0

There are a lot of confusing answers on the web, hope someone can make it clear, I have an app that uses GCM.

The GCM to FCM FAQ states that:

  • Your GCM and FCM registration tokens are mutually interchangeable

  • Note that client SDKs and GCM tokens will continue to work indefinitely.

It is already very clear that the old GCM token is still valid after GCM service deprecation.

However it is not clear if new installation of my GCM app will still be able to generate new GCM token.

"client SDKs will continue to work indefinitely", does it only mean the notification receiving part will continue to work, or the generate new token part will continue to work too?

Any clarification from official Googlers are welcomed, thank you

Wesley
  • 563
  • 1
  • 5
  • 22

1 Answers1

0

What I understood from Frank's answer, the existing tokens from GCM will continue to work but new installations of your app which uses GCM may not generate tokens anymore.

But from mid-April:

  1. You won't be able to compile code using the old client-side APIs on a newer SDK/Google Play Services anymore
  2. You won't be able to call the GCM REST API to send messages anymore
  3. New installations of your existing GCM-using app may not be able to get a token.

I also found this thread, according to Diego:

Both GCM sdk and FCM sdk use Google Play services to create tokens and receive messages. Google Play services is not being deprecated. GCM sdk is being deprecated in favor of the FCM sdk. In this context deprecated means:

  • already released versions of the GCM sdk will keep working
  • GCM sdk will not receive updates, bugfixes or support
  • if future versions of Android will introduce breaking changes, the GCM sdk will NOT receive the necessary updates and therefore will not work on the new devices.

On the Server side, the GCM endpoint is being deprecated in favor of the FCM endpoint.

  • the FCM endpoint supports GCM token
  • we plan to disable the GCM endpoint in the future
Jacque
  • 757
  • 4
  • 9
  • 1
    Thanks for answering. But this is exactly where the confusion comes from. Both answer are from official google employees. The first one states that new installations may not get a token, and the second one states that it will keep working because the GCM SDK is just an interface to Google Play services (which I think makes more sense). – Wesley Apr 09 '19 at 16:13