Notifications Delayed or Stopped?

Will_T

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I am having this issue with all notifications, email, phone, Kuna, WhatsApp, gmail, etc. What happens is that once the screen/phone goes to sleep, notifications do not come through. If I take out the phone sometimes there is a notification icon in the top bar, but the audible sound is not working. As soon as I use my fingerprint to unlock the phone, the notification sound alerts go off. Very annoying as it worked perfectly up until now. If the phone was in my pocket and I got an email or text, etc., I would hear the alert tone and know to check. Now there is silence and unless I keep taking out my phone to manually check, I will not know I have anything waiting.
 
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Will_T

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Are any of those apps battery optimized, or do they have background data restricted?

Thanks! But no, I did see a post about that and followed the steps to make sure the apps had all access and not optimized. I have now actually turned off all the new battery optimization, Battery Saver, Adaptive Battery, and issue persists. It is very strange that as soon as I wake up the screen with my fingerprint, all notifications instantly come through. It is as though once the screen locks to sleep, all notifications stop. I can't find a setting for that though.
 

Will_T

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Background data is unrestricted. I tried that first. I have no 3rd party battery apps. This started immediately after installing Pie. I first noticed it within a minute or so as when I unplugged the phone after install and restart, I walked out the front door and set off the Kuna camera and noticed right away that I did not get the typical immediate alert. I took the phone out of my pocket and fingerprint awakened it and immediately the alert came through. Then I noticed the same thing with texts, whatsapp and gmail. No alerts until opening the phone and then in 1/2 second or less they come through. It is as though they are indeed on the phone waiting until I unlock it, then they sound off. If I have the phone awake in my hand and send an email, text, etc. the alerts are immediate.

I have not tried safe mode. I have also not tried a factory reset.

Another thing I noticed today was once I left my phone inside, face down on my desk and went outside. When I returned a couple of hours later the alerts for a text and for Kuna were sounding. This made me wonder if after a certain long length of time maybe the alerts come through even with the phone asleep. I will try to test this tomorrow by sending a text and email from my computer and setting off the Kuna and then leaving the phone alone for a long time to see if anything eventually comes through.
 

Nauga

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I am having this issue with all notifications, email, phone, Kuna, WhatsApp, gmail, etc. What happens is that once the screen/phone goes to sleep, notifications do not come through.
Has your phone also stopped making a charging sound when you plug it in? I noticed that I was having a similar problem with Gmail notifications yesterday, and this morning, I don't get a peep out of the phone when I plug it in.
 

Will_T

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Has your phone also stopped making a charging sound when you plug it in? I noticed that I was having a similar problem with Gmail notifications yesterday, and this morning, I don't get a peep out of the phone when I plug it in.

Interesting, I had not noticed as often the phone is off before I plug it in or it is after the time at night where it automatically goes to Do Not Disturb mode. But I just tried and it indeed no longer vibrates or sounds when I plug it in. Don't see how that is related though?
 

Will_T

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After some further testing and observation I have some additional information that may give someone a clue as to what might be causing this. I will detail the issue again also just so this post is clear.

Before the Pie update, if I missed an alert, notification, text, email, phone call, etc. what would happen is this: After the initial alert or ring, I would start to get periodic audible alerts from my phone so that I would know that something was waiting to be read. A typical scenario would be... I am mowing the lawn and don't hear a call and an alert from our front porch camera. When I shut off the mower, at some soon point my phone would sound my repeating missed notification tone and I would know to take it out of my pocket and see what was there.

After Pie, the initial alerts/rings are happening in two ways. If it is a phone call the phone rings as normal, but if I miss the call, the repeating audible alerts do not happen every 60 seconds as they are set to and as they did before Pie. If the missed event is something like a notification from Kuna that someone set off the front porch camera, or an email or text then even the initial alert does not come through.

I have tested a few things and noticed that if I shut off the screen or wait until the screen goes to sleep and then immediately send an email, the phone alerts as normal. If the screen has been asleep for a longer length of time, then the alerts do not come through. It is as though there is an initial sleep mode after the screen turns off when alerts come through normally. Then after a period of time the phone goes into a deeper sleep mode where the alerts do not come through.

I have tested one aspect of this as follows. Sent an email from computer and wait a few minutes and see that no notification comes through. Wake up the screen and immediately the alert sounds. This was tested with Kuna also. Walked out the front door and set off the camera. No alert comes to the phone like it did before Pie. Wake up the screen and immediately the alert sounds.

Finally I have figured out today that if I do not unlock phone for a (unknown, but at least 15 or 20 minutes), long period of time, eventually an alert will come through. It is as if phone does know after a long time of sleep, to wake and check for notifications? Another thing I just thought of when typing this that may cause this last behaviour is my weather app. I have that set to refresh every 20 minutes I think. Maybe when that app checks and refreshes, that is enough to let the other notifications through.

