Summary

Mobile devices receive ”ghost” notifications for already read messages, when set to receive notifications ”when Away or offline”, and receiving user is set to be Away.

Steps to reproduce

1. Set ”Mobile Push Notifications” to ”Trigger push notifications when”: ”Away or offline” (and send ”For all activity”)
2. Using web interface on desktop, set your status to Away
3. (Still in the web interface) receive a message in the currently open channel (which immediately marks it read)

Expected behavior

Nothing happens on the mobile device (no notification).

Observed behavior (that appears unintentional)

The mobile device receives a notification about the already read message. The notification immediately disappears. If you weren’t looking at the device, you’re left wondering why it alerted you.

Other info

If your status is set to Online instead of Away (at step 2), the mobile device receives no notification (as expected). If ”Trigger push notifications when” is set to ”Online, away or offline” (at step 1), the mobile device receives no notification irrespective of your Online/Away status (also as expected).

Environment Information

I’m self-hosting Mattermost 5.26.1 with self-hosted MMPNS 5.22.4. Mattermost Mobile is at version 1.34.0. My mobile devices have Android 10 (Samsung) and Android 7.1.2 (LineageOS 14.1).

I don’t know if this is an issue with the client or the server; I can re-report against the latter if appropriate.