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Our iPad app relies on silent push notifications to trigger certain events, and is used by many of our users in Guided Access mode. This has worked well until iOS 11 which now seems to block delivery of push notifications while Guided Access is enabled.

I've tried a variety of different payloads according to the Apple documentation here (such as content-available, alert, sound, badge etc.), but I can't get anything to be delivered while Guided Access is enabled. This isn't necessarily a bug, but may in fact be the new intended behaviour.

Is there a way I can configure a notification so that it is delivered during guided access?

For what it's worth I raised a Technical Support Incident for this issue with Apple, who promptly refunded my ticket and asked me to report a bug instead. There has been no feedback from the bug report yet.

Wade
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  • Are you using `UserNotifications` framework and `UNUserNotificationCenter`? The older way of using `AppDelegate` callbacks and `[UIApplication registerForRemoteNotifications]` is deprecated and could potentially be having issues in iOS 11 in Guide Access mode. – Vikram Rao Nov 30 '17 at 15:56
  • Thank you for the suggestion, but I can confirm that we are using the UserNotifications framework present in iOS 10 and above. – Wade Nov 30 '17 at 23:12
  • I confirm the same in our project. – addzo Dec 04 '17 at 19:44
  • If your app is in the foreground, why not create your own push system, such like c/s mode bsd socket to reach your goal. There are lots samples: xmppframework on the iOS side, openfire on the server side. – Kevin Cao Dec 05 '17 at 03:39
  • Thanks Kevin, we ended up going down the path of websockets which is working well (although came with it's own challenges). – Wade Dec 05 '17 at 04:05
  • @Kevin Cao, your method works, turn it into an answer for people to reference – omkaartg Dec 05 '17 at 20:46
  • I can confirm this is also a problem in Single App Mode. – powertoold Jan 09 '18 at 22:39
  • Push notifications work for Core Data with iCloud apps (not CloudKit) in Guided Access Mode. So Apple hasn't disabled push notifications entirely. I'm not sure if this is a bug or a design decision. – powertoold Jan 10 '18 at 18:37

2 Answers2

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This appears to be fixed in the newest iOS 11.2.5 beta 4. Confirmed with Guided Access and Single App Mode using CloudKit push notifications.

powertoold
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    We've verified this with behaviour with our own app. All indications are this was nothing more than an iOS bug. – Wade Jan 15 '18 at 23:50
  • What about using Google Cloud Function? Will the device receive the notification to in kiosk / single app mode too? Thanks –  Jun 24 '19 at 22:54
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If your app is in the foreground, you can create your own push system using c/s mode BSD socket to reach your goal. There are good sample like xmppframework on the iOS side and openfire on the server side.

Kevin Cao
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    While I appreciate the suggestion, I'm reluctant to mark this as the answer because I really wanted a definitive answer on whether or not notifications can be delivered during Guided Access. – Wade Dec 07 '17 at 03:59