Why aren't I receiving Gmail push notifications on the Galaxy S6?

[enb123]

Can anyone tell me whether this problem also affects Exchange notifications and regular SMS/MMS messages? I am on the fence about getting an S6, and I could live with a bug that affects Gmail and Hangouts - which I'm sure will be fixed - but I need to have my Exchange email and SMS/MMS working properly.

 

[Allen Gregg]

Well, I bought a Note 5 (Verizon) two days ago and it's doing the exact same thing. Spent a good amount of time with Verizon tech support last night on the phone with someone who did know his stuff overall, but neither of us could figure it out. Went through pretty much every suggestion that's in the 5 pages of posts here. He had me just set up a Gmail account via the default mail app on the phone and it worked for a few hours, and now it's not sending me push notifications either... only when I manually check.

This is a big inconvenience for many, but critical for others. Example - if you have a home security camera system that pushes a warning to you if people are lurking around the house.... it does no good to get that notice an hour later after they've already broken in and got away. :-\

At this point may try a completely different mail address/service but sounds like the issue is deeper than that . But really, it's not in the settings. I migrated over to this phone via an iPhone 6 and it still gets the notifications within seconds.

 

[Allen Gregg]

UPDATE: Went into one service I use for notifications and put in a Yahoo email address - added the Yahoo mail app to my phone. Every notification came in within seconds.... (SEE UPDATE IN NEXT POST, THOUGH).

So it tells me at least, it's not the phone or Android or the carrier - it's Google/Gmail. A shame I had to resort to a Yahoo email address to fix this. But considering this thread is months old and there still aren't any fixes, I doubt Google's really giving a big *&#$ about it or it would be fixed. Oh well. Anyway... if you are using some sort of service that sends out instant alerts, all I can tell folks is set up an email address with another service for that purpose. If you reply on Gmail for instant business communications, I guess everyone's going to continue to be out of luck for a while. :-(

 

[Allen Gregg]

UPDATE (again - sorry): Sorry.. but wanted to update one last time because in my last post it SEEMED like switching to Yahoo mail fixed the issue. Wound up not - worked fine for an hour or so then off and on and then not at all. Spent more time on tech support ... no answers. Going back to the store today. :-!

 

[Allen Gregg]

Re: Not receiving Gmail push notifications on Galaxy S6

Do not return your phone, it will happen to all the newer phones. It is a known issue and being resolved as we speak, be patient, i saw this over a month ago and now there might be a resolution. Can't discuss details yet. Will keep this post updated when it takes affect.

Oddly enough it's now 9/2/15 and you posted this "it's being fixed as we speak" comment two months ago. Are we still speaking? Because Samsung hasn't fixed it yet. lol

 

[ImTheWolfman]

Re: Not receiving Gmail push notifications on Galaxy S6

Well I've been using my Note 5 for four days and some change now. I've tweaked about every setting in the device, moreso just exploring and getting the battery consumption where I want it than worrying about my push notifications. After a while, I noticed my push notifications seemed to get more frequent. At one point when I was using another device and not my Note, it started notifying me when I didn't necessarily want it to and actually had to mute notifications! Long story short I'm not 100% sure what exactly I did to get my push notifications working..

One thing I did to troubleshoot though is something I saw suggested elsewhere. The process was as follows:

1. Log out of hangouts
2. Uninstall the updates for Hangouts to revert to the original factory version
3. Clear the cache for Hangouts
4. Reboot
5. Log back into Hangouts BEFORE updating
6. Log back into Hangouts and set it up the way I want
7. Update Hangouts

After this, my push notifications seemed to be at the very least less flaky. It's almost to the point now where I don't feel the need to check my phone to see if I missed anything because it simply hasn't happened yet, Hangouts or Gmail.

I apologize for those primarily affected by the email issue as I know this probably doesn't help you as much, but my email push notifications were significantly delayed if not almost nonexistent before and they are going through just fine now. However, I do have somewhat of a workaround that I was using since my Gmail wasn't working at one point either. I just used the pre-installed email client, which has an option to retrieve instantly (also one for 15 minutes) which seemed to work just fine. Alongside that I had my Gmail app also installed. Between the two, I don't think I missed any emails. I'm actually considering dropping my Gmail out of the default mailbox now simply because I think Gmail is giving me proper notification (finally!)

I think the only thing I did NOT do on my phone to try to solve the problems I had was reset to factory. I couldn't bring myself to do that, especially since I had just gotten the phone last week! I think the closest I got to figuring out exactly what it was still had something to do with the WiFi settings.

Here are some other steps that I took to troubleshoot this problem and unfortunately a couple others (mainly battery life). I apologize as this is a bit off topic but they were things that were changed regardless. Hopefully they will help someone:
---
Under Wifi > More > Smart network switch (I turned this OFF, from what I hear this is what helps control the VoIP transition to Cellular. This makes no difference to me)

Under Mobile Networks > Mobile Data > Enhanced 4G LTE services (I also turned this OFF. I'm not sure how much this will have to do with Notifications but I did find this to be a battery hog)

The last thing I did was actually not something with my device. Since this seemed to be more affected by WiFi, I made IPv6 local link only on my home router. Once again I'm not sure if this actually helped the issue or not but it was changed none-the-less. I did see several people mention IPv6 which is why I did this.

