Amazon SNS push notifications not handled when Xamarin.iOS app not running

Question

I am developing an iOS app in Xamarin, and it needs to receive push notifications from our existing back office through Amazon SNS.

For the time being I am using the amazon web page to send test notifications through to APNS_SANDBOX.

I have written my code and created the certificates for the iOS app and everything works fine when the app is running. However when the app is in the background or not loaded at all, no notifications are received by the iOS device.

In the project options in Xamarin Studio I have enabled the following in background modes Enabled Background Modes, Background fetch, Remote notifications. In General Settings for the iOS device, Background App Refresh is enabled globally and for the app.

I think I must have missed something very basic from either the configuration or in the apple certificates, but I can't work out what.

score 1 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 11:59

I have managed to find a solution after reading various solutions from various iOS/Objective C questions. It was this particular question that set me in the right direction. There was a problem with my code to subscribe to push notifications when running on iOS 8.0

My original code:

    public static void Subscribe()
    {
        if (UIDevice.CurrentDevice.SystemVersion [0] >= '8')
        {
            UIApplication.SharedApplication.RegisterForRemoteNotifications()
        }
        else
        {
            UIRemoteNotificationType notificationTypes = UIRemoteNotificationType.Alert | UIRemoteNotificationType.Badge | UIRemoteNotificationType.Sound;
            UIApplication.SharedApplication.RegisterForRemoteNotificationTypes (notificationTypes);
        }
    }

My new code:

    public static void Subscribe()
    {
        if (UIDevice.CurrentDevice.SystemVersion [0] >= '8')
        {
            UIUserNotificationType types = UIUserNotificationType.Badge | UIUserNotificationType.Sound | UIUserNotificationType.Alert;
            UIUserNotificationSettings settings = UIUserNotificationSettings.GetSettingsForTypes (types, null);
            UIApplication.SharedApplication.RegisterUserNotificationSettings (settings);
        }
        else
        {
            UIRemoteNotificationType notificationTypes = UIRemoteNotificationType.Alert | UIRemoteNotificationType.Badge | UIRemoteNotificationType.Sound;
            UIApplication.SharedApplication.RegisterForRemoteNotificationTypes (notificationTypes);
        }
    }

This change now allows notifications to be received correctly when the app is in the background or not running.

Amazon SNS push notifications not handled when Xamarin.iOS app not running

1 Answers1