Weather Gods Push Notification Problems

By Weather Gods (Scott), 4 May, 2019

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

Hi All,

First, I apologise for posting this here, but wanted to get the word out about a problem we are having.

Long story short, every 12 months Apple ask us to renew the certificate we use for sending push notifications. Today was that date.

The procedure is we give the certificate to IBM (our push notification provider) and everything carries on as before.

Unfortunately when uploading the certificate, their push notification service crashed and burned and it looks like our service has disappeared off the face of the planet i.e. the account has gone!

Some of you may remember we had this problem in the past with IBM.

It's early days and I am hoping it's a simple press of a button somewhere and we will be back.

Meanwhile, I can only apologise and will keep you posted - we also post updates on our Twitter account https://twitter.com/WeatherGodsApp

Thanks
Scott

Options

Comments

By Dawn 👩🏻‍🦯 on Monday, May 27, 2019 - 02:16

O man!! I'm sorry this has happened to you... again! It's bad enough that it happened once, but to have it happen to you twice?! Thank you for the update. Here's to hoping it gets fixed soon! And that they can find out why these issues keep happening!

By Holger Fiallo on Monday, May 27, 2019 - 02:16

Thanks. Hope is fix soon.

By Weather Gods (Scott) on Monday, May 27, 2019 - 02:16

Hi,

IBM investigating but still no update after almost 24 hours.

It does look to me like the account has been deleted or become corrupted and I really hope they can restore it.

By Dawn 👩🏻‍🦯 on Monday, May 27, 2019 - 02:16

Hi. If for some reason they can't restore it or whatever, will I have to set up my notifications again? Not that I mind doing it. I just want to know so that I can start the process when all is working. Hope they can fix it!

By Weather Gods (Scott) on Monday, May 27, 2019 - 02:16

Yes, I think that will be the eventual outcome Dawn. I really hoping that is not the case as it will mean a new app update and some sort of migration exercise on the Weather Gods servers and updating all our server software. It will be a lot of work.

By Ekaj on Monday, May 27, 2019 - 02:16

Glad to hear I'm not the only one experiencing this issue, but I'm so sorry this has happened to you, again! Hopefully everything will be restored in no time. I, too, have no problem resetting things if need be. This has honestly become one of my favorite iOS apps, and I wouldn't want it to disappear off the face of the planet for good. I'm happy to be a beta tester again if you need me, although my life has gotten a bit hectic as of late. All the best to you and your co-developer.

By Dawn 👩🏻‍🦯 on Monday, May 27, 2019 - 02:16

This is 1 of my favorite apps for weather too! I'd hate to see it go!!
If you need to seg up beta testing again, I'd be happy to be a part of it. Just let me know. As I am still in your beta with Test Flight. But if it needs to be reset, let me know & I'll be glad to!

By Dawn 👩🏻‍🦯 on Monday, May 27, 2019 - 02:16

on the bright side at least for me, we're not getting severe weather right now in my area.
Hope you don't have to update & transfer servers & services. Poor you!!

By Justin on Monday, May 27, 2019 - 02:16

If all else fails, you could always change weather service providers from IBM to Dark sky, or something else. Just a suggestion, since this keeps happening on you. It's disappointing that this keeps coming up, but what can you do I guess?

By Weather Gods (Scott) on Monday, May 27, 2019 - 02:16

Hi Justin,

Unfortunately it's not the weather data at fault this time. It is our account which we use to send push notifications - using an IBM service to send them to Apple and then on to the devices.

I am thinking about alternative push notification services.

By Weather Gods (Scott) on Monday, May 27, 2019 - 02:16

We are back online!

Hopefully push notifications will start rolling again shortly.

Thanks again for your patience and I can only apologise for the inconvenience.

Fingers crossed.

By Dawn 👩🏻‍🦯 on Monday, May 27, 2019 - 02:16

Yay!! Glad you are back! Welcome back! lol

By Weather Gods (Scott) on Monday, May 27, 2019 - 02:16

I have been receiving my evening notifications so I think it's looking much better.

Now, we just need Apple to fix our TestFlight problems!

By Dawn 👩🏻‍🦯 on Monday, May 27, 2019 - 02:16

Hey Scott!
Let me know if I need to re-enter the beta or not. And I'd be happy to do so!

By Weather Gods (Scott) on Monday, May 27, 2019 - 02:16

It should work fine Dawn, although we might have to wait for a TestFlight app update. Will keep you posted.

Thanks!

By Melissa on Monday, May 27, 2019 - 02:16

Thanks for the update.

By mendi on Monday, May 27, 2019 - 02:16

I was set to receive my summary notification at 10:30 tonight, and it did not come through. I paused and unpaused notifications. We shall see if that will trigger my 6:30 AM summary notification tomorrow morning.

By mendi on Monday, May 27, 2019 - 02:16

Low and behold, I had my daily summary notification this morning. It appears pause and unpause did the trick. :)

By Weather Gods (Scott) on Monday, May 27, 2019 - 02:16

Thanks for letting me know Mendi.

By Holger Fiallo on Monday, May 27, 2019 - 02:16

I never had no issues. I was able to get all my notifications. Long Live Weather Gods.

By Weather Gods (Scott) on Monday, May 27, 2019 - 02:16

Thanks Holger, how is the watch complication now?

By Melissa on Monday, May 27, 2019 - 02:16

Mine are working perfectly! I too did the pause notifications, and turned it back on, and now, all is good.

By Holger Fiallo on Monday, May 27, 2019 - 02:16

It comes and goes. Sometimes works and sometimes does not. Maybe when a new update of OS for watch will help. Still love the app in my watch 3.

By Ekaj on Monday, May 27, 2019 - 02:16

All notifications are working once again over here. Thanks for the quick fix!

By mendi on Monday, May 27, 2019 - 02:16

What isn't working on the watch? I seem to get information on my watch. If I reboot I usually have to relaunch weather gods to get it to show my location, but beyond that, it seems to give me current conditions and such. Am I missing something?

By Dawn 👩🏻‍🦯 on Monday, May 27, 2019 - 02:16

Hey Scott!
Notifications are good here too. I think something happened in test flight though. I emailed you but I figured I'd let you know herein case u were still checking back here.

By Weather Gods (Scott) on Monday, May 27, 2019 - 02:16

Thanks Dawn,

My TestFlight is randomly working for the Weather Gods app so I think Apple are trying to fix our problem with the beta Watch App.

By charles on Monday, May 27, 2019 - 02:16

Scott: I just got notified that a new beta is available in test flight, but have not installed it yet. However, I am getting notifications and weather alerts before installing the new update. All works on both iPhone 8 plus and Apple watch series 4.

By Weather Gods (Scott) on Monday, May 27, 2019 - 02:16

Hi Charles,

We had problems with the betas for our watch app and Apple fixed something on their servers. However, I'm not 100% sure how stable TestFlight or the new beta is - there are some problems.

My recommendation at the moment would be to steer clear until we get a period of stability.

Thanks

By charles on Monday, May 27, 2019 - 02:16

I know that test flight has been updated a few times since I joined the group of testers, and there were problems with another app that I have been testing. I am wondering which is the problem; test flight?, or the apps in question? My first thought would be that test flight is the culprit.

By Weather Gods (Scott) on Monday, May 27, 2019 - 02:16

Yep, it was a TestFlight problem. I had to raise a support ticket with Apple who did some fixes on their side. It wasn't just us, a few other developers as well.

I do believe today's build is stable now.