1785822 - No KDE backend for alerts: notifications are bypassing the system notification server, rendering system notification settings such as "Do not disturb" ineffective

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Toolkit Graveyard :: Notifications and Alerts, defect, P5)

Description

[mYnDstrEAm]

Steps to reproduce:

I'm using Debian11 with KDE.

When one configures "Do not disturb" in KDE's notification settings in the plasma panel, notifications from the browser can still pop up on the screen, including on the desktop. In the bug report at KDE https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=457949 people noted that "the browser is bypassing the system notification server entirely and drawing them itself. This is a bug in the browser, and not anything we can fix in KDE".

Other notification settings are also rendered ineffective, for example timeouts for the popups and so on. They also look different than all the other notifications (inconsistent) and are at another place of the screen.

Actual results:

"Do not disturb" in KDE's notification settings (and any other system notification settings) did not have any effect.

I think it's more a bug than an enhancement request. In some sense it can also be considered a security problem if people expect notifications to not show up when they configured the system notifications to "Do not disturb".

Expected results:

If one uses system notifications like KDE has them https://community.kde.org/Plasma/Notifications then the popups should be these native system notifications and/or integrate with them so that notifications there can also affect browser notifications.

There could be separate settings for the browser in the system notification settings and if they aren't used the standard browser popups could show instead (and this could also be an option).

Comment 1

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

The Bugbug bot thinks this bug should belong to the 'Toolkit::Notifications and Alerts' component, and is moving the bug to that component. Please correct in case you think the bot is wrong.

Comment 2

[Nick Alexander :nalexander [he/him]]

This is the correct component for this ticket. This is the kind of thing that alerts.useSystemBackend=true is supposed to address, but that is the default on Linux and I guess it doesn't support KDE: I see only a gnome implementation.

This isn't a bug, it's a feature request; and it's definitely not a security issue. P5: we'd take a patch but should not prioritize it without significant additional motivation.

Comment 3

[mYnDstrEAm]

Please change the Type of this bug, I can't edit it: it's NOT a feature request but a bug (or a security issue) as no notifications should display when I enable do not disturb in the operating system / desktop environment.

It's a security issue / affects security as people may think no notifications are shown but they are shown which introduces security vulnerabilities that could gravely affect your privacy and security...this is for example when you give presentations using your PC (livestream or physical) or have guests. This is very important to fix as soon as possible because of these issues! Please change the type to bug or security issue.

Comment 4

[Negritas Sergiu, Desktop QA]

Hello! I have tried to reproduce the issue using firefox 107.0a1(2022-10-17) on Ubuntu 22.04 unfortunately I wasn't able to reproduce the issue. Could you please answer the following questions in order to further investigate this issue. Also switching this issue from enhancement to defect as per the last comment.

1. Does this issue happen with a new profile? Here is a link on how to create one: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-remove-switch-firefox-profiles
2. Does this issue happen in the latest nightly? Here is a link from where you can download it: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/channel/desktop/
3. Do you have any addons installed if so can you list them?

Comment 5

[mYnDstrEAm]

Maybe it's because I use firejail to sandbox firefox.
The notifications still look different than KDE notifications and appear in the upper right instead of the bottom right. Using firefox 102.10.0esr. I won't list my addons but they include ublock origin and noscript.
Before I make an issue at firejail I would need to know whether the notifications are supposed to show as KDE notifications, from what Nick Alexander wrote earlier, it seems like this only works with gnome but not KDE and maybe the Ubuntu you're using uses Gnome. You'd need to test it with KDE (in Debian 11 that is still v 5.20.5).

Comment 6

[Negritas Sergiu, Desktop QA]

Hello! Thank you for pointing in the right direction but I have tried using plasma with KDE plasma version 5.24.7 with firefox 114.0a1(2023-05-04), 113.0 and 102.10.0 esr without succes.

When I select the do not disturb option in the native OS notification panel, the web push notifications from this website "https://cleverpush.com/en/test-notifications/" are stopped.

Comment 7

[mYnDstrEAm]

Alright, so they are supposed to be stopped in KDE too...I'll make an issue at the firejail repo.

A notification displays even with "Do not disturb" enabled in the upper right when click on "New Products" on that testing website.

Comment 8

[mYnDstrEAm]

Sorry I haven't tested it without firejail earlier, partly that was because I thought they weren't even supposed to use KDE notifications currently per that mentioned comment. Thanks for testing it with KDE. The issue is here: https://github.com/netblue30/firejail/issues/5817

It's using KDE notifications when firejail isn't used (and is hidden when DND is enabled).

Comment 9

[Negritas Sergiu, Desktop QA]

Thank you for clarifying this issue I will mark it as RESOLVED->WORKSFORME for the moment since it seems it's not a firefox problem.