Android Q Beta 6 struggles with notifications
9
August, 2019
Android | Smartphones | Bug
Google recently released the last and final beta for Android Q, but it isn't immune to bugs.
Like any beta software it is almost doomed to have some bugs and kinks that has to be worked out. Android is a huge and complex operating system with tons of features to keep in mind. There is a reason why Google don't recommend that you run Android Betas on your daily driver, but since I'm over-the-top excited about the latest and greatest I always jump in with my head first.
There are always some smaller bugs, but generally the betas are very stable and you can use it just like normal phone. A big part of a normal phone is the notifications. We heavily rely on them, but somehow the notifications in the latest Android beta isn't that reliable.
I was wondering why I kept missing notifications after updating to the latest beta. A friend of mine mentioned that he had some issues with the new silent/alerting notification grouping, but I tried to explain how it was meant to work. However, just soon after that I would start noticing that it didn't work intended.
This is what the new notification settings looks like in Android Q. ->
You can see that there is a toggle to show notifications, you can chose weather you want them to alert you, stay silent or show a banner on screen. There is also a plethora of different options under the advanced tab. Normally, it is set to "Alerting" with "Pop on screen" toggled on. This means that whenever you get a notification it will chime and you will get a preview banner at the top of the screen.
If you press "Silent" the "Pop on screen" toggle will toggle off and then set it back to "Alerting", the "Pop on screen" won't automatically be toggled on again. That is something you have to be vary off. This could cause notifications to silently roll in, without showing you the preview banner.
<- This is what it is supposed to look like. Here you can see the preview banner that allows you to see what app it is from, who sent the message, you can quickly reply, custom reply or mark as read.
<- However, this is what actually happens. The notification gets grouped under the "Silent notifications" tab, meaning that it won't light up your screen, show the preview banner, make a chime or do anything to alert you. This is basically like "Do not disturb", but for a single notification. Don't get me Wong, it's a great idea, but not with this bug. I'm 100% sure they'll iron this out before the official release of Android Q later this year
As soon as another app sends an alerting notification, the "silent" notification jumps right back up, the "silent notifications" tab disappears and it behaves like normal.
This is a perfect example of this weird behavior. As you can see the notification is grouped under the "silent notifications" tab, but it is set to "Alerting". You can see that it is set tot "Alerting" because of that little bell icon. Very bizarre.
This issue has been reported to Google and you can see and star the issue here.
Are you running Android Q on your phone? Have you experienced this or similar issues with notifications? Please let me know down below! Thank you so much for reading!