Custom Notifications when app is in background or killed

[ckarthikv]

Hi,

I'd like to implement custom notification styles when app is in background or is killed. Is there a Firebase broadcast receiver class one could extend to implement the same? Would be very helpful. Thanks.

[samtstern]

@ckarthikv could you clarify this question a little bit? Are you trying to show different notification styles when your app is in the background versus when your app is running in the foreground?

[ashokmachineni]

Hi,
When i tried to implement this notification i get error like
Error:(28, 0) Plugin with id 'com.google.gms.google-services' not found.

[ckarthikv]

@samtstern - Yes, we wanted to implement custom notification styles like Big Picture style, etc, when the app is in background or when the app is killed. I believe the notifications would be working through a broadcast receiver?

Would be great if you could point me in the right direction so that one could intercept all kinds of messages (probably by extending the FirebaseBroadcastReceiver class) - whether the app is in background or killed, so that we could customize every aspect of the notification styles immaterial of the app state.

[thedumbtechguy]

Same problem. The icon being used is not what I want.
It is using the launcher icon while but the new guidelines require that we use a white on transparent icon. Also, the color is wrong.
I can't seem to find any way to customize this looking at the available methods.

Any help?

[samtstern]

@ckarthikv you can see this example of FirebaseMessagingService which is where your app can receive FCM messages and react. This is a good place to create notifications.

Telling if your Activity is in the foreground (and reacting differently) can be a little tricky. My favorite way is to register a local BroadcastReceiver in the Activity and then do a sendBroadcast from the service. You will get true from that method if your receiver is running (meaning your app is in the foreground), and false otherwise.

You can see an example of this (using GCM, but the logic is the same for FCM) here.

[samtstern]

@frostymarvelous when you send a notification from the Firebase console is uses your app icon by default, and the Android system will turn that icon solid white when in the notification bar.

If you are unhappy with that result you should implement FirebaseMessagingService and create the notifications manually when you receive a message. We are working on a way to improve this but for now that's the only way.

[thedumbtechguy]

@samtstern Both comments are incorrect.

Custom messaging service is only called when the app is in the foreground.

Android does not turn the icon white. It keeps its color.

I've already implemented FirebaseMessagingService for my app when it's in the foreground.
What we are asking for is how to handle it when it's in the background.

I don't understand why the notification is created automatically when FCM is meant to replace GCM. It is totally incompatible with the current flow.

[samtstern]

@frostymarvelous the behavior you are seeing sounds like a bug, in my apps the FirebaseMessagingService is definitely called when the app is in the background.

As far as the icon color, on recent versions of Android the system applies a white mask to the icon. What sort of device do you have and what version of Android is it running?

[thedumbtechguy]

An S6 running 5.1.1.

I think your behavior is the bug.

From the docs

"When your app is in the background on a user's device, notifications are
delivered to the system tray. When a user clicks on the notification, the
app launcher opens your app. If you want, you can also add client message
handling to receive notifications in your app when it is already in the
foreground on the user's device."

On Fri, May 20, 2016, 7:29 PM Sam Stern notifications@github.com wrote:

@frostymarvelous https://github.com/frostymarvelous the behavior you
are seeing sounds like a bug, in my apps the FirebaseMessagingService is
definitely called when the app is in the background.

As far as the icon color, on recent versions of Android the system applies
a white mask to the icon. What sort of device do you have and what version
of Android is it running?

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#4 (comment)

[samtstern]

Sorry @frostymarvelous I misunderstood your situation, you are correct. When you send a notification from the Firebase console and your app is in the background it cannot be customized.

If you want custom background notifications you should use the FCM API to send data messages to your app and handle them in the FirebaseMessagingService where you can decide how the notification should look.

[thedumbtechguy]

If that works, then I'm good.
I thought it behaved the same across.

Thanks a lot for your help.
If you're part of the team, then thanks for your hard work as well.

