Notifications Not Reflecting Messages Without Manually Clearing Cache

[NMShoe]

Description:
I'm encountering an intermittent issue with the Rocket.Chat app where notifications for new messages are not reflected in the app immediately upon opening it. Instead, I have to manually clear the local workspace cache for the messages to appear.

Steps to Reproduce:

1. Receive a message notification from the Rocket.Chat app.
2. Tap on the notification or open the app to view the message or open the app and navigate to the conversation with new message(s).
3. Observe that the message does not appear in the app.
4. Manually go to app settings and select "Clear local workspace cache."
5. After clearing the cache, the missing messages are pulled into the app.

Expected Behavior:

When I tap on a message notification or open the app after receiving a notification, the new messages should load and display automatically without requiring manual cache clearing.

Observed Behavior:

Messages do not always load after receiving a notification, requiring me to clear the local workspace cache to retrieve them. This issue does not occur every time but happens intermittently.

Environment Details:

• App Version: 4.55.0.70131
• Workspace Version: 6.12.0
• Device: iPhone 13 Pro
• OS Version: 18.1.1

Additional Notes:

• The issue seems to be related to the app not refreshing its cache or pulling updates properly upon opening.
• It only happens intermittently, so reproducing the issue might require monitoring over time.
• There is no displayed error within the app that explains that there was an issue pulling messaging data or refreshing its cache.
• This issue has been noticed on several different OS's and phone models as well. It does not seem to be native to iOS or Android.

[yug2601]

Can you assign me this issue?

[pehlert]

This happens to me and a few colleagues of mine as well. It's an incredibly annoying issue. You see a push notification, click it and it cannot see the message associated with it. Thanks for the hint regarding clearing the workspace cache @NMShoe ,that really helps. I tried force closing the app before which does not resolve the issue.

I'm surprised this has not been reported by more people, which makes me wonder whether it's an issue with our specific RocketChat deployments? I'm happy to assist with debugging. Unfortunately it only occurs sometimes, which should make this quite a bit harder.

[NMShoe]

@pehlert I have found that if you don't click the notifications, but instead just open the app and go to the conversation that was notified about, the messages usually show up. It seems to be primarily an issue with how rocket.chat opens the notification.

[pehlert]

Thanks for the hint @NMShoe! I had the situation a few more times last night (it actually occurs quite frequently when you use RocketChat on the phone for a bit longer) and can confirm this seems to be the case for me as well. Clicking the notification basically causes the issues.

[diegolmello]

Thanks for reporting.
It's the first time I hear about this though.

Going to test this throughout the day to try reproducing it.
Just did opened the app 10x in a row and it worked (focusing on iOS, since it's your report).

Going to try:

• Keep it in background for 30min ~ 1h so the OS could've closed the app
• Threads
• Receive push while focused on other room

@pehlert what else?

[pehlert]

Hi @diegolmello , thanks a lot for getting back!

I will try to find exact conditions to reproduce it. From my gut feeling (and what I remember from yesterday night when it last happened to me), it occurs when I switch between RocketChat and other apps, then hit the notification to go back into RocketChat.

I'm on RocketChat Workspace 7.4.0 and App 4.58.0.74631 on Android by the way, so it seems to affect both platforms?

[NMShoe]

Great to see some eyes on this @diegolmello ! Just to add my context since @pehlert and I are actually on different versions and phones, but seeing the same issues. I do agree that it happens when switching, but I have seen it without switching. It happens to me every day though.

Versions & OS:

• Workspace v. 6.13.0
• App v. 4.58.0.74627
• iPhone 13 Pro v. 18.3.1

[diegolmello]

Yes, it seems to be an issue on both platforms.
My two guesses:

• SDK might be taking too long to connect or failing in some other way
• Local database could be failing to persist everything on app resume

Let me know if you find a consistent way of reproducing it.
It's hard to fix it without being able to test over and over.