Pubnub connection stops when application goes into background state iOS 8

Question

Title says it all. I've looked at this question and also here on the pubnub forums (same question, just different suggestion).

The core of the issue is that as soon as the application suspends, pubnub connectivity is queued and not sent until the app goes back to foreground. It seems to be a reasonable thing to do to send a notification saying that you're going in the background on your channel but it doesn't work.

From my readings I understand that pubnub uses websockets and that it is not allowed in background mode. Even tried to enable VOIP as a background mode with no luck but Location updates bg mode works. However, using this will have my app rejected as I don't use location services.

When running this code

- (void)applicationDidEnterBackground:(UIApplication *)application {

    [PubNub sendMessage:@"Hello from PubNub iOS!" toChannel:self.myChannel;
}

I get this log entry from pubnub (so at least I know the command is ran):

Looks like the client suspended"; Fix suggestion="Make sure that your application is configured to run persistently in background

I have been killing myself over this for a day. One of these days where you start doing something that you think is pretty simple, a 15min thing and it turns into a day of frustration ... You know what I mean :)

Answer 1

I was actually able to send the messages I needed when the app was about to enter Background. And without enabling any of the background modes.

I took advantage of the background finite task as explained is this tutorial.

- (void)applicationWillResignActive:(UIApplication *)application {

    [PubNub updateClientState:@"MyID" state:@{@"appState":@"Background",@"userNickname":@"MyNickname"} forObject:[PNChannel channelWithName:@"MyChannel"]];

    self.backgroundTask = [[UIApplication sharedApplication] beginBackgroundTaskWithExpirationHandler:^{
        NSLog(@"Background handler called. Not running background tasks anymore.");
        [[UIApplication sharedApplication] endBackgroundTask:self.backgroundTask];
        self.backgroundTask = UIBackgroundTaskInvalid;
    }];

}

And implementing the stop background when coming back online

- (void)applicationDidBecomeActive:(UIApplication *)application {

    if (self.backgroundTask != UIBackgroundTaskInvalid)
    {
        [[UIApplication sharedApplication] endBackgroundTask:self.backgroundTask];
        self.backgroundTask = UIBackgroundTaskInvalid;
        NSLog(@"Task invalidated");
    }
}