It does seem like some sort of PIE battery saving mode is preventing the phone from checking for missed notifications and alerting once the screen goes to sleep. But in my settings I do have Battery Saver and Adaptive Battery OFF.
 

speedtrap63

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Contacted Google about this and after some basic trouble shooting the connected me with Project Fi support. Fi had me delete the cache and storage from the Fi app and reregister. Reboot after reregistering. It has helped so far. I'm receiving calls whether the screen is on or off or locked. Don't know if it will continue but if you have Fi as your carrier it is worth a shot.
 

Will_T

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I have Verizon but I did figure out something although I plan to do a hard reset tonight regardless thinking that can only help.

There must be two stages of "sleep" for the phone. I referred to sleep as when the screen times out. But I think there is a 'deeper' sleep after that. What happened is that I set an app to "keep the phone awake". It still appears to me to sleep because the screen goes dark and times out as usual and I need to use my fingerprint to awake the display. But that setting in the app to keep it awake must have done something because now the notifications come through as they should. I don't like the idea of always keeping the phone "awake" though, (whatever that really means), as that seems like it would use up much battery even though the screen still times out.
 

Nauga

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Contacted Google about this and after some basic trouble shooting the connected me with Project Fi support. Fi had me delete the cache and storage from the Fi app and reregister. Reboot after reregistering. It has helped so far. I'm receiving calls whether the screen is on or off or locked. Don't know if it will continue but if you have Fi as your carrier it is worth a shot.
Thanks for the suggestion. I do use Fi, and with any luck resetting the app will help to prevent any more missed calls. It hasn't had any effect on notifications, though. At least not with Always On Display on. That still seems to be blocking my Gmail notifications.
 

speedtrap63

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Update: the Fi app fix didn't hold and I'm back to no incoming calls. I'll be contacting them again since they gave me a case number. I'll update after I speak with them.
 

speedtrap63

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Update#2: Spoke to Google Fi support again and they think it is my hardware, so they are replacing my phone. I am skeptical because so many of us have this issue but I’m willing to take one for the team!?????? Hey it might be worth it if it comes with Oreo instead. Only other downside is it’s a refurb.
I’ll let you all know how it goes.
 

Will_T

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I did a hard reset and reinstalled 3rd party apps one by one to force me to focus on them and see which ones I really don't use much or need. The phone is much faster, like new. A couple of apps, like Weather Underground, which would crash after the Pie update, work fine now. So I am very happy with the reset and will do it any time there is a major update to the phone.

But, it did not help the delayed notification problem very much. Gmail and SMS do usually alert once upon first arriving now so that is good. The repeating alerts often do not start though until I wake up the phone. On other apps the initial alert still does not come through unless the phone is awake or has just recently timed out. For example, if phone is awake, Kuna will send an alert as soon as motion triggers the camera and the phone will receive it. The secondary, repeating alerts then take over and go every minute until I acknowledge the event. But if the phone is asleep when Kuna is triggered, no initial alert or repeating alert happens until I wake the phone. Then the initial Kuna sound alert comes through, followed every minute by the repeating system sound alert, even after the phone times out. There are a few other apps that follow the same pattern.

​What I am thinking is that it might be an app related problem. Even though I am pretty sure I have every one of Pie's battery saving, adaptive battery, etc. turned off and background data on for those apps, it is almost like the apps can not break through Pie's sleep mode to allow an initial alert. Once an initial alert from an app does go off, then my 3rd party notification app takes over just fine with the repeating notifications. Maybe once the problem apps get an update for working well with Pie, things will improve. We shall just wait and see.
 

speedtrap63

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Great! Unfortunately my phone would no longer get incoming calls. The only way I would know if someone called me was if they left a voicemail. Didn't matter if phone was screen on or asleep. Replacement phone should be here today so I'll see if that helps.
 

Will_T

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Great! Unfortunately my phone would no longer get incoming calls. The only way I would know if someone called me was if they left a voicemail. Didn't matter if phone was screen on or asleep. Replacement phone should be here today so I'll see if that helps.

A friend with a Pixel 2 had the exact same issue after Pie installed and a reset fixed it.
 

Will_T

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FWIW, a poster on a different thread claims he solved his problem by killing off an ad blocker he was using.

I was using an ad blocker before I reset the phone. But I did not reinstall it after the reset. Notification sounds still delayed if the phone is asleep.
 

Nauga

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Turns out my problem was somehow related to the fact that I had disabled notifications in Chrome on the PC I use at work. I don't even remember doing that, and I don't really understand how that suddenly started affecting the notifications on my phone. Sync or no sync. Nevertheless, since re-enabling notifications in that browser, I'm back to hearing and seeing all of my Gmail notifications again.
 

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