Xamarin.iOS Cannot display photo in Push Notification - xamarin.ios

Question

I have a Notification Service Extension and an AppGroup. I save a photo from camera in the PCL project and copy it to the App Group Container (shared folder).
In the Notification Service Extension I try to download the photo from the App Group container and attach it to the notification but it just does not display in the notification.
I also cannot debug the Service Extension to see what is going. As far as I know that is not possible currently still in Xamarin unless someone can correct me on that please.
Here is the code:
1.in my PCL I save the photo to the AppGroup when a save button is pressed:
private void ButtonSavePhoto_Clicked(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(photoFilePath))
{
Preferences.Set(AppConstants.CUSTOM_PICTURE_FILE_PATH, photoFilePath);
Preferences.Set(AppConstants.CUSTOM_PHOTO_SET_KEY, true);
if (Device.RuntimePlatform == Device.iOS)
{
bool copiedSuccessfully = DependencyService.Get<IPhotoService>().CopiedFileToAppGroupContainer(photoFilePath);
if (copiedSuccessfully)
{
var customPhotoDestPath = DependencyService.Get<IPhotoService>().GetAppContainerCustomPhotoFilePath();
// save the path of the custom photo in the AppGroup container to pass to Notif Extension Service
DependencyService.Get<IGroupUserPrefs>().SetStringValueForKey("imageAbsoluteString", customPhotoDestPath);
// condition whether to use custom photo in push notification
DependencyService.Get<IGroupUserPrefs>().SetBoolValueForKey("isCustomPhotoSet", true);
}
}
buttonSavePhoto.IsEnabled = false;
}
}
2.in my iOS project, Dependency injection calls this method when pressing save button:
public bool CopiedFileToAppGroupContainer(string filePath)
{
bool success = false;
string suiteName = "group.com.company.appName";
var appGroupContainerUrl = NSFileManager.DefaultManager.GetContainerUrl(suiteName);
var appGroupContainerPath = appGroupContainerUrl.Path;
var directoryNameInAppGroupContainer = Path.Combine(appGroupContainerPath, "Pictures");
var filenameDestPath = Path.Combine(directoryNameInAppGroupContainer, AppConstants.CUSTOM_PHOTO_FILENAME);
try
{
Directory.CreateDirectory(directoryNameInAppGroupContainer);
if (File.Exists(filenameDestPath))
{
File.Delete(filenameDestPath);
}
File.Copy(filePath, filenameDestPath);
success = true;
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
Console.WriteLine(ex.Message);
}
return success;
}
Now the path for the photo in the App Group container is:
/private/var/mobile/Containers/Shared/AppGroup/12F209B9-05E9-470C-9C9F-AA959D940302/Pictures/customphoto.jpg
3.Finally in the Notification Service Extension I try to attach the photo to the push notification:
public override void DidReceiveNotificationRequest(UNNotificationRequest request, Action<UNNotificationContent> contentHandler)
{
ContentHandler = contentHandler;
BestAttemptContent = (UNMutableNotificationContent)request.Content.MutableCopy();
string imgPath;
NSUrl imgUrl;
string notificationBody = BestAttemptContent.Body;
string notifBodyInfo = "unknown";
string suiteName = "group.com.company.appname";
NSUserDefaults groupUserDefaults = new NSUserDefaults(suiteName, NSUserDefaultsType.SuiteName);
string pref1_value = groupUserDefaults.StringForKey("user_preference1");
string[] notificationBodySplitAtDelimiterArray = notificationBody.Split(',');
userPrefRegion = notificationBodySplitAtDelimiterArray[0];
bool isCustomAlertSet = groupUserDefaults.BoolForKey("isCustomAlert");
bool isCustomPhotoSet = groupUserDefaults.BoolForKey("isCustomPhotoSet");
string alarmPath = isCustomAlertSet == true ? "customalert.wav" : "default_alert.m4a";
if (isCustomPhotoSet)
{
// this is the App Group url of the custom photo saved in PCL
imgPath = groupUserDefaults.StringForKey("imageAbsoluteString");
}
else
{
imgPath = null;
}
if (imgPath != null )
{
imgUrl = NSUrl.FromString(imgPath);
}
else
{
imgUrl = null;
}
if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(pref1_value))
{
if (BestAttemptContent.Body.Contains(pref1_value))
{
if (imgUrl != null)
{
// download the image from the AppGroup Container
var task = NSUrlSession.SharedSession.CreateDownloadTask(imgUrl, (tempFile, response, error) =>
{
if (error != null)
{
ContentHandler(BestAttemptContent);
return;
}
if (tempFile == null)
{
ContentHandler(BestAttemptContent);
return;
}
var cache = NSSearchPath.GetDirectories(NSSearchPathDirectory.CachesDirectory, NSSearchPathDomain.User, true);
var cachesFolder = cache[0];
var guid = NSProcessInfo.ProcessInfo.GloballyUniqueString;
var fileName = guid + "customphoto.jpg";
var cacheFile = cachesFolder + fileName;
var attachmentUrl = NSUrl.CreateFileUrl(cacheFile, false, null);
NSError err = null;
NSFileManager.DefaultManager.Copy(tempFile, attachmentUrl, out err);
if (err != null)
{
ContentHandler(BestAttemptContent);
return;
}
UNNotificationAttachmentOptions options = null;
var attachment = UNNotificationAttachment.FromIdentifier("image", attachmentUrl, options, out err);
if (attachment != null)
{
BestAttemptContent.Attachments = new UNNotificationAttachment[] { attachment };
}
});
task.Resume();
}
BestAttemptContent.Title = "My Custom Title";
BestAttemptContent.Subtitle = "My Custom Subtitle";
BestAttemptContent.Body = "Notification Body";
BestAttemptContent.Sound = UNNotificationSound.GetSound(alarmPath);
}
}
else
{
pref1_value = "error getting extracting user pref";
}
// finally display customized notification
ContentHandler(BestAttemptContent);
}

Answer 1

/private/var/mobile/Containers/Shared/AppGroup/12F209B9-05E9-470C-9C9F-AA959D940302/Pictures/customphoto.jpg
From shared code, when image getting from AppGroup .You can check the file path whether work in this project.
imgPath = groupUserDefaults.StringForKey("imageAbsoluteString");
If not getting file from this path. You can get Url from AppGroup directly.Here is a sample as follow:
var FileManager = new NSFileManager();
var appGroupContainer = FileManager.GetContainerUrl("group.com.company.appName");
NSUrl fileURL = appGroupContainer.Append("customphoto.jpg", false);
And if fileURL can not be directly used, also can convert to NSData and save to local file system. This also can be a try.
Here is a sample below that grabs from local file system:
public static void Sendlocalnotification()
{
var localURL = "...";
NSUrl url = NSUrl.FromString(localURL) ;
var attachmentID = "image";
var options = new UNNotificationAttachmentOptions();
NSError error;
var attachment = UNNotificationAttachment.FromIdentifier(attachmentID, url, options,out error);
var content = new UNMutableNotificationContent();
content.Attachments = new UNNotificationAttachment[] { attachment };
content.Title = "Good Morning ~";
content.Subtitle = "Pull this notification ";
content.Body = "reply some message-BY Ann";
content.CategoryIdentifier = "message";
var trigger1 = UNTimeIntervalNotificationTrigger.CreateTrigger(0.1, false);
var requestID = "messageRequest";
var request = UNNotificationRequest.FromIdentifier(requestID, content, trigger1);
UNUserNotificationCenter.Current.AddNotificationRequest(request, (err) =>
{
if (err != null)
{
Console.Write("Notification Error");
}
});
}