On Fri, May 20, 2016, 8:30 PM Sam Stern notifications@github.com wrote:

Sorry @frostymarvelous https://github.com/frostymarvelous I
misunderstood your situation, you are correct. When you send a notification from
the Firebase console and your app is in the background it cannot be
customized.

If you want custom background notifications you should use the FCM API to
send data messages to your app and handle them in the
FirebaseMessagingService where you can decide how the notification should
look.

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#4 (comment)

[samtstern]

@frostymarvelous ok thanks for your patience while I figured out what was going on.

Please feel free to open issues if you try this approach and have questions. Good luck!

[Svoka]

@samtstern I can't find an example of FCM API and how to manage the custom icon.
Do you have an example of this? I'm new to cloud messaging and I only find that there is a parameter icon, but no details how to implement it in my app
Thank you!

[samtstern]

Here is the documentation for sending Notification messages.

The icon parameter can be used to specify a drawable within your app. If you want to use R.drawable.foo, just pass foo.

[Svoka]

@samtstern thank you for the doc link, really helpfull.

Console has custom params when sending a message,
must the custom icon work there too? ( In my test this is still the app icon, but I can do something wrong)

[thedumbtechguy]

It will only work if your app is in the foreground. Otherwise, you have to
use the the api.

On Tue, May 24, 2016, 7:48 PM Artem Osipov notifications@github.com wrote:

@samtstern https://github.com/samtstern thank you for the doc link,
really helpfull.

Console has custom params when sending a message,
must the custom icon work there too? ( In my test this is still the app
icon, but I can do something wrong)

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#4 (comment)

[samtstern]

As far as I am aware it is not possible to customize the icon through the
console right now, but that is a high-priority feature for us going forward.

On Tue, May 24, 2016 at 12:48 PM Artem Osipov notifications@github.com
wrote:

@samtstern https://github.com/samtstern thank you for the doc link,
really helpfull.

Console has custom params when sending a message,
must the custom icon work there too? ( In my test this is still the app
icon, but I can do something wrong)

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#4 (comment)

[kroikie]

The key value pairs currently available in the Firebase composer are for data message values only.

[thedumbtechguy]

Do we need to customize it through console? Can't we just add it as a
config parameter? Thanks would be better
Don't forget the colors as well please?

Once again, thanks for the great job you all are doing!

On Tue, May 24, 2016, 8:47 PM Sam Stern notifications@github.com wrote:

As far as I am aware it is not possible to customize the icon through the
console right now, but that is a high-priority feature for us going
forward.

On Tue, May 24, 2016 at 12:48 PM Artem Osipov notifications@github.com
wrote:

@samtstern https://github.com/samtstern thank you for the doc link,
really helpfull.

Console has custom params when sending a message,
must the custom icon work there too? ( In my test this is still the app
icon, but I can do something wrong)

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#4 (comment)

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#4 (comment)

[kroikie]

It would have to be through the console since the client side handler does not reference any of your specified remote config parameters.

[thedumbtechguy]

Well, I thought that would work through the Configuration in the
Application class. I wonder how that would work since we can't tell the
value of whatever R.drawable.foo will be.

On Tue, May 24, 2016, 9:51 PM Arthur Thompson notifications@github.com
wrote:

It would have to be through the console since the client side handler does
not reference any of your specified remote config parameters.

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#4 (comment)

[bosbefok]

I'm having a similar issue getting the notifications customized. I'm not using the console at all - only making API calls. When app is in foreground notifications get handled by my custom FirebaseMessagingService, but when app is in the background notification displays solid white icon and ignores any specified payload support parameters (icon, color etc).

Please advise whether this is expected as the behaviour appears to contradict comments made in this thread as well as #8

[Svoka]

@DespisedIcon I had the similar problem, but it was my mistake I set it in the data section and it must be in the notification.
Like this:

'to' => '_PHONE_ID_', "notification"=>array( 'title'=>"Test", 'body'=>"Test2", "icon"=>"ic_stat_ic_notification" // R.drawable.ic_stat_ic_notification )

[bosbefok]

@Svoka Thanks for the tip. I've moved the icon parameter into the notification and now I'm getting the message

W/FirebaseMessaging: Icon resource icon ic_stat_logo not found. Notification will use app icon.

