Airship push works with dev key but no APID in production: check transport vs plan

TL;DR

Either move the app to a paid plan or switch the transport to the free one (c2dm/gcm in that era, FCM today) and rebuild. The log showed the library stuck in a holding pattern instead of registering.

Steps

1. When dev keys register fine but production keys never generate an APID, the problem is the transport and plan pairing, not the key itself. The helium transport only works while the trial or paid plan is active; once it lapses, registration silently stalls. Either move the app to a paid plan or switch the transport to the free one (c2dm/gcm in that era, FCM today) and rebuild. If an agent sees push registration hang with no error, check the transport against the account's plan status before re-checking keys.

When to use

You are seeing this: When dev keys register fine but production keys never generate an APID, the problem is the transport and plan pairing, not the key itself. Use this skill when you run into "Airship push works with dev key but no APID in production: check transport vs plan".

When not to use

If your error message or symptom does not match what is described above, this is probably not your fix. Search for your exact error text instead of forcing this one to fit.

Versions

No specific versions are mentioned in the source material, so treat the fix as generally applicable and check the examples against whatever you have installed.

Why this happens

The original report does not dig into a root cause. It documents the symptom and the fix that resolved it.

Source: Stack Overflow #8033570 (accepted answer): Push notifications worked with the Airship development key but no APID was generated at all with the production key, even with inProduction set to true and the production key in airshipconfig.properties. The log showed the library stuck in a holding pattern instead of registering.

Verified resolution: When dev keys register fine but production keys never generate an APID, the problem is the transport and plan pairing, not the key itself. The helium transport only works while the trial or paid plan is active; once it lapses, registration silently stalls. Either move the app to a paid plan or switch the transport to the free one (c2dm/gcm in that era, FCM today) and rebuild. If an agent sees push registration hang with no error, check the transport against the account's plan status before re-checking keys.

Source URL: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8033570