1544090 - Instagram notifications work in Fennec but not in Fennec PWAs

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Firefox for Android Graveyard :: Web Apps (PWAs), defect, P2)

Description

[Chris Peterson [:cpeterson]]

:osunick says he enabled Instagram PWA notifications using Instagram's "Turn on Notifications: Turn On/Not Now" popup, but he never receives any notifications from Instagram. He does receive notifications from Facebook, however. Facebook doesn't have a PWA manifest.

Comment 1

[Kevin Brosnan [Ex-Mozilla]]

For a long time Facebook/Instagram chose not to send notifications to Firefox. This might be webcompat.

Comment 2

[Chris Peterson [:cpeterson]]

(In reply to Kevin Brosnan [:kbrosnan] from comment #1)

For a long time Facebook/Instagram chose not to send notifications to Firefox. This might be webcompat.

I can reach out to Instagram contacts. It would be helpful for someone to try to reproduce this in Fennec.

Comment 3

[Liz Henry (:lizzard) (relman/hg->git project)]

Sorina, can you try to reproduce this? Thanks!

Comment 5

[miralobontiu]

Attachment: 2019_04_18_12_28_59.mp4

Hi all,

I reproduced this issue with Xiaomi Mi4i (Android 5.0.2), and HTC Desire 820 (Android 6.0.1), on RC 66.0.2.

STR:

1. Go to Firefox and open instagram.com.
2. Tap on "Add to homescreen" icon.
3. Go to the PWA and sign in.
4. Tap on "Turn on" on the notification popup.

No notifications were received.
Furthermore, when tapped on "Home" icon from the PWA, the notification popup is displayed again, like in the attached video.

Also, I've attached a logcat.

Comment 6

[miralobontiu]

Attachment: logcat.txt

Comment 7

[Devin Reams]

This is worth trying to troubleshoot ourselves and not wait now that we have reproduce steps.

Notifications seem to work from within the browser, but when you install as PWA... something isn't shown or handled correctly (less about if Instagram is sending it, more about how we handle it ourselves).

Comment 8

[Brad Arant]

I have tried to recreate this and I see no interaction on the app let alone any notifications. Not sure exactly how to recreate this as I cannot find the messaging features from with the Instagram PWA.

Comment 9

[Brad Arant]

Not knowing when Instagram is sending a notification could be the issue here. In comparing the various browsers with this functionality the only one that did send me a notification was Fennec. My instagram account is old so it did send a notification that I received a message from someone who hasn't posted in a while but I received no other notifications. Also I noticed that Fennec did not ask permission to allow notifications whereas chrome as well as the sumsung browser did ask permission.

Comment 10

[Brad Arant]

I have run this test on Chrome as well as Fennec and get identical behaviors. Initially I thought the registration for notifications wasn't taking place but after a reinstall of the app I did receive the notification authorization request.

A more detailed analysis of the support for Notifocations through the service worker needs to be done.

Comment 11

[Brad Arant]

On Samsung Note 8 I did not receive the notification request again when hitting the Home button. Have not been able to recreate that issue.

Comment 12

[Devin Reams]

Thanks, Brad. And the verbal update from the team today:

• None of our code triggers, likely because...
• PWA appears done with a Web Push API
• To explore a bit more: does GeckoView send that push through?

Comment 13

[Brad Arant]

I have not checked that and would need some instruction on geckoview and it's 'hooks'. I have spent some time on the API but in my explorations and testings I have had some problems finding breakpoints that fire as expected. I will look into this. I was also using a third phone running the actual instagram app and was only checking for incoming activity on Fennec.

I will research further to find out this answer for you.

Comment 14

[Chris Peterson [:cpeterson]]

(In reply to Devin Reams (dreams) from comment #12)

• None of our code triggers, likely because...
• PWA appears done with a Web Push API
• To explore a bit more: does GeckoView send that push through?

GeckoView does not support Web Push yet. Web Push is expected to work in Fennec, but ...

(In reply to Devin Reams (dreams) from comment #7)

Notifications seem to work from within the browser, but when you install as PWA... something isn't shown or handled correctly (less about if Instagram is sending it, more about how we handle it ourselves).

... Fennec uses GeckoView for PWAs. So Web Push won't work in sites installed as PWAs from Fennec. :(

Thus, I think we can resolve this bug as WONTFIX. We plan to add Web Push support to GeckoView in Q3 (bug 1343678), but Fennec will be shipping from the ESR 68 branch at that time and won't get GeckoView's Web Push.

Comment 15

[Chris Peterson [:cpeterson]]

(In reply to Chris Peterson [:cpeterson] from comment #14)

Notifications seem to work from within the browser, but when you install as PWA... something isn't shown or handled correctly (less about if Instagram is sending it, more about how we handle it ourselves).

