Location Services not working in iOS 11

I just rebuilt my app with the iOS 11 SDK in an attempt to remove the blue banner that is now always appearing. I thought - "Brilliant, that worked", only to discover that location services are now not working at all.

The application used to work with iOS 10 - Has anybody heard anything?

It would appear that apple have added yet another privacy feature. The user is now able to override our requestAlwaysAuthorization and downgrade it to requestWhenInUseAuthorization - Which means as a developer we now have to supply both descriptions in the Info.plist

I found that they have added a new key NSLocationAlwaysAndWhenInUseUsageDescription

/*
*      Either the NSLocationAlwaysAndWhenInUseUsageDescription key or both the
*      NSLocationAlwaysUsageDescription and NSLocationWhenInUseUsageDescription
*      keys must be specified in your Info.plist; otherwise, this method will do
*      nothing, as your app will be assumed not to support Always authorization.
*/

However, upon using this new key - the location service still didn't work, upon further searching I found this gem mixed in with all the extra debugging information:

> This app has attempted to access privacy-sensitive data without a usage description. The app's Info.plist must contain both NSLocationAlwaysAndWhenInUseUsageDescription and NSLocationWhenInUseUsageDescription keys with string values explaining to the user how the app uses this data

Which directly contradicts the the comment that I found in the updated CLLocationManager.h file. So I've created a radar.

Good news, if you follow the advice of the debugging console, IE. add both the new key NSLocationAlwaysAndWhenInUseUsageDescription and one of the old keys NSLocationWhenInUseUsageDescription, locations services will start to work again.

Just to add the steps on fixing this:

2 ways to do it:

A) The easy way: Select your Info.plist file, add the properties, note that they start with PRIVCY instead of LOCATION... therefore, the exact names of these variables starts with "Privacy - Location ... " etc, add each here, and describe how the user would be seeing this on the warning.

B) The hard / interesting / programatic way (I like this way more):

Right click on your Info.plist for your app, and then select "View source code", you should see it all in XML,

Follow the other ...... format, and add these properties as follows:

<key>NSLocationAlwaysUsageDescription</key>
<string>Program requires GPS to track cars and job orders</string>
<key>NSLocationAlwaysAndWhenInUseUsageDescription</key>
<string>Program requires GPS to track cars and job orders</string>
<key>NSLocationWhenInUseUsageDescription</key>
<string>Program requires GPS to track cars and job orders</string>
<key>NSMicrophoneUsageDescription</key>
<string>This app uses your Microphone to allow Voice over IP communication with the Program Admin system</string>

Save, and then right-click on the info.plist file, and then select Property list, this should view the file back into the default view.

EDIT:

Another member asked for code, here it is:

1. On your .H file, add:

   @property (strong, nonatomic) CLLocationManager *LocationManager;

2. On your .M file add under ViewDidAppear() function:

   _LocationManager = [[CLLocationManager alloc] init]; [_LocationManager setDelegate:self]; _LocationManager.desiredAccuracy = kCLLocationAccuracyBestForNavigation; _LocationManager.pausesLocationUpdatesAutomatically = NO; [_LocationManager requestAlwaysAuthorization];

   _LocationManager.headingFilter = 5; _LocationManager.distanceFilter = 0;

   [_LocationManager startUpdatingLocation]; [_LocationManager startUpdatingHeading];

This what works fine for me, hopefully the code would work for you too.

Regards

Heider

working under iOS11 i discovered, that Info.plist needs al least NSLocationAlwaysAndWhenInUseUsageDescription in Info.plist:

Strange enough when your app is multilingual the localized versions of your strings need all three keys mentioned in this post else requestAlwaysAuthorization() and locationManager(_ manager: CLLocationManager, didChangeAuthorization status: CLAuthorizationStatus) will fail silently.

Shot showing german translation as example:

Hope this saves you time when stumbling upon.

