iOS: how to register for push notifications?

Question

I'm trying to implement Push Notifications for my iOS 5 application by the guide from Ray Wenderlich: http://www.raywenderlich.com/3443/apple-push-notification-services-tutorial-part-12.

I've inserted the following into my didFinishLaunchingWithOptions method in my AppDelegate:

[[UIApplication sharedApplication] registerForRemoteNotificationTypes:
    (UIRemoteNotificationTypeBadge | UIRemoteNotificationTypeSound | UIRemoteNotificationTypeAlert)];

When running the application on my device (not simulator) the popup/alert telling me to accept push notifications isn't displayed. I've inserted a debug-point on the line, and I can see, that the registerForRemoteNotificationTypes is called.

Why is nothing happening?

Solution 1

Maybe, delete your app and try again. That dialog only appears once. But I'm not sure that whether that dialog will appear again when you reinstall that app.

You can also go to your setting app the notification center, see if your app is on the list.

You can also add a break point and see if didRegisterForRemoteNotificationsWithDeviceToken executes.

Solution 2

I had this exact issue (with the same tutorial no less), and found that I was signing the code with the wrong provisioning profile.

Specifically, I only enabled "Production" push notifications for my app (since I didn't want to make certificates twice etc) but my Build Settings in Xcode used "iPhone Development" as the default "Code Signing Identity" for "Release", rather than "iPhone Distribution" as it should have been. This seemed to be the default setting in my test app.

Hopefully I can stop someone else wasting time on the same problem.

Solution 3

From iOS 8 there's new method for this. Straight from UIApplication.h:

- (void)registerForRemoteNotifications NS_AVAILABLE_IOS(8_0);

Calling this will result in either application:didRegisterForRemoteNotificationsWithDeviceToken: or application:didFailToRegisterForRemoteNotificationsWithError: to be called on the application delegate.

Note: these callbacks will be made only if the application has successfully registered for user notifications with registerUserNotificationSettings:, or if it is enabled for Background App Refresh.

Comments

[dhrm]

I've tried to delete the App from the device without any success. The App is not in the Notification Center. Further the didRegisterForRemoteNotificationsWithDeviceToken or didFailToRegisterForRemoteNotificationsWithError is never called.

[YuAo]

Did you set the correct Bundle Identifier? Are you using a wildcard App ID?

[dhrm]

Thanks for your response. The problem was that I had to re-generate my Provisioning Profile after I enabled Push Notifications for the certificate.

[William Entriken]

Same tutorial, same issue. I am running Debug build tethered to device, and have dev signing identity... When you say "I only enabled "Production" push notifications for my app", could you please elaborate on what that means?

[sudo]

I went through the same thing and had the same problem. I think Apple assumes that programmers are also experts at encryption certificates. Also, never use a wildcard ID for push services.