Handling Push Notifications when App is NOT running

Question

When my App is not running and receives a Push Notification, if I click on that notification, the App is launched - but then it doesn't prompt the user with the Alert-View I set up, asking them whether they want to view the Notification's contents or not. It just launches, and sits there.

The Push Notifications do work perfectly when the App is running - either as the Active app or while in the background - but nothing works correctly when the app is not running.

I tried logging-out the launchOptions NSDictionary in application: didFinishLaunchingWithOptions: to see what load its bringing - but it comes up as "(null)". So It basically contains nothing - which doesn't make sense cause shouldn't it contain the Notification's load?

Anybody have any ideas how to make Push Notifications work when they arrive while the App was NOT running?

EDIT: here's the code I'm using in application: didReceiveRemoteNotification just to see what's what:

if (UIApplicationStateBackground) {

    NSLog(@"===========================");
    NSLog(@"App was in BACKGROUND...");
}
else if (UIApplicationStateActive == TRUE) {
    NSLog(@"===========================");
    NSLog(@"App was ACTIVE");
}
else {
    [[UIApplication sharedApplication] setApplicationIconBadgeNumber: 99]; 
    UIAlertView *BOOM = [[UIAlertView alloc] initWithTitle:@"BOOM"
                                                   message:@"app was INACTIVE"
                                                  delegate:self
                                         cancelButtonTitle:@"a-ha!"
                                         otherButtonTitles:nil];
    [BOOM show];
    NSLog(@"App was NOT ACTIVE");
}

So this is supposed to take care of all the application's states - but its not. Push Notifications are only working when the app is running - either in the background or in the foreground...

================================================

UPDATE/EDIT#2: as per "@dianz" suggestion (below,) I modified the code of my application: didFinishLaunchingWithOptions to include the following:

UILocalNotification *localNotif = [launchOptions objectForKey:UIApplicationLaunchOptionsRemoteNotificationKey];
if (localNotif) {
    NSString *json = [localNotif valueForKey:@"data"]; 

    UIAlertView *bam = [[UIAlertView alloc] initWithTitle:@"appDidFinishWithOptions"
                                                  message:json   
                                                 delegate:self
                                        cancelButtonTitle:@"cool"
                                        otherButtonTitles:nil];
    [bam show];

}

This does make the AlertView box appear, but there seems to be no payload: the title of the AlertView shows up ("appDidFinishWithOptions"), but the json NSString comes up EMPTY... Will keep tweaking...

======================

EDIT #3 - its now working almost 100%
So, in didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:

UILocalNotification *localNotif = [launchOptions objectForKey:UIApplicationLaunchOptionsRemoteNotificationKey];
    if (localNotif) {
        // Grab the pushKey:
        pushKey = [localNotif valueForKey:@"pushKey"];
        // "pushKey" is an NSString declared globally
        // The "pushKey" in the "valueForKey" statement is part of my custom JSON Push Notification pay-load.
        // The value of pushKey will always be a String, which will be the name of the 
        // screen I want the App to navigate to. So when a Notification arrives, I go
        // through an IF statement and say "if pushKey='specials' then push the                                      
        // specialsViewController on, etc.

        // Here, I parse the "alert" portion of my JSON Push-Notification:
        NSDictionary *tempDict = [localNotif valueForKey:@"aps"];
        NSString *pushMessage = [tempDict valueForKey:@"alert"];


        // Finally, ask user if they wanna see the Push Notification or Cancel it:
        UIAlertView *bam = [[UIAlertView alloc] initWithTitle:@"(from appDidFinishWithOptions)"
                                                      message:pushMessage  
                                                     delegate:self
                                            cancelButtonTitle:@"Cancel"
                                            otherButtonTitles:@"View Info", nil];
        [bam show];

    }

I next implement the alertView: clickedButtonAtIndex method to see what the user chose on the AlertView and proceed accordingly.

This, along with the didReceiveRemoteNotification logic works perfectly.

HOWEVER... when the app is NOT running, and I send it a Push Notification, if I DON'T click on the Push Notification alert as soon as it arrives and instead wait for it to fade out (which happens after like 3-4 seconds), and then I click on the App's icon - which now has a BADGE of 1 on it - the app launches, but I don't get the Push Notification alert at all when it launches. It just sits there.

Guess I need to figure that permutation next...

Answer 1

When your app is not running or killed and you tap on push notification this function will trigger;

- (BOOL)application:(UIApplication *)application didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:(NSDictionary *)launchOptions

so you should handle it like this,

UILocalNotification *localNotif = [launchOptions objectForKey:UIApplicationLaunchOptionsRemoteNotificationKey];
if (localNotif) {
    NSString *json = [localNotif valueForKey:@"data"];
    // Parse your string to dictionary
}