UILocalNotification not firing when device is locked

Question

My app I'm developing is a alarm type app. When the user presses the home button, I schedule a few UILocalNotifications to fire at certain intervals. The notifications fire at the right time when I press the home button and exit the app, but they don't fire at all if I press the Lock button. I've searched around but haven't found out why this is yet.

As I said, it works fine when I press the home button first. They fire at the right times, but if I press the "Lock" button at the top of the phone they don't fire after that. Anybody have any ideas as to why this is?

Thanks

Have you checked whether the app is allowed to display notifications in the lock screen? Check in settings. — Léo Natan, May 27 '13 at 22:20
Just checked on my phone, it's allowed, but still won't fire when locked. Just tried on the simulator too but it doesn't have any notification settings and still doesn't fire on there either. — ColaCube, May 27 '13 at 22:26
I'm using iOS 6 in the simulator, and iOS 6 on an iPhone 5 and 3rd generation iPad. — ColaCube, May 28 '13 at 21:32
check the device logs - does it say anything that indicates the issue? (and how can one lock the simulator? — Daij-Djan, Mar 03 '16 at 10:29

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 03 '13 at 20:33

This is because the lock button does not exit your application.

I assume you are setting up the UILocalNotifications in applicationWillTerminate: in your application delegate. If you add some logging in this method, you will see that it isn't called when using the lock button.

Setting up your notifications in applicationWillResignActive: might solve your problem.

score 0 · Answer 2 · edited Mar 03 '16 at 12:13

0

I know this is super late, but might help someone. This issue has been so overlooked on SO and no tutorial over the internet. Anyway, what you need to do is set UIUserNotificationActivationModeBackground when setting UIUserNotificationSettings, and you should be good to go.

Code:

- (BOOL)application:(UIApplication *)application didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:(NSDictionary *)launchOptions {
// Override point for customization after application launch.
    if ([UIDevice currentDevice].systemVersion.floatValue >= 8.0) {
    UIUserNotificationSettings *settings = [UIUserNotificationSettings settingsForTypes:UIUserNotificationTypeBadge | UIUserNotificationTypeAlert | UIUserNotificationTypeSound | UIUserNotificationActivationModeBackground categories:nil];
    [application registerUserNotificationSettings:settings];
   }
   return YES;
}

Hope this helps.

edited Mar 03 '16 at 12:13

Daij-Djan

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answered Mar 03 '16 at 10:11

Tejas K

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OP specifically set IOS6 – Daij-Djan Mar 03 '16 at 10:30
That's why i said it might help someone in future, and it is obvious since i am answering the question after 3 years, it is not intended for OP. – Tejas K Mar 03 '16 at 10:50
@Daij-Djan Thanks :) – Tejas K Mar 03 '16 at 12:31

UILocalNotification not firing when device is locked

2 Answers2