Intercom iOS push: “Failed to register a device token -identity verification is not setup correctly” when using Expo + @intercom/intercom-react-native

I’m trying to integrate Intercom push notifications into my React Native app built with Expo (using a custom dev client). I’m using @intercom/intercom-react-native (latest version) and JWT authentication.

I can successfully:

• Generate a valid JWT (confirmed via jwt.io) with user_id and email.
• Log in the user in Intercom with matching userId and email.
• Verify that Intercom.isUserLoggedIn() returns true.
• Fetch the logged-in user attributes from Intercom, which match the JWT payload.

Here’s the code I’m using to set up push notifications:

export const setupIntercomPushNotifications = async (): Promise => {
  try {
    const { status: existingStatus } = await Notifications.getPermissionsAsync();
    let finalStatus = existingStatus;

    if (existingStatus !== "granted") {
      const { status } = await Notifications.requestPermissionsAsync();
      finalStatus = status;
    }

    if (finalStatus !== "granted") {
      console.log("❌ Push notification permissions not granted");
      return false;
    }

    // Get device token (native token, not Expo token)
    const { data: deviceToken } = await Notifications.getDevicePushTokenAsync();
    if (!deviceToken) {
      console.error("❌ Failed to get device push token");
      return false;
    }

    const isLoggedIn = await Intercom.isUserLoggedIn();
    console.log("🚀 ~ setupIntercomPushNotifications ~ isLoggedIn:", isLoggedIn);
    if (!isLoggedIn) {
      console.error("❌ User is not logged in to Intercom");
      return false;
    }

    const loggedInUser = await Intercom.fetchLoggedInUserAttributes();
    console.log("🚀 ~ setupIntercomPushNotifications ~ loggedInUser:", loggedInUser);

    // Send token to Intercom
    await Intercom.sendTokenToIntercom(deviceToken);
    console.log("✅ Device token successfully sent to Intercom");
    return true;
  } catch (error) {
    console.error(
      "❌ Error setting up Intercom push notifications:",
      JSON.stringify(error, null, 2)
    );
    return false;
  }
};

But when I call Intercom.sendTokenToIntercom(deviceToken), I consistently get this error on iOS:

ERROR – Failed to register a device token – identity verification is not setup correctly
code: 302
domain: IntercomSDKErrorDomain
NSLocalizedDescription: ERROR – Failed to register a device token – identity verification is not setup correctly

Additional details:

• Using Expo Dev Client on a real iOS device. APNs .p8 key has been uploaded to Intercom.
• App bundle ID matches the one configured in Intercom. JWT payload
• includes user_id and email, and expiration is valid. Intercom login
• works fine (isLoggedIn: true and attributes match). deviceToken
• returned from getDevicePushTokenAsync() looks valid

My question:
Why would Intercom reject the device token with “identity verification is not setup correctly” even though JWT login is working?