Issue with push notification IPhone

Question

I have a problem with push notification in my app. I just started to work with push notifications so I dont know what's the reason of my problem, and i cant find the solution in google. So, I used this tutorial http://www.raywenderlich.com/3443/apple-push-notification-services-tutorial-part-12 as the example of programming of push notifications. When I run "php simplepush.php" on my terminal everything is fine and I get the notification on my device. But when I load that script on the server and trying to run it from there there is no actions performed. only 30 sec of waiting and message "Failed to connect: 110 Connection timed out"

Here os the code of my script

<?php 
Put your device token here (without spaces):
$deviceToken = '***************';

// Put your private key's passphrase here: 
$passphrase = '**************';

// Put your alert message here:
$message = 'My first push notification!';

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

$ctx = stream_context_create();
stream_context_set_option($ctx, 'ssl', 'local_cert', 'ck.pem');
stream_context_set_option($ctx, 'ssl', 'passphrase', $passphrase);

// Open a connection to the APNS server
$fp = stream_socket_client(
'ssl://gateway.sandbox.push.apple.com:2195', $err,
$errstr, 60, STREAM_CLIENT_CONNECT|STREAM_CLIENT_PERSISTENT, $ctx);

if (!$fp)
exit("Failed to connect: $err $errstr" . PHP_EOL);

echo 'Connected to APNS' . PHP_EOL;

// Create the payload body
$body['aps'] = array(
'alert' => $message,
'sound' => 'default'
);

// Encode the payload as JSON
$payload = json_encode($body);

// Build the binary notification
$msg = chr(0) . pack('n', 32) . pack('H*', $deviceToken) . pack('n', strlen($payload)) .                 $payload;

// Send it to the server
$result = fwrite($fp, $msg, strlen($msg));

if (!$result)
echo 'Message not delivered' . PHP_EOL;
else
echo 'Message successfully delivered' . PHP_EOL;

// Close the connection to the server
fclose($fp);

Are the terminal and server on the same host? Have you verified that the host can connect to gateway.sandbox.push.apple.com using SSL from the host? You may need to install the SSL cert on the host. — Peter Gluck
Sorry but I dont clearly understand how to check if SSL cert is installed on the host. How can I check it? BTW, our host is supporting by bluehost, and bluehost offer to instal one of the SSL certificate for money? Is this the certificate you're talking about? One more thing - if i delete "sandbox" from 'ssl://gateway.sandbox.push.apple.com:2195'notifications wont be delivered on device, even from my Mac, from terminal. But still there is a message 'Message successfully delivered' — NewObjective
If you've solved this, can you post the solution below? It might help others in a similar situation. Thanks. — Bill the Lizard
The problem was the port 2195 was closed. When I opened the port for my domain (with bluehost support team help), everything became great — NewObjective

Amoneron Amoneron · Accepted Answer · 2013-05-06T16:28:27

Yes, as NewObjective clarified, 2195 & 2196 ports have to be open. To open these ports you might ask Bluehost technical support team (ticket/chat), but you have to have dedicated IP address before that.

But there is another issue. If you try to send push notification message right after dedicated IP address is set and both ports are open you might receive the same "Connection timed out" error. You can test that problem by logging in to your server via SSH and running "telnet gateway.sandbox.push.apple.com 2195" command. If you receive "Connection timed out" error - you can try to contact Bluehost support team, but they can't solve this problem.

If you try to telnet any other server with 2195 opened port you will also receive that error. I had about 10 chats with Bluehost support team, opened 10 or so tickets, but they really couldn't help me. But two weeks later everything began to work. I think it was because turning dedicated IP on takes some time, but I'm not sure. Anyway, it very interesting that Bluehost support team always answers that the problem is on the Apple side, even if you tell them that any other server with 2195 opened port isn't available too)

Issue with push notification IPhone

1 Answers