Can't get In-App Messaging to work on iOS

[sirfitzy]

Firstly, thank you for your assistance.

Problem:

Firebase In-App Messaging does not appear on my iOS Physical Device.
There are no popups and no debug logs even with the -FIRDebugEnabled parameter added.

Note: All other services I'm using work well - Remote Config, Analytics, Crashlytics, Performance and Messaging work without Issue

Background:

I recently implemented the firebase in-app-messaging library for react native and had successful tests with Android.
However all efforts to get it functional on iOS have failed.

These are the reference guides I have followed:

1. https://rnfirebase.io/ - To setup the firebase app
2. https://rnfirebase.io/in-app-messaging/usage - To review the usage
3. https://firebase.google.com/docs/in-app-messaging/get-started?platform=ios#objective-c_1 - To configure debugging

Versions:

react-native: 12.9.3 (all firebase libraries mentioned above)
iOS: SDK Version 8.8.0/8.8.0-beta
iOS OS Version: (15.4.1)

Package.json

    "@react-native-firebase/analytics": "^12.9.3",
    "@react-native-firebase/app": "^12.9.3",
    "@react-native-firebase/crashlytics": "^12.9.3",
    "@react-native-firebase/dynamic-links": "^12.9.3",
    "@react-native-firebase/in-app-messaging": "^12.9.3",
    "@react-native-firebase/messaging": "^12.9.3",
    "@react-native-firebase/perf": "^12.9.3",
    "@react-native-firebase/remote-config": "^12.9.3",

Logs:

I'm getting seeing these messages related to Firebase in the Xcode console, unfortunate none of them contain the Debug for In-App Messaging:

2022-08-02 11:52:55.918250-0500 My-App[66161:7336551] 8.8.0 - [Firebase/Core][I-COR000003] The default Firebase app has not yet been configured. Add `FirebaseApp.configure()` to your application initialization. This can be done in in the App Delegate's application(_:didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:)` (or the `@main` struct's initializer in SwiftUI). Read more: https://goo.gl/ctyzm8.
2022-08-02 11:52:56.044866-0500 My-App[66161:7336555] 8.8.0 - [Firebase/Analytics][I-ACS023007] Analytics v.8.8.0 started
2022-08-02 11:52:56.049856-0500 My-App[66161:7336555] 8.8.0 - [Firebase/Analytics][I-ACS023008] To enable debug logging set the following application argument: -FIRAnalyticsDebugEnabled (see http://goo.gl/RfcP7r)
2022-08-02 11:52:56.231025-0500 My-App[66161:7336555] 8.8.0 - [Firebase/Messaging][I-FCM002022] APNS device token not set before retrieving FCM Token for Sender ID '552393195001'. Notifications to this FCM Token will not be delivered over APNS.Be sure to re-retrieve the FCM token once the APNS device token is set.
2022-08-02 11:52:56.266983-0500 My-App[66161:7336436] 8.8.0 - [Firebase/Messaging][I-FCM001000] FIRMessaging Remote Notifications proxy enabled, will swizzle remote notification receiver handlers. If you'd prefer to manually integrate Firebase Messaging, add "FirebaseAppDelegateProxyEnabled" to your Info.plist, and set it to NO. Follow the instructions at:
https://firebase.google.com/docs/cloud-messaging/ios/client#method_swizzling_in_firebase_messaging
to ensure proper integration.
2022-08-02 11:52:56.288263-0500 My-App[66161:7334624] [Firebase/Crashlytics] Version 8.8.0
WARNING: Logging before InitGoogleLogging() is written to STDERR
2022-08-02 11:52:58.688449-0500 My-App[66161:7336598] 8.8.0 - [Firebase/Analytics][I-ACS800023] No pending snapshot to activate. SDK name: app_measurement
2022-08-02 11:53:00.284092-0500 My-App[66161:7336597] 8.8.0 - [Firebase/RemoteConfig][I-RCN000072] New config database created. Resetting user defaults.
2022-08-02 11:53:04.544625-0500 My-App[66161:7336592] 8.8.0 - [Firebase/Analytics][I-ACS023012] Analytics collection enabled
2022-08-02 11:53:04.545833-0500 My-App[66161:7336592] 8.8.0 - [Firebase/Analytics][I-ACS023220] Analytics screen reporting is enabled. Call +[FIRAnalytics logEventWithName:FIREventScreenView parameters:] to log a screen view event. To disable automatic screen reporting, set the flag FirebaseAutomaticScreenReportingEnabled to NO (boolean) in the Info.plist
2022-08-02 11:53:14.339504-0500 My-App[66161:7336551] 8.8.0 - [Firebase/RemoteConfig][I-RCN000072] New config database created. Resetting user defaults.

Code:

iOS:

#import "AppDelegate.h"
#import <GoogleMaps/GoogleMaps.h>
#import <Firebase.h>

@implementation AppDelegate

- (BOOL)application:(UIApplication *)application didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:(NSDictionary *)launchOptions
{
  if ([FIRApp defaultApp] == nil) {
    [FIRApp configure];
  }

React-Native:

import React, { useEffect } from 'react';
import inAppMessaging from '@react-native-firebase/in-app-messaging';
import crashlytics from '@react-native-firebase/crashlytics';
import Root from './Root';

const Setup: React.FC = () => {
  const initFirebase = async (): Promise<void> => {
    await inAppMessaging().setMessagesDisplaySuppressed(false);
    await crashlytics().setCrashlyticsCollectionEnabled(true);
  };

  useEffect(() => {
    initFirebase();
  }, []);

  return <Root />;
};

export default Setup;

[mikehardy]

🤔 Hmm - can I ask you to try the most recent version to see if that works for you? Also, and I apologize in advance this is really vague - but I seem to recall something about in-app-messaging triggers being perhaps only once per device forever or similar, so triggering them can be really tricky.

You've done well turning on the firebase debugging, that's a great step, a shame that it did not immediately point at the answer. Perhaps you could hand-hack in to the node_modules/@react-native-firebase/ directory and add some logging statements to the obj-c code in the in-app-messaging callbacks to see if the SDK is even calling them ?

Also, just as a cross-check to make sure things are working in general and see how things are supposed to work, you might try https://github.com/firebase/quickstart-ios/tree/master/inappmessaging

[SirFitz]

Late but an update:

We were using a pretty old version of React-Native (0.64.3), so the upgrade effort was far more involved than expected, as there were many things we had to change, but after it's completion, the In-App messaging began to work, we're currently running version 16.5 for all the react-native firebase libraries.

However, now the Remote Config has stopped working :(

The error we're getting is:

[Error: [remoteConfig/failure] fetch() operation cannot be completed successfully.]

No further details on the error