Open Radar

 
Summary:
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I'm the developer of Due (dueapp.com), a reminder app that uses UILocalNotification to remind users to tasks. One feature of my app is to remind the users at an interval using the repeat property of UILocalNotification (set to every minute or every hour) until the reminder is acknowledged (marked done or deleted).

Since launch of iOS 5.0, I've received about 30 reports so far about stucked UILocalNotifications in my users' devices. This means that the users continue receiving a notification every minute even though the UILocalNotification has been cancelled within the app through both UIApplication:cancelLocalNotification: as well as UIApplication:cancelAllLocalNotifications.

The cancellation of the notification was verified by listing all scheduled reminder with UIApplication:scheduledLocalNotifications. Users continue receiving the stuck notification every minute even if scheduledLocalNotifications array has _no_ object within.

Deletion of my app from the device stops the alerts—but only temporarily. They return upon reinstallation of my app from the App Store.

The only way that would truly stop the alerts was to RESTART the device. This suggests that this is an iOS 5.x bug where an UILocalNotification is stuck in the system, where my app no longer has access to that UILocalNotification (because it is no longer listed in UIApplication:scheduledLocalNotifications), and ONLY a restart of the device can solve the problem.

Steps to Reproduce:
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This problem is certainly very real (from the number of reports I've gotten so far), but is rare when looking at the number of reports vs app downloads.

I've not been able to reproduce this problem. From the reports I've gathered so far, I receive the most complaints during:

1) Launch of iOS 5, when users upgraded their iOS 4.x devices with my app installed (and with UILocalNotification with repeat property already scheduled)

2) Every update of my app from the App Store, I receive a number of report.

I have *never* receive any such report during the 1 year of sales on the App Store before iOS 5 launched.

Notes:
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I wish I could be more helpful to narrow down the problem. But I haven't been able to reproduce the problem sufficiently, and so have been hesitant to file a bug report.

However, given that this problem surfaces with each update of my app from the App Store, I thought I should file this report so that it may be investigated further.