How to send a push notification to more than one device (iOS)? - push-notification

Question

I'm trying to optimize the push notifications on my server. For now I send those one by one (with an old library) and it takes a while (4 hours).
I refactored my service to send a notification with a lot of device tokens (For now I tried with batches of 500 tokens). For that I'm using the Redth/PushSharp library. I followed the sample code then I adapted it to send the notifications to severals device tokens.
PushService service = new PushService();
//Wire up the events
service.Events.OnDeviceSubscriptionExpired += new PushSharp.Common.ChannelEvents.DeviceSubscriptionExpired(Events_OnDeviceSubscriptionExpired);
service.Events.OnDeviceSubscriptionIdChanged += new PushSharp.Common.ChannelEvents.DeviceSubscriptionIdChanged(Events_OnDeviceSubscriptionIdChanged);
service.Events.OnChannelException += new PushSharp.Common.ChannelEvents.ChannelExceptionDelegate(Events_OnChannelException);
service.Events.OnNotificationSendFailure += new PushSharp.Common.ChannelEvents.NotificationSendFailureDelegate(Events_OnNotificationSendFailure);
service.Events.OnNotificationSent += new PushSharp.Common.ChannelEvents.NotificationSentDelegate(Events_OnNotificationSent);
service.Events.OnChannelCreated += new PushSharp.Common.ChannelEvents.ChannelCreatedDelegate(Events_OnChannelCreated);
service.Events.OnChannelDestroyed += new PushSharp.Common.ChannelEvents.ChannelDestroyedDelegate(Events_OnChannelDestroyed);
//Configure and start ApplePushNotificationService
string p12Filename = ...
string p12FilePassword = ...
var appleCert = File.ReadAllBytes(p12Filename);
service.StartApplePushService(new ApplePushChannelSettings(true, appleCert, p12FilePassword));
var appleNotification = NotificationFactory.Apple();
foreach (var itemToProcess in itemsToProcess)
{
itemToProcess.NotificationDateTime = DateTime.Now;
mobile.SubmitChanges();
string deviceToken = GetCleanDeviceToken(itemToProcess.MobileDevice.PushNotificationIdentifier);
appleNotification.ForDeviceToken(deviceToken);
}
service.QueueNotification(appleNotification
.WithAlert(itemsToProcess[0].MobileDeviceNotificationText.Text)
.WithSound("default")
.WithBadge(0)
.WithCustomItem("View", itemsToProcess[0].Value.ToString()));
//Stop and wait for the queues to drains
service.StopAllServices(true);
Then I tried to send 3 notifications to 2 devices. Only the first device got them (and the problem is not device-related because I tried with both of them separately).
Right after that an OperationCanceledException is thrown in the PushChannelBase class. So I don't know what's wrong. Any idea?

Answer 1

You should queue a separate notification for each item to process.
It is not possible set multiple device tokens on a single notification. The OperationCanceledException will occur, because you do.

Answer 2

Example: Console C# Application
This assumes
you have valid production and development certificates
you have stored multiple device tokens within your database
you have a notification that comes from your database
You are using PushSharp Library
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using PushSharp;
using PushSharp.Core;
using PushSharp.Apple;
using System.IO;
namespace MyNotification
{
class Program
{
//args may take "true" or "false" to indicate the app is running for
//development or production (Default = false which means Development)
static void Main(string[] args)
{
bool isProduction = false;
if (args != null && args.Length == 1)
{
Console.Write(args[0] + Environment.NewLine);
bool.TryParse(args[0], out isProduction);
}
try
{
//Gets a notification that needs sending from database
AppNotification notification = AppNotification.GetNotification();
if (notification != null && notification.ID > 0)
{
//Gets all devices to send the above notification to
List<IosDevice> devices = IosDevice.GetDevices(!isProduction);
if (devices != null && devices.Count > 0)
{
PushBroker push = new PushBroker();//a single instance per app
//Wire up the events for all the services that the broker registers
push.OnNotificationSent += NotificationSent;
push.OnChannelException += ChannelException;
push.OnServiceException += ServiceException;
push.OnNotificationFailed += NotificationFailed;
push.OnDeviceSubscriptionExpired += DeviceSubscriptionExpired;
push.OnChannelCreated += ChannelCreated;
push.OnChannelDestroyed += ChannelDestroyed;
//make sure your certifcates path are all good
string apnsCertFile = Path.Combine(AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory, "../../Certificate/Certificates_Apple_Push_Production.p12");
if (!isProduction)
apnsCertFile = Path.Combine(AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory, "../../Certificate/Certificates_Apple_Push_Development.p12");
var appleCert = File.ReadAllBytes(apnsCertFile);
push.RegisterAppleService(new ApplePushChannelSettings(isProduction, appleCert, "135TrID35")); //Extension method
foreach (IosDevice device in devices)
{
//if it is required to send additional information as well as the alert message, uncomment objects[] and WithCustomItem
//object[] obj = { "North", "5" };
push.QueueNotification(new AppleNotification()
.ForDeviceToken(device.DeviceToken)
.WithAlert(DateTime.Now.ToString())//(notification.AlertMessage)
//.WithCustomItem("Link", obj)
.WithBadge(device.BadgeCount + 1)
.WithSound(notification.SoundFile));//sound.caf
}
push.StopAllServices(waitForQueuesToFinish: true);
}
}
Console.WriteLine("Queue Finished, press return to exit...");
Console.ReadLine();
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
Console.WriteLine(ex.Message);
Console.ReadLine();
}
}
static void NotificationSent(object sender, INotification notification)
{
Console.WriteLine("Sent: " + sender + " -> " + notification);
}
static void NotificationFailed(object sender, INotification notification, Exception notificationFailureException)
{
Console.WriteLine("Failure: " + sender + " -> " + notificationFailureException.Message + " -> " + notification);
}
static void ChannelException(object sender, IPushChannel channel, Exception exception)
{
Console.WriteLine("Channel Exception: " + sender + " -> " + exception);
}
static void ServiceException(object sender, Exception exception)
{
Console.WriteLine("Service Exception: " + sender + " -> " + exception);
}
static void DeviceSubscriptionExpired(object sender, string expiredDeviceSubscriptionId, DateTime timestamp, INotification notification)
{
Console.WriteLine("Device Subscription Expired: " + sender + " -> " + expiredDeviceSubscriptionId);
}
static void ChannelDestroyed(object sender)
{
Console.WriteLine("Channel Destroyed for: " + sender);
}
static void ChannelCreated(object sender, IPushChannel pushChannel)
{
Console.WriteLine("Channel Created for: " + sender);
}
}
}