Why didn't my push notification appear on an Android device when Pushwoosh shows it as sent successfully?

A successful send status means Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) accepted the message for delivery to the device. What happens after that depends on the device and the app. When a push is accepted but never shown, the cause is almost always one of the following.

Common causes

• Notifications are disabled for the app. The user has turned off notifications in the system settings. Such devices have the Push Alerts Enabled tag set to false.
• Aggressive battery saving. Some Android vendors restrict background apps and block notifications while the device is in power-saving mode.
• Do Not Disturb is on.
• The app doesn't pass the message to the Pushwoosh SDK. Another FirebaseMessagingService (for example, the default com.google.firebase.messaging.FirebaseMessagingService or another SDK's) receives the message, or nothing handles it. If you use several FCM-based SDKs, set up a router service as described in Using Pushwoosh SDK with other FCM services.
• The app isn't installed on the device, or the installed app isn't the one connected to your Pushwoosh project.

What to check

1. Turn off battery optimization for the app, or power saving on the device.
2. Make sure the app is allowed to show notifications, including pop-up (heads-up) notifications, and that Do Not Disturb is off.
3. Send the push with high priority: set Delivery priority: High in the Android settings of the push preset, or add "android_delivery_priority": "high" to your createMessage request.
4. Confirm that the app linked to your Pushwoosh project is installed on the device.
5. Look up the device in User Explorer by HWID, User ID, or push token. Check its tags and the Received messages tab.

Still not showing?

Contact Pushwoosh Support. Include:

• the device's HWID, User ID, or push token;
• the message code;
• full, continuous device logs in a .txt file, recorded from app launch until after the push was sent. You can capture them with logcat in Android Studio. Keep the SDK log level at DEBUG while recording (see Controlling log level) and see How can I obtain my Android device push token.