didReceiveRemoteNotification not working in the background

Question

I'm working on a big app with a huge chunk of legacy code. Currently - there's an implementation for:

- (void) application:(UIApplication *)application didReceiveRemoteNotification:(NSDictionary *)userInfo

The problem is that it is only called when the app is in the foreground OR when the user taps the the notification while the app is in the background. I tried to implement:

- (void) application:(UIApplication *)application didReceiveRemoteNotification:(NSDictionary *)userInfo fetchCompletionHandler:(void (^)(UIBackgroundFetchResult))completionHandler

But the app behaves the same. In any case - this method is not called when the app is in the background. What could be the problem?

Answer 1

Implementing didReceiveRemoteNotification and didReceiveRemoteNotification:fetchCompletionHandler is the correct way, but you also need to do the following:

Make sure to register for remote notifications, see documentation here:

- (BOOL)application:(UIApplication *)application didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:(NSDictionary *)launchOptions
{    
    [[UIApplication sharedApplication] registerForRemoteNotificationTypes:(UIRemoteNotificationTypeAlert | UIRemoteNotificationTypeBadge | UIRemoteNotificationTypeSound)];

    return YES;
}

Also make sure to edit Info.plist and check the "Enable Background Modes" and "Remote notifications" check boxes:

Additionally, you need to add "content-available":1 to your push notification payload, otherwise the app won't be woken if it's in the background (see documentation here updated):

For a push notification to trigger a download operation, the notification’s payload must include the content-available key with its value set to 1. When that key is present, the system wakes the app in the background (or launches it into the background) and calls the app delegate’s application:didReceiveRemoteNotification:fetchCompletionHandler: method. Your implementation of that method should download the relevant content and integrate it into your app

So payload should at least look like this:

{
    aps = {
        "content-available" : 1,
        sound : ""
    };
}