At one point during troubleshooting I did reset all of my connection settings which is under More connection settings. I think this was probably midway through my troubleshooting. I don't think it helped much at the time but may have helped ultimately.
---
I apologize again, I know my troubleshooting isn't in the proper order. I didn't document anything as I went along, this was all just from memory. Ultimately I'm holding onto hope that Marshmallow will solve more problems than it could (possibly) create! For now though, my problems seem to be fixed.

 

[felloffthetruck]

Re: Not receiving Gmail push notifications on Galaxy S6

Note 5 order = On Hold. :'(

 

[Allen Gregg]

Re: Not receiving Gmail push notifications on Galaxy S6

However, I do have somewhat of a workaround that I was using since my Gmail wasn't working at one point either. I just used the pre-installed email client, which has an option to retrieve instantly (also one for 15 minutes) which seemed to work just fine. Alongside that I had my Gmail app also installed. Between the two, I don't think I missed any emails.

Of the huge list of things the Verizon/Samsung techs had me do to my phone, that was one of the first - to use the pre-installed email app. Worked for about 15 minutes, then stopped working. It's almost as if there's some background software that keeps kicking the push email settings back to "not working" or something, but it even happens in safe mode. Glad it worked in your case, though. Hopefully it will continue to do so. Had to take my Note back yesterday so just switched back to my old phone.

Posted about it on Samsung's Facebook page - their response, "Sorry you're having trouble... let us know if there's anything else we can do for you". Um - ok.

 

[anon(153966)]

Re: Not receiving Gmail push notifications on Galaxy S6

I've been testing this for about 30 minutes or so. To me, the issue is when the device is in 'sleep mode', i.e. when the screen is off.
If the screen is on, and you send yourself a test email, it delivers instantly. If the screen is off, it could be anything from 1-5 minutes. Now, if you wake the screen, during the time an email was sent, it will deliver. This ONLY seems to be with GMail; my other accounts work as expected...

 

[Wildo6882]

Re: Not receiving Gmail push notifications on Galaxy S6

This is the sole reason I got rid of my S6 (two of them) and an Active. And why I'm staying away from the Note 5 for now. I really wish this would get figured out, as I otherwise loved those phones. But I just can't use them if notifications aren't coming through. I don't know why this isn't more widely talked about.

 

[ImTheWolfman]

Re: Not receiving Gmail push notifications on Galaxy S6

I've been testing this for about 30 minutes or so. To me, the issue is when the device is in 'sleep mode', i.e. when the screen is off.

Exactly, those were where my issues were as well. By the sounds of it I think that's where most people are seeing their issues.

This is the sole reason I got rid of my S6 (two of them) and an Active. And why I'm staying away from the Note 5 for now. I really wish this would get figured out, as I otherwise loved those phones. But I just can't use them if notifications aren't coming through. I don't know why this isn't more widely talked about.

I agree with you, it took me a while to find any threads that really applied too. Everywhere I searched it seemed like I would find something but it would be dated at least a year in the past if not more... Sorry to hear that swayed your purchase decision. I honestly didn't know about this before I purchased. For a while I was thinking the same thing but honestly now (granted my notifications seem to be functioning, at least for the most part. Sorry!) I think I would purchase the same phone again given the opportunity.

I'm still very hopeful that Marshmallow will come along and really help these problems go away...

 

[anon(153966)]

Re: Not receiving Gmail push notifications on Galaxy S6

Exactly, those were where my issues were as well. By the sounds of it I think that's where most people are seeing their issues.



I agree with you, it took me a while to find any threads that really applied too. Everywhere I searched it seemed like I would find something but it would be dated at least a year in the past if not more... Sorry to hear that swayed your purchase decision. I honestly didn't know about this before I purchased. For a while I was thinking the same thing but honestly now (granted my notifications seem to be functioning, at least for the most part. Sorry!) I think I would purchase the same phone again given the opportunity.

I'm still very hopeful that Marshmallow will come along and really help these problems go away...

Being on carriers like AT&T, it may be a while before we 'officially' see the Marshmallow OS.

 

[ImTheWolfman]

Re: Not receiving Gmail push notifications on Galaxy S6

Being on carriers like AT&T, it may be a while before we 'officially' see the Marshmallow OS.

This was one of the reasons I was very hesitant to switch from iOS to Android... I'm being hopeful and optimistic though. I ALMOST decided to hold out for the next Nexus phone for this reason.

 

[jetspeedz]

Re: Not receiving Gmail push notifications on Galaxy S6

This is outright shameful that people don't read.

I already posted the solution and issues, I was the first one to discover this problem when the phone first came out, guess people want to continue to speculate and make assumptions. This is not something new or unknown!!!

