What type of provisioning profile is required for TestFlight external testing?

Question

I've been trying to get Ionic push notifications to work on my TestFlight app for beta-testing for weeks now and I still have not managed to implement them successfully. When I build for release via Xcode, everything works fine. I have double-checked to ensure that the necessary certificates are set up fine yet for some reason however, push notifications fail to be received (though device token registration works fine) on TestFlight.

I have read many conflicting answers on forums, documentations and tutorials stating that an Ad-hoc provisioning profile is needed for TestFlight while others state that a distribution profile must be used. First of all, somehow the Ad-hoc profile does not attach with the build when I Archive and try to upload onto TestFlight via Xcode. Second of all, I have managed to upload on TestFlight using the Distribution profile but the push notifications are not received. I am now stumped on how I have to get push notifications to work on TestFlight.

My question is: which provisioning profile has to be used for a TestFlight app and what could be the reason why it is not working? Thank you.

Answer 1

Since Testflight has been integrated in the App Store / iTunes Connect, you'll need to upload it to iTunes Connect, which means you need an App Store provisioning profile, not an Ad-Hoc one. I can imagine that older tutorials, made when Testflight was a stand-alone platform, still describe the situation were an Ad-Hoc provisioning profile was necessary.

As for the push notifications:

• are you sure you use the Production environment of APN (the Sandbox environment only works for debug builds)?
• do you get any error messages (on the server) when sending the push notifications?
• if you call the Feedback service of APN, do the devices appear there?

Answer 2

I have few questions for you,

1. Did you check push notification getting to your device in developing mode?
2. Did you deployed .pem/p12 file in the backend setup for distribution mode?

If you have done with both of them and still con't proceed, then there might be problem with any of the following

1. Unchecked your testing devices when generating Ad-hoc Provisioning Profile .
2. Problem while exporting p12 file or generating .pem file.
3. Try validating your build before uploading it to the Testflight.