No status bar notifications for new mail on Nexus 4

[tyroaqdome]

I like AquaMail very much.

I believe that AquaMail can be made to show a notification in the Android status bar
when a new message arrives by push. My AquaMail emails are arriving, but I never see
a notification in the status bar. (I do see status bar notifications for my Gmail app and
for my text messages, but none for AquaMail.)

(I'm looking for a notification that only appears when new messages arrive, not an
AquaMail icon that is always on the status bar.)

I'm using Android 4.4.4 on a Nexus 4 with the stock interface (no skin). My carrier is
T-Mobile US.

Can anyone here help me?

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Do these messages arrive *unread*?

Aqua only posts notifications for unread messages.

And please check the app's settings - there is a checkbox for turning off notifications completely, it's in app settings -> message notifications.

Finally, Android has a "master kill switch" for all notifications, this is per-app. There have been cases where people had this set to "kill".

Please check this in system settings -> apps -> AquaMail (not the unlocker) -> tap to view its details -> the checkbox is labeled "show notifications".

I'm attaching a screenshot from a Samsung device, but this is a standard Android thing, Nexus devices have it too.

[tyroaqdome]

Thank you, Kostya. Your advice did the trick.

Under SETTINGS > APPS > AQUAMAIL, the SHOW NOTIFICATIONS box was unchecked.
I checked it, and problem solved.

[Kostya Vasilyev]

The setting defaults to "show" (enabled)... but you're not the first user who had it disabled.

I wonder if the Android system code (and it's a system level setting) somehow manages to change it on its own...

[pyler]

Sadly, no official API.
https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=38482

if you could call areNotificationsEnabledForPackage() in https://android.googlesource.com/platform/frameworks/base/+/refs/heads/master/services/java/com/android/server/NotificationManagerService.java ... but it's hidden.

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Right, there is no API, and it's intentional -- so the user can force an app to shut up, even if the app doesn't want to.

Did you notice that turning off status bar notifications *also* turns off toast messages?

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/android-developers/K7pjy3Gm5Lk/YT9w_fHDaeQJ

The comments on that thread are priceless:

2013/1/16 Tobias Lindberg <tobias.e.lindberg@gmail.com>:
> Definetly a bug, no one would be stupid enough to do that on purpose. Or at
> least I hope so.
>
>
> 2013/1/15 Kevin Duffey <andjarnic@gmail.com>
>>
>> Indeed that is important.. why would a toast notification be blocked by
>> that setting? Obviously a bug.. I can't imagine they meant to do that.
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 2:09 PM, Mark Murphy <mmurphy@commonsware.com>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Wow. That's an important find. Thanks for pointing this out!
>>>
>>> On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 4:31 PM, Harri Smått <harism@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> > Hi,
>>> >
>>> > There's a bug filed on Android bug database;
>>> >
>>> > http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=35013
>>> >
>>> > In other words, if you disable application notifications, Toasts also
>>> > are disabled for that particular application.

Filed in the Android bug tracker for just about two years, and pretty much ignored.

https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=35013

And trying to bring those things up goes nowhere (I made two comments about halfway down):

https://plus.google.com/+JeanBaptisteQueru/posts/N7Bozycqz1a

[pyler]

JBQ no longer works for Google, so small changes that something will be fixed.

Try create new issue on AOSP tracker. Maybe they will look on it now.

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Yes, I know he quit, but I hope he was not the only one fixing bugs in Android.

There already is a bug report in the tracker, I linked it above.

No changes in two years, but at least it's still open.

[scanno]

Yes, I know he quit, but I hope he was not the only one fixing bugs in Android.

There already is a bug report in the tracker, I linked it above.

No changes in two years, but at least it's still open.

Well bugs are getting fixed all the time. That does not mean they get merged into the master branch.

See https://android-review.googlesource.com

You can probably submit your own fixes if you want.

A nice gerrit system where you can browse all the submitted changes. Logging in with a Google account, you can also comment on the changes (as far as I can see). Have not submitted any changes so I cannot say anything on that.

[Kostya Vasilyev]

@scanno -- I opened that link, and see a lot of fixes related to 64 bit arch, build system...

Oh, I see a mention of the Camera app. It was one of the documented improvements in 4.4.3 and 4.4.4.

Meanwhile, there is still a bug with foreground services and swiping, reported against 4.1 and still not fixed in 4.4, affecting many apps.

Bugs and removed features in the new WebKit / WebView, affecting many apps (including stock Email on the Nexus 5).

Crashes in ListView, every Android app has them.

Connectivity issues on IPv6, which continues to gain traction.

Crashes in the spell checker, affecting many apps

These are all still there in 4.4, some reported as far back as 4.1.

But the camera starts up half a second faster. That's great.

[scanno]

Well one of the advantages of Android AOSP is that if you find the cause of a bug and know how to fix it, you can commit it to Gerrit.

Removed features can be added again if someone submits it.

If a developer finds a bug in the framework /dalvik /art, fixes it and submits it, I guess it will be merged.

I agree that this shows that solving bugs is not a high priority it seems.



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[Kostya Vasilyev]

In theory, yes.

In practice, first, not every fix would be accepted.

Second, as for me, I'm busy enough with my own stuff to do this.

Shouldn't Google be interested in fixing at least some of the most insidious bugs?

It's their product, isn't it? And the affect developer and user experience.

On features - speaking of WebView, there was a storm of comments in the bug tracker, pretty much all of them were closed with "won't fix, working as expected", which really means "Gmail works fine, Chrome works fine, the rest is someone else's problem".

And before someone says that Android is free -- don't know about others, but I've paid a lot for my "stable" of devices.

[pyler]

Report issue here:
https://code.google.com/p/android-developer-preview/wiki/FilingIssues?tm=3

Since it is an issue tracker for Android L Preview, it is bigger chance that Googlers will look on it.

[Kostya Vasilyev]

No, this issue is not related to the L at all.

It's been there in the "regular" tracker for a long time, two years.

And if there are too many bug reports in the L tracker that are unrelated to L, it'll just make the job harder for the Android team on the L proper (or they might ignore the L tracker altogether...)

[pyler]

Can reflection help?