no notifications or delayed notifications

[mytickets617]

• Device: iphone, ipad various versions
• iOS version: 16.5
• Delta Chat version: 1.36.4
• Server: Dovecot, push enabled
• Expected behavior: receive a notification on new IM
• Actual behavior: no notifications
• Description:
  There are multiple DC support and github threads, previously closed, reporting same issue. Not clear why they were closed though as same issue remains unresolved. This renders the app useless as a Chat tool. The suggested AppleMail workaround is not feasable. Here is the latest, which references several prior tickets:
  https://support.delta.chat/t/notifications-missed-updates-on-ios-mailbox-org/2559

[r10s]

yeah, notifications are annoying.

notifications are tricky on ios when not using a central server or at least the help of the mail servers.

current expected behaviour is that we really make use of the time slots the system provides to us - at best, this is every ~20 minutes a slot of max. 30 seconds. when the app is used less often, even less. apple throttles things here, we cannot do things about that.

can you please provide more information about what is shown in "settings / connectivity view" and in the log "settings / advanced / view log". might, of course, be, there is a bug.

cmp. deltachat/deltachat-core-rust#4420 for ongoing and https://github.com/deltachat/deltachat-ios/issues?q=label%3Anotify for past improvements - you see, we have this issue on the radar all the time, but we usually track only really actionable items

[mytickets617]

Yes, I read all the threads spanning years back regarding the issue. As silly as it sounds users simply reject the app, not iDevices, when presented with iOS limitations. Android/PC users will be forced to use whichever chat iOS can support as well, although no apparent issues with Android/PC. Won't be able to get traction if this is unresolved. I'd say this is a priority, not just cosmetics.

*Settings/Connectivity
Incoming
Inbox: Connected
DeltaChat: Connected
Notifications: Connected
Outgoing
Last message sent successfully.
Storage on xxx.yyy
Not supported by your provider.

Settings/Advanced/Log:
Which Log keys do you need to see? Can't post it all here for obvious reasons. Posting some for now.
notify-enabled=true
notify-remote-launch=0x
notify-remote-receive=4x since 12:00 AM, last 2 min
notify-local-wakeup=0x
notify-timestamps-launch=
notify-fetch-info2= [lists 4 lines with sattelite icon]
backgroundRefreshStatus=available
DEBUG=0
deltachatcoreversion=v1.112.7

[r10s]

thanks for coming back!

Notifications: Connected

that should show more information, sth. as:

Which Log keys do you need to see?

to get a grip on this issue, all parts of the log may be of interest (in fact, it is not a log but mainly a list of variables), you can of course remove personal information as name or email. esp. the part above arch=64 is interesting:

notify-remote-launch=0x

seems as if the remote wakeup does not work - it is known not to work in DEBUG mode - what is shown for you in the corresponding line in the log?

[mytickets617]

Debug value was reported above. Also, pretty much all vars above arch=64 were reported as well. The only thing I did not provide is sattelite marked values. Is this what you need?
The iphone device was sitting without anyone touching for the past ~2hr. It received 1 notification just now surprisingly. Also, now "Notifications:" lists "Delayed, Checked at 06:17 PM, 05:52 PM, 05:26 PM, On average every 25 minutes." Can't say if the app was in the background or foreground though.

[r10s]

yip, the "sattelite" and other icon stuff is important as well as everything above (that shows times)

[JoeMcNuggets]

I've lost a log file, but I'm sure I've seen the next case:

• all the checks successfully passed in the time message arrived
• no notification received

I have to idease:

• iOS allows app to fetch messages, but it can't send notification for some reason
• iOS allows app to wake up, but it can't pull messages for some reason

[r10s]

concrete actionable items to target this issue are in #2009, #2010 and #1830 now.

we aim to do a testflight with these changes soon. if there are remaining issues with polling every ~20 minutes, we'll open on-point

main remaining issue of the initial report is the "feature proposal" of doing notifications with the help of servers (you cannot have instant notifications without on iOS, IMAP push does not work on iOS, btw). we aim to move forward on that also soon :)

[r10s]

notify-remote-launch=0x

we just released 1.42.7 on testflight, can you please check, if that notify-token etc. show something meaningful meanwhile? and what "connectivity" shows?

and there should be no crashes, esp. not in the background.

note: 1.42.7 does not push from server to device (that requires adapted servers), but should poll at about every 20 minutes in case the app is in use. otherwise, apple still throttles, there is not much we can do about it - but of course, we should fix all bugs avoids making use of the few slots, as we aimed for in the past, as good as we can :)

[link2xt]

note: 1.42.7 does not push from server to device (that requires adapted servers), but should poll at about every 20 minutes in case the app is in use.

There is a core 1.132.1 tagged with a fix deltachat/deltachat-core-rust#5102 merged in fixing the polling.

Without the fix background fetch almost always exited immediately after connecting and before doing actual fetching work and going IDLE.

Slightly longer-term there is a plan to use dedicated background fetch core call: deltachat/deltachat-core-rust#5104

[r10s]

thanks for clarifying, there is now Testflight 1.42.8 using core 1.132.1 that should eventually improve notifications as described :)

[r10s]

1.44 meanwhile has "real" PUSH notifications for supporting providers and also fixes quite some crashes that slow down notifications otherwise.

closing this issue as i do not see an actionable item left.

if needed, please file a new issue for 1.44 with fresh information.