This same icon (R.drawable.ic_stat_logo) is being used for foreground notification builder without any issues.

NotificationCompat.Builder notificationBuilder = new NotificationCompat.Builder(this)
                .setSmallIcon(R.drawable.ic_stat_logo)
                .setLargeIcon(BitmapFactory.decodeResource(getResources(), R.mipmap.ic_launcher))

Any idea why Firebase cannot resolve the icon for background notification?

[kroikie]

@DespisedIcon could you add your http request here maybe there is an issue with the formatting.

[bosbefok]

@kroikie You were right. I've tracked down this issue to malformed notification data in the request. Icon and color working correctly now. Thanks

[sir-gon]

@Svoka thats work form me... but only for small icon... any idea for large icon?
(This method is not the desired way... y don't need to send a custom "icon" parameter for iOS)

[Svoka]

@sir-gon if you don't specify the custom icon, FCM will use the app icon.
I'm agree, if we can just set the default icon in some settings file, it'd be more convenient.

[otonieru]

Two years passed and we still dont have solution for this ?

My app built using ionic 3, and it can receive the notification message just fine through FCM when the app is closed/killed,

But it can't show the data message received. Mean i can't customise the notification style. I can't show the picture, can't show the button, and can't give user custom action.

Currently, user need to tap the notification in the tray, which will open the app, then only the second notification, containing the data message, appear.

Is there really no way to directly push the notification with data messages when the app is killed ?

[dehghani-mehdi]

Why this issue is closed?!

BTW, about the first post, the user @CarmelRaj07 reacted with

thumbs down emoji
laugh emoji
hooray emoji
confused emoji
rocket emoji
eyes emoji

And I can tell [s]he reacted with thumbs up and heart too. what a mess!!

[S]He did it again with all available emojis for thedumbtechguy's comment too.

[hahashigehaha]

i has know how to handle this issue. Mehdi Dehghani <notifications@github.com> 于2019年6月12日周三 下午2:24写道：

…

Why this issue is closed?! — You are receiving this because you commented. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#4?email_source=notifications&email_token=ABMS2DPHR7OWLM63HJ5A5DLP2CJCTA5CNFSM4CEJOTS2YY3PNVWWK3TUL52HS4DFVREXG43VMVBW63LNMVXHJKTDN5WW2ZLOORPWSZGODXPMBVI#issuecomment-501137621>, or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ABMS2DOCUA2KGYXUYGOOSCDP2CJCTANCNFSM4CEJOTSQ> .

[dehghani-mehdi]

@flyme2012 thank you, actually I found the solution. of course after posting my prev comment.

[mmohades]

I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned it, but of course it's possible to have custom notification! The only thing is that you should do it yourself! From the server, you only send the message payload (data message) in your push notification. Then in your phone side, like Android, you create the notification manually by using the information you receive in the push notification message payload. For example, this is a snippet that can work on your server, in Python:

from pyfcm import FCMNotification

api_key = "YOUR SERVER KEY"
registration_id = "Your user FCM registration token"
data_message = {
    "title": "ntf title",
    "body": "ntf body",
    "style": "a string that represent what you want, you will use it on the phone side."
}
push_service = FCMNotification(api_key=api_key)

result = push_service.notify_single_device(registration_id=registration_id, data_message=data_message)

print (result)

Then on Android side, you need to write your code for handling push notification. Basically what you can do is creating a notification, with title and body. Then for the style of the notification, you will decide according to style that you receive from FCM. It's completely up to you what to do, how to create the notification and its style.

Android example by Firebase, open the link to see the whole section.

