Android: Test Push Notification online (Google Cloud Messaging)

> Update: GCM is deprecated, use FCM

I am implementing Google Cloud Messaging in my application. Server code is not ready yet and in my environment due to some firewall restrictions I can not deploy a test sever for push notification. What I am looking for is a online server which would send some test notifications to my device to test my client implementation.

Found a very easy way to do this.

Open http://phpfiddle.org/

Paste following php script in box. In php script set API_ACCESS_KEY, set device ids separated by coma.

Press F9 or click Run.

Have fun ;)

<?php


// API access key from Google API's Console
define( 'API_ACCESS_KEY', 'YOUR-API-ACCESS-KEY-GOES-HERE' );
 
 
$registrationIds = array("YOUR DEVICE IDS WILL GO HERE" );
 
// prep the bundle
$msg = array
(
    'message'   	=> 'here is a message. message',
	'title'			=> 'This is a title. title',
	'subtitle'		=> 'This is a subtitle. subtitle',
	'tickerText'	=> 'Ticker text here...Ticker text here...Ticker text here',
	'vibrate'	=> 1,
	'sound'		=> 1
);
 
$fields = array
(
	'registration_ids' 	=> $registrationIds,
	'data'				=> $msg
);
 
$headers = array
(
	'Authorization: key=' . API_ACCESS_KEY,
	'Content-Type: application/json'
);
 
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt( $ch,CURLOPT_URL, 'https://android.googleapis.com/gcm/send' );
curl_setopt( $ch,CURLOPT_POST, true );
curl_setopt( $ch,CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, $headers );
curl_setopt( $ch,CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true );
curl_setopt( $ch,CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, false );
curl_setopt( $ch,CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, json_encode( $fields ) );
$result = curl_exec($ch );
curl_close( $ch );
 
echo $result;
?>

For FCM, google url would be: https://fcm.googleapis.com/fcm/send

For FCM v1 google url would be: https://fcm.googleapis.com/v1/projects/YOUR_GOOGLE_CONSOLE_PROJECT_ID/messages:send

Note: While creating API Access Key on google developer console, you have to use 0.0.0.0/0 as ip address. (For testing purpose).

In case of receiving invalid Registration response from GCM server, please cross check the validity of your device token. You may check the validity of your device token using following url:

https://www.googleapis.com/oauth2/v1/tokeninfo?access_token=YOUR_DEVICE_TOKEN

Some response codes:

Following is the description of some response codes you may receive from server.

{ "message_id": "XXXX" } - success
{ "message_id": "XXXX", "registration_id": "XXXX" } - success, device registration id has been changed mainly due to app re-install
{ "error": "Unavailable" } - Server not available, resend the message
{ "error": "InvalidRegistration" } - Invalid device registration Id 
{ "error": "NotRegistered"} - Application was uninstalled from the device

POSTMAN : A google chrome extension

Use postman to send message instead of server. Postman settings are as follows :

Request Type: POST

URL: https://android.googleapis.com/gcm/send

Header
  Authorization  : key=your key //Google API KEY
  Content-Type : application/json

JSON (raw) :
{       
  "registration_ids":["yours"],
  "data": {
    "Hello" : "World"
  } 
}

on success you will get

Response :
{
  "multicast_id": 6506103988515583000,
  "success": 1,
  "failure": 0,
  "canonical_ids": 0,
  "results": [
    {
      "message_id": "0:1432811719975865%54f79db3f9fd7ecd"
    }
  ]
}

Pushwatch is a free to use online GCM and APNS push notification tester developed by myself in Django/Python as I have found myself in a similar situation while working on multiple projects. It can send both GCM and APNS notifications and also support JSON messages for extra arguments. Following are the links to the testers.

• GCM Tester
• APNS Tester

Please let me know if you have any questions or face issues using it.

Postman is a good solution and so is php fiddle. However to avoid putting in the GCM URL and the header information every time, you can also use this nifty GCM Notification Test Tool