17.188.169.28:443 api.push.apple.com/(other ip):443 api.push.apple.com/(other ip):443 api.push.apple.com/(other ip):443 api.push.apple.com/(other ip):443 ...