[🐛] The operation couldn’t be completed. No APNS token specified before fetching FCM Token

[k2xl]

Issue

Trying to get token from user.

import messaging from '@react-native-firebase/messaging';
import { registerRootComponent } from 'expo';
import React, { useEffect } from 'react';
import {
  Text
} from 'react-native';

async function onAppBootstrap() {
  // Register the device with FCM
  console.log('A');
  await messaging().registerDeviceForRemoteMessages();
  console.log('B');
  // Get the token
  const token = await messaging().getToken();

  // Save the token
  console.log('TOKEN ' + token);
}

function App() {
  useEffect(() => {
    onAppBootstrap();
  }, []);

  return (
    <Text>Hi</Text>
  );
}

console.log('Registering root component');
registerRootComponent(App);
export default App;

When running this on iOS simulator, I get A on the console but it never reaches B. On further debugging just calling await messaging() seems to do enough to hang.

I see now after adding initializeApp() with credentials from firebase the following error

The operation couldn’t be completed. No APNS token specified before fetching FCM Token

---

Project Files

Javascript

Click To Expand

package.json:

"@react-native-firebase/app": "^17.0.0",
    "@react-native-firebase/messaging": "^17.0.0",

firebase.json for react-native-firebase v6:

# N/A

iOS

Click To Expand

ios/Podfile:

• I'm not using Pods
• I'm using Pods and my Podfile looks like:

# N/A

AppDelegate.m:

// N/A

---

Android

Click To Expand

Have you converted to AndroidX?

• my application is an AndroidX application?
• I am using android/gradle.settings jetifier=true for Android compatibility?
• I am using the NPM package jetifier for react-native compatibility?

android/build.gradle:

// N/A

android/app/build.gradle:

// N/A

android/settings.gradle:

// N/A

MainApplication.java:

// N/A

AndroidManifest.xml:

<!-- N/A -->

---

Environment

Click To Expand

System:
OS: macOS 12.5
CPU: (10) arm64 Apple M1 Pro
Memory: 227.88 MB / 16.00 GB
Shell: 5.8.1 - /bin/zsh
Binaries:
Node: 19.5.0 - /opt/homebrew/bin/node
Yarn: Not Found
npm: 9.3.1 - /opt/homebrew/bin/npm
Watchman: Not Found
Managers:
CocoaPods: 1.11.3 - /opt/homebrew/bin/pod
SDKs:
iOS SDK:
Platforms: DriverKit 22.2, iOS 16.2, macOS 13.1, tvOS 16.1, watchOS 9.1
Android SDK: Not Found
IDEs:
Android Studio: 2022.1 AI-221.6008.13.2211.9477386
Xcode: 14.2/14C18 - /usr/bin/xcodebuild
Languages:
Java: 17.0.6 - /usr/bin/javac
npmPackages:
@react-native-community/cli: Not Found
react: 18.1.0 => 18.1.0
react-native: 0.70.5 => 0.70.5
react-native-macos: Not Found
npmGlobalPackages:
react-native: Not Found

 OUTPUT GOES HERE

• Platform that you're experiencing the issue on:
  • iOS
  • Android
  • [x ] iOS but have not tested behavior on Android
  • Android but have not tested behavior on iOS
  • Both
• react-native-firebase version you're using that has this issue:
  • `"@react-native-firebase/app": "^17.0.0",

• "@react-native-firebase/messaging": "^17.0.0",`
  

• Firebase module(s) you're using that has the issue:
  • e.g. Instance ID
• Are you using TypeScript?
  • Y

---

• 👉 Check out React Native Firebase and Invertase on Twitter for updates on the library.

