application:didRegisterForRemoteNotificationsWithDeviceToken: Not Firing When Using Developer Provisioning Profile

Question

In Ad Hoc builds I see the application:didRegisterForRemoteNotificationsWithDeviceToken: event called but not when I use a DEBUG build using a developer provisioning profile. The Ad Hoc and Developer Provisioning Profile are using the same App ID.

App ID Screenshot:

When running using the developer provisioning profile I did see the alert asking about whether or not to enable push notifications. I chose to use push notifications, but then the event application:didRegisterForRemoteNotificationsWithDeviceToken: never occurred. Note that the event for application:didFailToRegisterForRemoteNotificationsWithError: also does not occur.

Note that in application:didFinishLaunchingWithOptions: I have:

- (BOOL)application:(UIApplication *)application didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:(NSDictionary *)launchOptions
{
   [[UIApplication sharedApplication] registerForRemoteNotificationTypes:UIRemoteNotificationTypeAlert];
   // Other code...
}

I'm pretty puzzled by this one.

Other Notes:

• My iPad 2 and iPod 4 I am using are NOT jail broken
• I was seeing the dreaded no valid 'aps-environment' entitlement string found for application error, but this resolved after regenerating my development provisioning profile.
• A co-worker of mine has seen this same issue (works on Ad Hoc but not developer) on projects with previous companies.

Answer 1

Same Code Worked Next Day

The event application:didRegisterForRemoteNotificationsWithDeviceToken:deviceToken is working now (the next day). Note that this seems to have had nothing to do with the alert asking whether you want to enable push notifications as I didn't see this alert when it began working.

One thing I still find odd is that yesterday using Ad Hoc build the event application:didRegisterForRemoteNotificationsWithDeviceToken:deviceToken fired EVERY TIME I launched the app. However, a DEBUG build with a developer provisioning profile never fired at all. Same code this morning works (and fires every time using a DEBUG build with a developer provisioning profile).... Something in the device (internal timer / timeout) must have reset.

Sample Code

Below is the code I used in the event receiving the deviceToken. It uses Urban Airship as the provider to the Apple Push Notification Server (APNS). I've removed the username and passwords from the code. I hope this is useful to others who are trying to figure things out.

- (void)application:(UIApplication *)application
        didRegisterForRemoteNotificationsWithDeviceToken:(NSData *)deviceToken
{
    NSString *tokenStr = [[[[deviceToken description]
                            stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:@"<" withString:@""]
                           stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:@">" withString:@""]
                          stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:@" " withString:@""];

    NSLog(@"Device Token (raw): %@", deviceToken);
    NSLog(@"Device Token (string): %@", tokenStr);
    UIAlertView *alert = [[[UIAlertView alloc] initWithTitle:@"Device Token"
                                                 message:tokenStr
                                                delegate:nil
                                       cancelButtonTitle:nil
                                       otherButtonTitles:@"OK", nil] autorelease];
    [alert show];

    // Code to send token to server
    NSString *urlString = [NSString stringWithFormat:
    @"https://go.urbanairship.com/api/device_tokens/%@", tokenStr];
    ASIHTTPRequest *request = [ASIHTTPRequest requestWithURL:
                               [NSURL URLWithString:urlString]];
#if APP_STORE_RELEASE
    [request addBasicAuthenticationHeaderWithUsername:@"aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa"
                                          andPassword:@"bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb"];
#else
    [request addBasicAuthenticationHeaderWithUsername:@"cccccccccccccccccccccc"
                                          andPassword:@"dddddddddddddddddddddd"];
#endif
    request.requestMethod = @"PUT";
    [request startAsynchronous];
}

Note that the description of the NSData will return a Hex string that begins with a "<" and ends with a ">". In between are spaces. My original approach was to convert the NSData into a string using NSUTF8StringEncoding but this is wrong (since you want the token as a hexadecimal string).