... Fennec uses GeckoView for PWAs. So Web Push won't work in sites installed as PWAs from Fennec. :(

Correction! I was wrong, so I'll reopen this bug.

GeckoView doesn't support Web Push for Fenix, but snorp says Web Push is expected to work in Fennec PWAs! Yes, Fennec opens PWAs in GeckoView, but Fennec hooks into GeckoView in a different way than Fenix does.

Comment 16

[Brad Arant]

FYI,

In observations through comparisons between PWAs running on Fennec and Chrome I observed a couple things.

1. Chrome appears to be receiving notifications when the phone is asleep. It appears that it uses the intent contained within the notification message to link into the Chrome browser.

2. In Chrome, pressing the notification does not open the PWA but instead opens the Chrome browser to the Instagram web site and provides a 'deep link' via the URI of the intent.

Instagram has been used for testing but I do not believe that it is completely function. A better reference would be desired for testing.

Comment 17

[Chris Peterson [:cpeterson]]

(In reply to Brad Arant from comment #16)

Instagram has been used for testing but I do not believe that it is completely function. A better reference would be desired for testing.

Brad, you might try testing with a simpler Web Push example site like https://ortctest.cloudapp.net:8085/.

Comment 18

[Devin Reams]

New test scenario discussed today:

• accept notifications from Facebook.com
• get notification, and open it
• it does not do anything, not even open Fennec (expected)

Comment 19

[Andreas Bovens [:abovens]]

I appear to have trouble even enabling notifications on Facebook.

1. Log in to Facebook.
2. Go to https://m.facebook.com/settings/notifications/push/
3. Tap "Turn on"

The screen briefly flashes, but no permission prompt is shown.

Comment 20

[Andreas Bovens [:abovens]]

(In reply to Andreas Bovens [:abovens] from comment #19)

I appear to have trouble even enabling notifications on Facebook.

1. Log in to Facebook.
2. Go to https://m.facebook.com/settings/notifications/push/
3. Tap "Turn on"

The screen briefly flashes, but no permission prompt is shown.

This behavior seems to be limited to the Nightly & Beta versions.
When I log in to Facebook on the release version of Fennec, I get a prompt to allow notifications as soon as I log in to Facebook. It seems like there is some UA sniffing going on.

Comment 21

[Andreas Bovens [:abovens]]

Any further insights here, folks?

Comment 22

[Stefan Deiac]

I tried to reproduce the issue using the steps from comment 20 on the latest beta version (68.0b13) with Google Pixel (Android Q) and Samsung Galaxy Note 8 (Android 9) but I can't reproduce the issue. The only way to reproduce is to use the steps from comment 5.

Comment 23

[Marcia Knous [:marcia]]

Based on Comment 22, should we just close this one out? If it cannot be reproduced reliably, not sure what else we can do here.

Comment 24

[Chris Peterson [:cpeterson]]

(In reply to Marcia Knous [:marcia - needinfo? me] from comment #23)

Based on Comment 22, should we just close this one out? If it cannot be reproduced reliably, not sure what else we can do here.

IIUC, Stefan can still reproduce this bug using the STR from comment 5:

(In reply to Stefan Deiac from comment #22)

I tried to reproduce the issue using the steps from comment 20 on the latest beta version (68.0b13) with Google Pixel (Android Q) and Samsung Galaxy Note 8 (Android 9) but I can't reproduce the issue. The only way to reproduce is to use the steps from comment 5.

Comment 25

[Marcia Knous [:marcia]]

(In reply to Chris Peterson [:cpeterson] from comment #24)

(In reply to Marcia Knous [:marcia - needinfo? me] from comment #23)

Based on Comment 22, should we just close this one out? If it cannot be reproduced reliably, not sure what else we can do here.

IIUC, Stefan can still reproduce this bug using the STR from comment 5:

(In reply to Stefan Deiac from comment #22)

I tried to reproduce the issue using the steps from comment 20 on the latest beta version (68.0b13) with Google Pixel (Android Q) and Samsung Galaxy Note 8 (Android 9) but I can't reproduce the issue. The only way to reproduce is to use the steps from comment 5.

Okay, then I guess this would need an assignee. This particular component doesn't seem to have a triage owner, so I am unsure of next steps here.

Comment 26

[Chris Peterson [:cpeterson]]

Downgrading from priority P1 to P2.

Comment 27

[BMO Automation]

We have completed our launch of our new Firefox on Android. The development of the new versions use GitHub for issue tracking. If the bug report still reproduces in a current version of [Firefox on Android nightly](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.mozilla.fenix) an issue can be reported at the [Fenix GitHub project](https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/). If you want to discuss your report please use [Mozilla's chat](https://wiki.mozilla.org/Matrix#Connect_to_Matrix) server https://chat.mozilla.org and join the [#fenix](https://chat.mozilla.org/#/room/#fenix:mozilla.org) channel.