 

[ImTheWolfman]

Re: Not receiving Gmail push notifications on Galaxy S6

This is outright shameful that people don't read.

I already posted the solution and issues, I was the first one to discover this problem when the phone first came out, guess people want to continue to speculate and make assumptions. This is not something new or unknown!!!

In my case, I just don't like the "sit and wait" philosophy, and I'm sure others don't as well. I'm sure it's also a motivator that some peoples' issues seem to be at least partially resolved.

 

[jetspeedz]

Re: Not receiving Gmail push notifications on Galaxy S6

You don't have to sit and wait, if you read my post and understand what you can do now, your phone will work as good any phone without this issues using a non nextgen APN. It is a very simple fix and it works until the mobile issues is resolved in your area. This is not complicated, all the people who avoided this device or returned it, simply can't read or ask questions if they don't understand. The issue is fixed folks, simple as that.

I like most before the issues was acknowledged, spent weeks trying to fix it and troubleshoot. Don't fight it and lose any sleep over it, read my post and you will have a working phone.

 

[ImTheWolfman]

Re: Not receiving Gmail push notifications on Galaxy S6

You don't have to sit and wait, if you read my post and understand what you can do now, your phone will work as good any phone without this issues using a non nextgen APN. It is a very simple fix and it works until the mobile issues is resolved in your area. This is not complicated, all the people who avoided this device or returned it, simply can't read or ask questions if they don't understand. The issue is fixed folks, simple as that.

I like most before the issues was acknowledged, spent weeks trying to fix it and troubleshoot. Don't fight it and lose any sleep over it, read my post and you will have a working phone.

Okay I will admit I know nothing about APNs. I read back and finally found your post about APNs and I know how to find them on the phone. What exactly do I need to do, just create a new APN with the exact same settings, but omitting IPv6?

As a side note, I already have disabled IPv6 on my home router.

Thanks and apologies for not thoroughly reading your message sooner.

 

[anon(153966)]

Re: Not receiving Gmail push notifications on Galaxy S6

You don't have to sit and wait, if you read my post and understand what you can do now, your phone will work as good any phone without this issues using a non nextgen APN. It is a very simple fix and it works until the mobile issues is resolved in your area. This is not complicated, all the people who avoided this device or returned it, simply can't read or ask questions if they don't understand. The issue is fixed folks, simple as that.

I like most before the issues was acknowledged, spent weeks trying to fix it and troubleshoot. Don't fight it and lose any sleep over it, read my post and you will have a working phone.

Because of you, I just re-read three pages of this thread. So if I'm understanding we need to turn off IPv6 within the APN settings?

If so, interesting...

 

[enb123]

You don't have to sit and wait, if you read my post and understand what you can do now, your phone will work as good any phone without this issues using a non nextgen APN. It is a very simple fix and it works until the mobile issues is resolved in your area. This is not complicated, all the people who avoided this device or returned it, simply can't read or ask questions if they don't understand. The issue is fixed folks, simple as that.

I like most before the issues was acknowledged, spent weeks trying to fix it and troubleshoot. Don't fight it and lose any sleep over it, read my post and you will have a working phone.

Do you have a link to anything that explains the problem and the proposed fix you say is in the works, other than your forum posts? An article, bulletin or something like that? Because I can't find anything of the sort but perhaps I'm not searching for the right terms or misunderstanding you. Please provide some backup for your position so we can all fully understand.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[jetspeedz]

Here is what you guys need to do on ATT, and it does not matter what phone you get as most of the new ones, not just Samsung use the next gen APN. Now there is a problem with the S6/E when it comes to Wifi if you use ipv6 but that is easily remedied if you disable ipv6 on your router. As far as the mobile issue, the network timer ATT uses on IPv4 does not expire or if it does it is set to at least 1800sec based on what ATT advertises. IPv6 on the other hand was supposed to use the same timer, however it turned out thanks to a friend of mine who found out that it expired before 300sec which is ~5mins. When i found this issue initially i contacted Samsung and ATT about this and they had never heard of it and told me i was the first to report it. Well i duplicated my tests for weeks and found that it timed out at 600sec which was my baseline at 10 mins to retest the email notification and other apps which were GCM or NAT dependent. Long story short after a few calls to ATT UTC and my friend going through his Business channels in high up meetings with ATT, it was agreed to fix this problem, thus they rolled out the fix first in silicone valley and slowly across the nation. I just found out mine was resolved 3 weeks after it was first resolved in San Francisco area and im near Los Angeles, so those of you on the east coast it will get fixed in due time. Now why it was setup this way and other details I can not discuss for obvious reasons. The mere fact I'm sharing this information with you all is to help you understand that returning your phone and complaining about nonsense will not fix the issue. You guys can all buy my friend a beer if he wants to come out and tell you the details himself but in the meantime the work around is below in the image. Set your mobile APN to what I have and it will work like your s5 or S4 or Blackberry, etc...

Network Timers | AT&T Developer

Set your APN like this: