Yup, your description of the issue is exactly right @agnivade, and thanks for looking into this!

I set up the two users in parallel windows. Sending a normal message as userB this way does not trigger the issue (I do get a notification on userA’s phone, but it doesn’t go away by itself), but that’s because userA’s window is (obviously) not active, since I’m typing in userB’s window. The notification is only cleared once I activate userA’s window.

But I can trigger the issue by using (for instance) /echo 'hello A' 4 instead (as userB), then hopping on to activate userA’s window during the 4-second delay, so that userA’s window is active when receiving the message. That’s the crucial bit: the receiver’s window is active when receiving the message. If his status is ’Online’, there’s no push notification (as expected), but if it’s ’Away’, that’s when I get the ghost notification.

Here’s server log and MPNS log during one minute where (as userB) I first send a normal message, then (at about 30 seconds) using /echo.