Cannot enable notifications

[Clark G.]

Greetings!

I figured I'd post this here as my issue seems to be specific to just one device. The notifications work fine on my other devices.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold2 5G
Android: 13
Kernel: 4.19.113-blahblahblah
Software up to date, no updates available.

This has been an ongoing issue for quite a while (over a year), it comes and goes but I'm really getting irritated with it. I am unable to enable notifications for certain apps, the slider is available but nothing happens when you try and toggle it. What's really got me scratching my head is that these apps are somehow flagged as system apps. Obviously while cat games are mission critical to my quality of life, they are not system apps.

If I go into into Settings > Notifications > App notifications > they are not listed. I have to show system apps for them to be listed. Once I'm able to pull up the details it just shows that the allow notifications option is disabled. I can't enable it. Likewise if I go to Settings > Apps > and pull up the app, under the Privacy section there is no Notifications option.

The apps are not set to deep sleep and I have tried restarting the phone, clearing cache/date, uninstalling/reinstalling. I've had limited success with toggling the battery setting between unrestricted/optimized/restricted and restarting but that doesn't always work. Wiping the device is the least desirable of options as it's my personal phone. I'm really hoping I'm missing something ridiculously obvious. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! What cat games are you referring to?

 

[Laura Knotek]

Have these cat apps updated recently?

 

[Clark G.]

No the apps have not been updated recently, the issue comes and goes as well. The fact that it's happening to multiple apps and not one specifically is leading me to believe there's something going on with the OS itself though I can't figure out what other settings to check. Castle Cats is one of them and I play this multiple times daily hence the need for notifications. The other apps I've found that share the same symptoms are, Alien Hive, C.A.T.S., and TerraGenesis.

 

[Laura Knotek]

No the apps have not been updated recently, the issue comes and goes as well. The fact that it's happening to multiple apps and not one specifically is leading me to believe there's something going on with the OS itself though I can't figure out what other settings to check. Castle Cats is one of them and I play this multiple times daily hence the need for notifications. The other apps I've found that share the same symptoms are, Alien Hive, C.A.T.S., and TerraGenesis.

By "not updated recently" how long has it been? I just checked Castle Cats and see it got an update last month. Perhaps the update will solve the problem.

 

[Clark G.]

Castle Cats updates roughly every 2 months whenever there's a new event released and the notifications issue does not appear to correlate with the updates. So in screenshots 1 and 2 in Settings > Apps you can see there's no notifications options in the privacy section and it's up to date. And in 3 and 4 in Settings > Notifications you can see what I mean by it's only listed when I show system apps. I've submitted tickets about it before but since it's working on their devices, there's not much they can do which I completely understand.

This is happening with multiple apps, this is one that I use all the time so I notice when I'm not getting notifications.

 

[B. Diddy]

Any power-saving modes turned on, or 3rd party battery saver apps installed? This might kill apps in the background too aggressively, thus preventing those apps from waking up in order to give you a notification.

 

[Clark G.]

No power saving apps installed and I've set the battery usage to unrestricted. Toggling the battery usage and restarting the device has worked in the past with maybe a 30% success rate?

 

[B. Diddy]

I just tested by installing Castle Cats on my Galaxy A32 5G, and I see the same thing -- no option for Notifications in the Settings>Apps page for that app. It must be a problem on the dev's side -- have you sent feedback to the dev, or only to Google/Samsung?

EDIT: I just tried it on my Pixel 7 Pro -- it shows a Notifications option in the menu, but the toggle is greyed out, and there's a note saying that "This app does not send notifications." Do you know for sure that the game is supposed to send notifications?

An additional data point -- I tried it on my Pixel 1st gen (running Android 10), and the Notification toggle is not greyed out there. So maybe there's an issue where the dev hasn't properly targeted Android 13 in the app's code?

 

[Clark G.]

Oh yes, absolutely sure that this app sends notifications. I've opened tickets to the devs multiple times about this issue, they're extremely helpful. I'll open up another one and see what they have to say. I'm still not sure about the other apps from the other parties but one app at a time I suppose.

On a side note I did install another game put out by the same company, it's pretty much the exact same game but with dogs instead of cats and the notifications are working fine on that one.

 

[FuriousFive]

Pretty much exact same thing is happening to me on S23, but with OpenTable restaurant reservation app. Notifications item missing entirely from app settings page, and if I go to App Notifications settings I have to show system apps for OpenTable to appear in the list at all. And when I choose OpenTable from that list after showing system apps, the Allow Notifications toggle is greyed out and there is a message saying all notifications for this app are blocked. The one somewhat atypical thing I did with this app was I had given it permission to send me notifications while do not disturb was on for a short time. But the behavior is the same now whether I allow it to bypass dnd or not.

It's definitely not the app version...I have the same app version running on an old S10 and notifications are working fine there.

 

[mustang7757]

Pretty much exact same thing is happening to me on S23, but with OpenTable restaurant reservation app. Notifications item missing entirely from app settings page, and if I go to App Notifications settings I have to show system apps for OpenTable to appear in the list at all. And when I choose OpenTable from that list after showing system apps, the Allow Notifications toggle is greyed out and there is a message saying all notifications for this app are blocked. The one somewhat atypical thing I did with this app was I had given it permission to send me notifications while do not disturb was on for a short time. But the behavior is the same now whether I allow it to bypass dnd or not.

It's definitely not the app version...I have the same app version running on an old S10 and notifications are working fine there.

Welcome to AC!
I just download your app to test and it has blocked notification so this something you need to contact the app developer and explain to them to fix