Working in Swift 4.0.3

   <key>NSLocationAlwaysAndWhenInUseUsageDescription</key>
   <string>Description</string>

   <key>NSLocationAlwaysUsageDescription</key>
   <string>Will you allow this app to always know your location?</string>

   <key>NSLocationWhenInUseUsageDescription</key>
   <string>Do you allow this app to know your current location?</string>  

Follow these steps:

I ran into the same issue with an app that needed "Always Authorization", and resolved it by following these steps:

1. Add NSLocationWhenInUseUsageDescription key to Info.plist

2. Add NSLocationAlwaysAndWhenInUseUsageDescription to Info.plist

3. Add NSLocationAlwaysUsageDescription to Info.plist (to support < iOS 11)

4. Call requestWhenInUseAuthorization() BEFORE requestAlwaysAuthorization()

You cannot execute requestAlwaysAuthorization() before requestWhenInUseAuthorization(). You must escalate to that permission level. Once I made these changes, location updates started working properly again.

More details can be found here:

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/corelocation/choosing_the_authorization_level_for_location_services/requesting_always_authorization

Tested on iOS 12.2 with Swift 5

Step 1. you must add following privacy permissions in plist file

<key>NSLocationAlwaysAndWhenInUseUsageDescription</key>
<string>Application requires user’s location for better user experience.</string>

<key>NSLocationAlwaysUsageDescription</key>
<string>Application requires user’s location for better user experience.</string>

<key>NSLocationWhenInUseUsageDescription</key>
<string>Application requires user’s location for better user experience.</string>

Step 2. make sure you have following swift code to get current locations

import UIKit
import MapKit
import CoreLocation

class ViewController: UIViewController, CLLocationManagerDelegate {

    // MARK: Variables declearations
    @IBOutlet weak var mapView: MKMapView!
    var locationManager: CLLocationManager!
    
    // MARK: View Controller life cycle methods
    override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()
        //TODO: Make user you must add following three privacy permissions in plist
        //NSLocationWhenInUseUsageDescription
        //NSLocationAlwaysAndWhenInUseUsageDescription
        //NSLocationAlwaysUsageDescription
        
        getCurrentLocation()
    }

    func getCurrentLocation()
    {
        if (CLLocationManager.locationServicesEnabled())
        {
            locationManager = CLLocationManager()
            locationManager.delegate = self
            locationManager.desiredAccuracy = kCLLocationAccuracyBest
            locationManager.requestAlwaysAuthorization()
            locationManager.startUpdatingLocation()
        }
    }
    
    // MARK: Location Manager Delegate methods
    func locationManager(_ manager: CLLocationManager, didUpdateLocations locations: [CLLocation])
    {
        let locationsObj = locations.last! as CLLocation
        print("Current location lat-long is = \(locationsObj.coordinate.latitude) \(locationsObj.coordinate.longitude)")
        showOnMap(location: locationsObj)
    }
    func locationManager(_ manager: CLLocationManager, didFailWithError error: Error) {
        print("Get Location failed")
    }
    
    func showOnMap(location: CLLocation )
    {
        let center = CLLocationCoordinate2D(latitude: location.coordinate.latitude, longitude: location.coordinate.longitude)
        let region = MKCoordinateRegion(center: center, span: MKCoordinateSpan(latitudeDelta: 0.01, longitudeDelta: 0.01))
        mapView.setRegion(region, animated: true)
    }
}

Better safe than sorry .. In iOS 11 : Add the below and you are good.

<key>NSLocationWhenInUseUsageDescription</key>
<string>Description</string>

<key>NSLocationAlwaysAndWhenInUseUsageDescription</key>
<string>Description</string>

<key>NSLocationAlwaysUsageDescription</key>
<string>Description</string>

Swift : 3 i have faced the same issue. i was totally screwed up finding the solution. here is how i fixed the issue.

step-1 : Project file > Capabilities > background modes > select Location Update

step-2 : Add NSLocationWhenInUseUsageDescription , NSLocationAlwaysAndWhenInUseUsageDescription keys to Info.plist

step-3 :

manager.pausesLocationUpdatesAutomatically = false
manager.allowsBackgroundLocationUpdates = true