Notification not showing persistently

[ChrisKHil]

Describe the bug
The Notification is showing when addWatcher() is called.
However it is supposed to be persistent but i can dismiss it and it never shows again after that.
Additionally, the Notification doesnt show the title and message body passed as part of the options object. Instead the notification shows a default text. It does however show the correct icon

Expected behavior
Notification can not be dismissed and it shows the title and message given in the options object

Smartphone (please complete the following information):

• Device: Galaxy XCover 5
• OS: Android 13
• Version API 33
• Language: German

Additional context
Note:

• Push Notification permission is granted through @capacitor/local-notifications before the watcher is added
• useLegacyBridge option in capacitor config is set to true

strings.xml

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>
<resources>
(omitted)
    <string name="custom_url_scheme">some.url.scheme</string>
    <!--
        The channel name for the background notification. This will be visible
        when the user presses & holds the notification. It defaults to
        "Background Tracking".
    -->
    <string name="capacitor_background_geolocation_notification_channel_name">
        Background Tracking
    </string>

    <!--
        The icon to use for the background notification. Note the absence of a
        leading "@". It defaults to "mipmap/ic_launcher", the app's launch icon.

        If a raster image is used to generate the icon (as opposed to a vector
        image), it must have a transparent background. To make sure your image
        is compatible, select "Notification Icons" as the Icon Type when
        creating the image asset in Android Studio.
    -->
    <string name="capacitor_background_geolocation_notification_icon">
        drawable/ic_tracking
    </string>

    <!--
        The color of the notification as a string parseable by
        android.graphics.Color.parseColor. Optional.
    -->
    <string name="capacitor_background_geolocation_notification_color">
        yellow
    </string>
</resources>

Manifest.xml

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>
<manifest  xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools">
(omitted)
  	<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATION" />
	<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION" tools:ignore="CoarseFineLocation" />
	<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_BACKGROUND_LOCATION" />
	<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.FOREGROUND_SERVICE" />
	<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.POST_NOTIFICATIONS" />
(omitted)
	<application android:allowBackup="true" android:icon="@mipmap/ic_launcher" android:label="@string/app_name" android:roundIcon="@mipmap/ic_launcher_round" android:supportsRtl="true" android:theme="@style/AppTheme" android:usesCleartextTraffic="true" android:hardwareAccelerated="true">
(omitted)
		<activity
			android:exported="true"
			android:configChanges="orientation|keyboardHidden|keyboard|screenSize|locale|smallestScreenSize|screenLayout|uiMode|navigation" android:label="@string/title_activity_main" android:launchMode="singleTask" android:name="omitted" android:theme="@style/AppTheme.NoActionBarLaunch">
			<intent-filter>
				<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
				<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
			</intent-filter>
			<intent-filter>
				<action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW" />
				<category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
				<category android:name="android.intent.category.BROWSABLE" />
				<data android:scheme="@string/custom_url_scheme" />
			</intent-filter>
		</activity>
		<service android:name="com.equimaps.capacitor_background_geolocation.BackgroundGeolocationService" android:enabled="true" android:exported="true" android:foregroundServiceType="location"
            android:permission="android.permission.POST_NOTIFICATIONS" />
	</application>
</manifest>

addWatcher

await BackgroundGeolocation.addWatcher(
	{
		backgroundTitle: 'test title',
		backgroundMessage: 'tesst message',
		distanceFilter: GpsService.distanceFilter,
		requestPermissions: true,
		stale: false,
	},
	async (position, error) => {
		if (error) {
			if (error.code === 'NOT_AUTHORIZED') {
				if (window.confirm('error text') {
					// It can be useful to direct the user to their device's
					// settings when location permissions have been denied. The
					// plugin provides the 'openSettings' method to do exactly
					// this.
					BackgroundGeolocation.openSettings();
				}
			}
			return console.error(error);
		} else {
			const { latitude, longitude, accuracy, time } = position;

                        // not too sure if the return is nessecary
			return {
				latitude,
				longitude,
				accuracy,
				timeestamp: time,
			};
			
		}
		return console.log(location);
	}
);

[diachedelic]

Can you please try to reproduce the problem using the demo? You might also want to set a breakpoint here and examine the constructed Notification.

[ChrisKHil]

The demo does work fine. I will debug my code tomorrow and try to provide some more insight

[ChrisKHil]

I found the error. It works when i remove the geolocation configurations from the strings.xml. I also tried this in a new blank ionic app with only the @capacitor-community/background-geolocatio and @capacitor/local-notifications plugins installed and i encountered the same problem.

So it seems that at least one of the strings.xml strings causes the problem. I did keep the default values so im not sure why exactly the problem occurs.

[diachedelic]

Android seems to be quite pedantic about notification configuration, displaying weird behavior upon misconfiguration rather than throwing an exception. Thanks for looking into this. It would be interesting to know which strings.xml value causes the problem.

[ChrisKHil]

Through trial and error i found that "capacitor_background_geolocation_notification_icon" causes the problem. I also found that with the other configurations the Notification would show inconsistently. Sometimes after adding a BG Watcher and then a FG watcher and other times after adding yet another BG watcher.

I am not going to look further into this because i am not very familiar with android code. Hope this helps someone to find the issue

[diachedelic]

Yes, an incompatible icon will cause all sorts of weirdness. Check you have generated the correct type of image asset. I have updated the README to describe this booby trap.