[k2xl]

After adding initializeApp() with credentials from new firebase app it stopped hanging. However, now encountering:

The operation couldn’t be completed. No APNS token specified before fetching FCM Token

So trying to debug this now

[mikehardy]

with the latest firebase-ios-sdk (v10.4.0+) an APNS token is strictly required as a prerequisite to get an FCM token
The SDKs try to handle this for you by swizzling in AppDelegate methods that register an APNS token if one comes, but if you disable swizzling, or you do not register for remote notifications prior to calling getToken, you'll never get one

• do not disable swizzling
• make sure you call registerForRemoteNotifications

[k2xl]

Hi @mikehardy thanks for the response. I'm very confused. Apologies as I'm still relatively new to react-native. Note that I'm also using Expo.

In my example above, I am calling registerForRemoteNotifications before calling getToken.

[mikehardy]

I'm not sure why, but the FCM system does not have an APNS token set for your app before you request an FCM token.
There can be a few reasons why, as mentioned above it could be that swizzling is disabled in your AppDelegate such that the FCM callback which would normally listen for / register the APNS token with FCM when it comes in is not hooked up. It could be that you do not have remote messaging set up as an entitlement for your app. It could be lots of things.

One thing that might be uncomfortable to hear but is nevertheless important: others have this working. The code works in the module. Why is that important but maybe uncomfortable? Because it implies (though no, it does not quite prove...) that the problem is specific to your app and your configuration. You should triple check everything with the assumption the problem is in your app and no one will be able to help you find it - you will likely find the problem yourself in your app upon further careful inspection.

There is still of course the possibility the problem is in this module, but no one else is experiencing it so I am operating on the assumption the problem is project-specific

[k2xl]

Thank you for your respectful response! Definitely appreciate this input.

I think part of the reason I raised this issue is that I did see some other threads for a few weeks ago related to this issue. So I thought just getting the minimal example to reproduce the issue could cause an issue - so in case anyone else encounters and has found a solution they may stumble upon this ticket.

The fact that this sounds like only affecting me indicates it is indeed a problem with my configuration - I guess the tough part I'll need to figure out is what is the issue with my configuration:).

Anyway best regards, and thanks again for the pointers

[mikehardy]

The new strict requirement for an APNS token prior to an FCM one is bound to turn up issues like this so I will be very curious to hear what you turn up. Right now the entitlements idea is my best one for you but maybe it's something else? There was a lot of traffic about this recently because they added this requirement first on the backend without warning which exposed lots of people getting FCM tokens with no corresponding APNS token and broke their apps.

Of course those non-APNS FCM tokens are useless, but breaking the misconfigured apps unexpectedly was bad and generated all the traffic. They relaxed the backend change but left the SDK change in for firebase-ios-sdk 10.4.0 release so it is now only seen by folks as they upgrade, which is you now. It's a valid change (the APNS token should be required...) but forces everyone to find their corner cases where it fails now. And here we are...

Anyway, definitely report back if you find anything, and I hope you do + quickly. Cheers

[nicolasburtey]

also running into this issue today. not sure right now why that is.

it's not a minimal example, but issue can be seen by cloning this repo: https://github.com/GaloyMoney/galoy-mobile

[farojos]

@k2xl I had the same issue minutes before.

I solved it by checking in signing & capabilities. Inside "Background modes", I selected "Background check" and "Remote notifications". I hope this helps you.

[nicolasburtey]

@k2xl I had the same issue minutes before.

I solved it by checking in signing & capabilities. Inside "Background modes", I selected "Background check" and "Remote notifications". I hope this helps you.

just tried that and had no effect on my end.

I realized I had not set use_frameworks! :linkage => :static in the Podfile even thought it was necessary from a recent update, but it doesn't seem to remove the error message.

[tautvilas]

I have been digging into this problem the whole evening. In my case the problem was that in firebase.json property registerDeviceForRemoteMessages was set to false. This caused getAPNSToken to return null and also triggered this error in case getToken was called.

I don't remember why did I set registerDeviceForRemoteMessages to false earlier before. But this still looks like firebase bug. Because I did call registerDeviceForRemoteMessages in my JS code, but for some reason that did not perform the registration fully. One interesting behaviour that I noticed was that APNSToken was not not null only in the case when app was launched first time after install (with registerDeviceForRemoteMessages=false setup) .