Jabber on iPhone does not work correctly anymore

[Dietmar Hindemith]

Hi all there,

I have an iPhone 12 with Jabber 14.1.5 on it. Jabber worked well until end of 2022 when I made an Update from IOS 14 to IOS16. Meanwhile I have IOS 16.4.1 but nothing got better:

Outgoing calls, chats and change settings work always well (as long as I have LTE connection). But incoming calls and chats work very seldom. After I made anything outgoing then the incoming works well for some minutes (sometimes 1 minute, sometimes 10 minutes, seldom longer). I am not reachable on my iPhone until I make anything outgoing.

My collegue with iPhone 8 and actual IOS and same Jabber does not have this problem, his incoming calls and chats do always work (like mine before the IOS updates).

Do you have any idea?

Regards, Dietmar

[b.winter]

Are you using MRA? If yes, have you activated "push notification service"? If you don't know, what it is, use internet search to get more info and how to configure it.

[Dietmar Hindemith]

Thanks for your fast answer

Are MRA and "push notification service" features what I have on my iPhone / Jabber? Or do my admin collegues have to make any changes on their CUCM?

[b.winter]

The admins have to make configure this.
In my opinion, it doesn't make any sense for you to post as an enduser, because you normally don't have access to the servers and therefore cannot do anything. And you should contact your CUCM admins first for troubleshooting, they are responsible for the system.

[Dietmar Hindemith]

Yes, I asked them for many times in the last months, we tried some setting changes on my iPhone, but they had no solution, and on many other iPhones and Androids it works well (also on mine before the IOS updates).

Now I gave them the link to this thread. Perhaps they can find a solution then.

[b.winter]

If you use Jabber Mobile via external access, so normal mobile internet connection (and not internal via Wifi or via VPN from external), your company must already have MRA deployed.
And about the "Push Notification Service": This topic is already known for many years. It dates back to pre iOS 13 version. I'm still wondering, that so many people don't know about this after so many years.

But yes, talk to them again and let's see.

[Jonathan Schulenberg]

Newer iOS versions deprecated the VoIP sockets API that allowed Jabber to maintain a SIP registration even when in the background. This, of course, hits your battery life so Apple required app developers to use push notifications instead. As @b.winter said, your admin needs to configure this server-side.

Field Notice: FN - 70555 - Legacy VoIP Mode and iOS 13 Apple Push Notification Service Changes That Affect Cisco Jabber, Cisco Webex Teams, Cisco Unified Communications Manager and IM & Presence Service, and Cisco Expressway - Software Upgrade Recomm... 

Push Notifications Deployment Guide 

While they’re at it, they should also configure OAuth so the app can resume faster - especially useful when trying to answer an incoming call.

[Dietmar Hindemith]

This infos sound interesting (without understanding it completely).

Im very exited what my CUCM admins and their external Cisco consultants will find out with this hints.

[Dietmar Hindemith]

The only point that does not match: the CUCM configuration worked well with my IOS 14. The problems began with update to IOS 16.

Or are there any other ideas?

I am still not sure if the reason is at Apple or at Cisco or anywhere else. I have heard that there are some other collegues in our environment who have the same problem.

[Jonathan Schulenberg]

It’s been a few years at this point but IIRC there was a last minute reprieve where Apple left the API in iOS 14 despite it officially being deprecated.

Your admin needs to get push notifications working; it absolutely will not work in current iOS versions without that.

[g-werner]

It should also be noted that the CUCM requires access to the Cisco Cloud for Apple Push Notifications. For security reasons, this should run via a proxy server.

[Jonathan Schulenberg]

Yeah although I certainly would not recommend a proxy; it adds a point of failure, adds complexity (TLS break-in & certificate trust), and makes troubleshooting more difficult. Use an outbound HTTP proxy only if your security policy requires it.

[contemE]

Almost a similar issue for me, but rather while on corporate WiFi, not receiving the push notifications.  

Does anyone know what changed from iOS 13 - 16.4.1 to iOS 16.5 that now requires minimum CUCM rel 14 SU03?

We were receiving APNS notifications just fine on iOS 16.4.1 until the recent update of the device to iOS 16.5.  Now no longer receiving APNS notifications if device goes to sleep longer than 7-8min.

Thanks

[contemE]

Thank you patcummins for you reply....I believe item 1 is really what is the issue.  It seems when the WiFi on campus is weak, then the APNS wants to use cellular, but then if cellular is also weak, the APNS gets lost in transit.  I have seen that CUCM 14SU3 offers a new LPNS feature, Local Push Notification Service.  However I don't know we'll be able to go to r14 because of all of our 3rd party apps that only support CUCM 12.5.