Getting message Payload example

quickstart-android/messaging/app/src/main/java/com/google/firebase/quickstart/fcm/kotlin/MyFirebaseMessagingService.kt

Line 43 in 375c1ae

Log.d(TAG, "Message data payload: " + remoteMessage.data)

Creating notification function (open the link to see sendNotification function)

quickstart-android/messaging/app/src/main/java/com/google/firebase/quickstart/fcm/kotlin/MyFirebaseMessagingService.kt

Line 114 in 375c1ae

private fun sendNotification(messageBody: String) {

[nitishbhardwaj1111]

hey @ckarthikv
actually i am facing a issue in IOS when the app is in background.
#608 Can you please have look into it,.

[erkkkkkkkkk]

git clone https://gerrit.googlesource.com/gitiles

[sfuqua]

(edit - shortened original post as it bordered on a rant, and while I tried to keep it polite I don't think it was productive)

@samtstern @kroikie pardon the tags but I think my scenario is impossible, by design, with the current Android SDK, given this thread and #368, and I'm hoping to confirm that (and if possible, get any insights into the why of the current SDK design).

I have a body of "legacy" existing notification payloads that get sent to both iOS and Android. For Android clients they were GCM originally, migrated to FCM, and on FCM they include a notification payload - so from an FCM standpoint, they are "notification messages with a data payload". Historically this has been fine, as these were very simple "title/body" type notifications, but I want to start making them "richer".

In order to start using Android rich notification features like styles and inline actions, I think my only option is to remove the notification payload and make these data-only. However, that's an expensive change for my team as the current notification templates are live "in the wild" with existing clients, so it's a breaking change (existing clients would stop showing the messages), so there needs to be a complicated transition/versioning story for the Android notifications delivered by our web service.

There seems to be clear developer desire for a way to handle this scenario purely with Android app code and no web service changes, given the two issues in this repo (plus all their dupes) and several high traffic StackOverflow posts.

FWIW this issue on the SDK covers the effective feature request here, but I don't see any discussion or responses in the last year - really all a dev needs is some way to tamper with the FCM message body before the SDK handles it, similar to a Notification Service Extension on iOS. That'd allow an app to "opt out" of the automatic SDK behavior on a per-notification basis, by deleting the notification payload if necessary, and not break existing app versions that might rely on it: firebase/firebase-android-sdk#2639

[sylvinrodz]

Hi,

I'd like to implement custom notification styles when app is in background or is killed. Is there a Firebase broadcast receiver class one could extend to implement the same? Would be very helpful. Thanks.

I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned it, but of course it's possible to have custom notification! The only thing is that you should do it yourself! From the server, you only send the message payload (data message) in your push notification. Then in your phone side, like Android, you create the notification manually by using the information you receive in the push notification message payload. For example, this is a snippet that can work on your server, in Python:

from pyfcm import FCMNotification

api_key = "YOUR SERVER KEY"
registration_id = "Your user FCM registration token"
data_message = {
    "title": "ntf title",
    "body": "ntf body",
    "style": "a string that represent what you want, you will use it on the phone side."
}
push_service = FCMNotification(api_key=api_key)

result = push_service.notify_single_device(registration_id=registration_id, data_message=data_message)

print (result)

Then on Android side, you need to write your code for handling push notification. Basically what you can do is creating a notification, with title and body. Then for the style of the notification, you will decide according to style that you receive from FCM. It's completely up to you what to do, how to create the notification and its style.

Android example by Firebase, open the link to see the whole section.

Getting message Payload example

quickstart-android/messaging/app/src/main/java/com/google/firebase/quickstart/fcm/kotlin/MyFirebaseMessagingService.kt

Line 43 in 375c1ae

Log.d(TAG, "Message data payload: " + remoteMessage.data)

Creating notification function (open the link to see sendNotification function)

quickstart-android/messaging/app/src/main/java/com/google/firebase/quickstart/fcm/kotlin/MyFirebaseMessagingService.kt

Line 114 in 375c1ae

private fun sendNotification(messageBody: String) {

This will only work when app is foreground , when app is killed or in background it will not work

[sylvinrodz]

@flyme2012 thank you, actually I found the solution. of course after posting my prev comment.

Solution Please