Expo - Local Notifications not working on devices

Question

I'm using EXPO to create an app for Android and iOS, with React Native. There is a weird behavior in this code: It's working properly on the Expo App, but it's not working in the real devices (standalone build) (happening on iOS AND Android).

The logic of these Local notifications is the following: The idea is to show to the user 3 local notifications:

• The first one, 1 week after the last time the user opened the app
• The second one, 1 month after the last time the user opened the app
• The last one, 2 months after the last time the user opened the app

How do I do it?

The first time the app is opened, I ask the user if she wants to see notifications. If the user says YES, I write that info in the local storage, and then I request the USER_FACING_NOTIFICATIONS permission to show local notifications.

I'm using USER_FACING_NOTIFICATIONS because I don't send remote notifications.

Then, the second time the user opens the app, I do the following:

• I remove all the previous notifications
• I check if the user WANTS to see notifications
• I check if the user/device GAVE US permissions to show notifications
• I schedule the 3 notifications.

Here, part of the code:

componentDidMount() {
    cancelAllScheduled()
      .then(() => {
        getUserNotificationsPermission().then(userWants => {
          if (userWants) {
            getDeviceNotificationsPermission().then(grantedByDevice => {
              if (grantedByDevice) {
                scheduleNotifications();
              }
            });
          }
        });
      })
      .catch(() => {
        // :shrug:
      });
}

Here, all those utils functions:

// Cancel all the notifications
const cancelAllScheduled = () => {
  return ExpoNotifications.cancelAllScheduledNotificationsAsync();
}

// Check in local storage if the user WANTS to see notifications
const getUserNotificationsPermission = () => {
  return AsyncStorage.getItem('userNotificationPermission').then(data => {
    let isEnabled;

    try {
      isEnabled = JSON.parse(data);
    } catch (error) {
      isEnabled = false;
    }

    return isEnabled;
  });
};

// Check if user/device ALLOW US to show notifications
const getDeviceNotificationsPermission = () => {
  return Permissions.getAsync(Permissions.USER_FACING_NOTIFICATIONS).then(({ status }) => {
    return status === 'granted';
  });
};

// Add days
// https://stackoverflow.com/a/19691491/1815449
const _addDays = (date, days) => {
  var result = new Date(date);
  result.setDate(result.getDate() + days);
  return result;
};

// Schedule all the notifications
// One notification is going to be shown on 1 week
// Other notification in 1 month
// Other notification in 2 month
const scheduleNotifications = () => {
  const now = new Date();

  const oneWeek = {
    title: 'We miss you!',
    body: "Come to see what we've been up to and share your latest adventures with us!",
    data: {
      type: 'WEEKLY',
    },
  };
  const oneWeekOptions = { time: _addDays(now, 7) };
  ExpoNotifications.scheduleLocalNotificationAsync(oneWeek, oneWeekOptions);

  const oneMonth = {
    title: 'We miss you!',
    body: "Come to see what we've been up to and share your latest adventures with us!",
    data: {
      type: 'MONTHLY',
    },
  };
  const oneMonthOptions = { time: _addDays(now, 30) };
  ExpoNotifications.scheduleLocalNotificationAsync(oneMonth, oneMonthOptions);

  const twoMonth = {
    title: 'We miss you!',
    body: "Come to see what we've been up to and share your latest adventures with us!",
    data: {
      type: 'MONTHLY 2',
    },
  };
  const twoMonthOptions = { time: _addDays(now, 60) };
  ExpoNotifications.scheduleLocalNotificationAsync(twoMonth, twoMonthOptions);
};

Do you see any clue about why this could not be working? I already opened the app and granted all the permissions and killed and opened the app again close to 1.000 times hehehe. The last months I didn't open the app for 9 days (I did it 3 times) and I never saw any notification. But, the notifications are properly shown in the Expo Dev App.

Ps.: I do the cancelAllScheduled every time the user opens the app because these notifications need to be reset every time the user opens the app, due to I want to show then weeks after "the last time app was opened"

Ps2.: This is the documentation I followed to implement it:

• https://docs.expo.io/versions/latest/sdk/notifications/
• https://docs.expo.io/versions/v32.0.0/sdk/permissions/

Answer 1

Seems like this was the problem: https://github.com/expo/expo/issues/4121 The notifications work, but due to I was scheduling them for 1 week, 1 month, and more, the notifications were not shown due to most of those devices were restarted after scheduling the notifications.

I have been waiting for 1 week with no opening the app again in iOS, and with no restarting the device or even upgrading the SO, and I can see the notification. I didn't test it in Android yet. I may have to leave the Android phone connected for 1 week and see what happens.