Field Notice: Apple software upgrade recommended

[Manish Joshi]

In iOS 13, Apple has made updates to the way applications in background mode are notified of incoming calls and messages in order to preserve battery life. This change will impact users of Cisco Jabber and Webex Teams. To make sure that your system supports the Apple Push Notification service (APNs), you must upgrade your system to a supported release by the prescribed dates and enable APNs.

Read the Field Notice for key dates and details and find out more information on the Cisco recommended workaround.
Questions? Post them below in the comments or join the Collaboration track in Customer Connection to engage with the product team directly.

[Stephanie Knoop]

Hello,

Can you clarify where the dates of 2020-0801 and 2021-04-01 mentioned in the field notice come from?  As iOS 13 has been out for some time already, are there dot releases or some date triggers built into the operating system for certain functionality to expire?  I tried to do a bit of CallKit research, but can't see where/how these dates come into play from Apple's development/release cycle.  Thank you.

Follow-up:  the date information I requested is addressed here: https://community.cisco.com/t5/collaboration-ccp-discussions/ask-the-pm-ios-13-legacy-voip-mode-and-apple-push-notification/m-p/4086284#M12803

[sanjsinh]

These dates are based on agreement between Cisco and Apple to enable customers to upgrade to supported releases.

[loizosko]

is this issue already affecting jabber clients?

i am running all systems at the latest 12.5 update 2 and jabber latest clients 12.8.x

APN has been enabled months ago

i have been receiving a lot of complains that their phones are not ringing.

[sanjsinh]

No, this would not affect Jabber clients until Jabber client version 12.9 is released. The problem in your case may be something different. Please reach out to Cisco support for help with it. 

[Anil Sharma]

hello, 

As iOS 13 is out for quite sometime now.
My understanding is iOS 13 devices (any CUCM/Jabber 12.x version) will NOT face any issues until 2021-04-01, Apple will make changes only after this date and APN will stop working ?
Therefore we have to upgrade the CUCM to 12.5 SU3 to make new ways of APNs working. Right ? 

[sanjsinh]

That is correct.

[chrishoge]

@loizosko 

You might want to see if you are impacted by this: 

https://bst.cloudapps.cisco.com/bugsearch/bug/CSCvn18745

If Jabber goes into the background at all they will not get notifications on these versions from a weird bug.

Also just to put this out there, seems like the server documentation has changed for CPU and RAM requirements:
https://bst.cloudapps.cisco.com/bugsearch/bug/CSCvk65006

[sanjsinh]

CSCvn18745 - Fix for this is included in 11.5 SU8 and 12.5 SU3. 

CSCvk65006 - This is a change because customers were having issues with VM performance with default documented configuration. To resolve it, CPU and memory on the VM had to be increased. So this document is changed to reflect increased CPU and memory specification for the VM from the start. 

[brown3wab]

This thread has done nothing but further confuse me.  So if I'm on 11.5(1)SU5  and using Jabber for IOS 12.8 I'm good for right now?  We don't have APN currently turned on and have not received any complaints from our users on IOS. 

When Jabber for IOS 12.9 comes out, will we see issues or will we start seeing issues after 8/1.  Or will we start seeing issues after 4/1/21?

In our current version of CM, do we really need to do anything prior to 4/1/21?  Based on this thread and the cryptic table on the bottom of the field notice, I'm not seeing any reason to upgrade to 11/.5(1)SU8 or 12.5(1)SU2 before then.

Can you please provide some better insight onto if APN needs to be turned on and when it needs to be turned on, and what version of CM/CUP/EXPWY actually needs to be installed when the requirement is actually necessary.

[chrishoge]

@brown3wab 

I believe you just need to have APN enabled for the first date of 8/1. Since you are on 11.5(1)SU5, please note this:

https://bst.cloudapps.cisco.com/bugsearch/bug/CSCvn18745

There is a bug that requires you to turn debugging on for Cisco XCP Config Manager in CUCM > Cisco Unified Serviceability:

You will need to be on 11/.5(1)SU8 or 12.5(1)SU2 come 4/1/21.

[sanjsinh]

@brown3wab Sorry for the confusion. Here are answers to your questions:

This thread has done nothing but further confuse me.  So if I'm on 11.5(1)SU5  and using Jabber for IOS 12.8 I'm good for right now?  We don't have APN currently turned on and have not received any complaints from our users on IOS.

[Sanjay] You are good for now. However, you need to enable APNS before Aug, 1, 2020. 
Please see this deployment guide for help with enabling APNS: 

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/cucm/push_notifications/cucm_b_push-notifications-deployment-guide/cucm_b_push-notifications-deployment-guide_chapter_01.html#reference_3306B3C5480C85AF25B7E48F844

When Jabber for IOS 12.9 comes out, will we see issues or will we start seeing issues after 8/1.  Or will we start seeing issues after 4/1/21?

[Sanjay] Considering that you enable APNS before Aug 1, 2020 - you would not start seeing issues when users upgraded their Jabber mobile clients to version 12.9. Users would start seeing issues (push notification will not work) from 4/1/21, unless CUCM is upgraded to version 11.5 SU8 or 12.5 SU3. If CUCM is upgraded to these version, then users on 12.9 would not see issues. 

In our current version of CM, do we really need to do anything prior to 4/1/21?  Based on this thread and the cryptic table on the bottom of the field notice, I'm not seeing any reason to upgrade to 11/.5(1)SU8 or 12.5(1)SU2 before then

[Sanjay] In current version of CM, you need to enable APNS before Aug 1, 2020. Before 4/1/21 - you need to upgrade to 11.5 SU8 or 12.5 SU3. We recommend that you do not wait for the last day and upgrade as soon as you can. 

Hope this helps.