Testing Apple Push Notifications Feedback - no items received

Question

How to test feedback.sandbox.push.apple.com? Everything goes right, but I receive empty list.

How to make it consider the device token as inactive?

I installed the application to iPhone using Xcode, received some push notifications, then removed it from iPhone and send some more notifications. But even on the next day feedback.sandbox.push.apple.com returns just empty set.

Jeromyjerreed

Answer 1

I far as I found, Apple push notification feedback service doesn't work properly on sandbox mode. You should try it on ad-hoc or production mode.

Vogue

Strange. Apple encourages to correctly handle that feedback, but not allows to test it. "Do it just right from the very first attempt or be punished by ban from APNS"? – Jeromyjerreed

I'm not sure as I told as far I found on some blogs, forums and my test cases. But I will try to some suggestions which I have got from apple developer forum. If I found some case i will share with you guys in this post. – Vogue

I also couldn't get it work in sandbox environment, but it worked in production mode. – Eustashe

You have to have two sandbox apps installed on the device, you can then delete one of the sandboxed apps and you will get feedback, as long as the other app is on the device. Just make a skeleton app and always have it on the device. – Standing

ANSWER: PsychoDad is right. Create app #2, enable it for notifications with all of the certs and PITA stuff. Run the app to enable it for notifications. Uninstall app #1. Send app #1 a notification and the feedback server will have app #1's token as a return result immediately the next time you ask. Who ever at Apple thought that a valid return result should be absolutely nothing should be shot. – Snider

Answer 2

Issues with Using the Feedback Service

If you remove your app from your device and then send a push notification to it, you would expect to have the device token rejected, and the invalidated device token should appear on the feedback service. However, if this was the last push-enabled app on the device, it will not show up in the feedback service. This is because deleting the last app tears down the persistent connection to the push service before the notice of the deletion can be sent.

You can work around this by leaving at least one push-enabled app on the device in order to keep the persistent connection up. Just install any free push-enabled app from the App Store and you should then be able to delete your app and see it appear in the feedback service.

source:

• http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/technotes/tn2010/tn2265.html#TNTAG34

Claycomb

Yes, there were also one more application (to test that APNS itself was working). – Jeromyjerreed

According to a commenter on a different answer, you need to have two SANDBOX push apps installed on your device. Having one sandbox app and one production app will not work! – Smiga

That is actually mentioned just below the part the answer quoted: "Recall that each push environment has its own persistent connection. So to keep the persistent connection to the sandbox environment up, install another development push-enabled app." – Atalya