Unread message counter on the app's icon Android 9

[vdhooft]

Hi, I have updated my Samsung s9 to Android 9 a couple of days ago. But since the update I have lost the unread message counter on the app's icon. Before on Android 8 it was working fine for a long time. I tried all settings that I could think of.
Does somebody knows what to do?

Thanks, Alex

[mikeone]

You will find some information on the app's FAQ-page, near the end, which could be helpful:

"Unread badge on the app icon - Samsung with Android 8.0 (Oreo)"

https://www.aqua-mail.com/faq/

[vdhooft]

I have tried that already, but it did not help. On Android 8 it was working fine, but since the update it stopped working.
I hope they can fix it.
For now I use the widget, but I do not like it so much. When you click on it you so not go to the emails directly but to the account overview. And the icon does not have a title understand it, so it really looks out of place.

[nadir husain]

@ParisGeek I don't think we are going to see any development work in Aquamail till Kostya returns to lead the charge. Don't think Mobisystems have any internal talent.

[Nadejda Fudulska, MobiSystems, AquaMail support]

Hi,

Thank you for reporting the issue. We will investigate it.

Nadia

[Kostya Vasilyev]

- None of the Samsung's at the office (or my personal S8 / S9) has gotten the 9.0 update

- Unread badge is not a documented / supported Android feature.

Every manufacturer historically had their own undocumented ways for app to show an unread badge count -

- and since it was undocumented / unsupported, it could be taken away at any time.

Samsung did (take it away, replacing it with "automatic" count) in 8.0

I assume in 9.0 they made more undocumented changes and broke things even more (then they were before).

Bottom line:

Ask Samsung ...

... to fix / document. Or maybe it's been removed completely (since Android has a similar although different concept of "notification dots" since 7.0 or so).

Ask Google ...

... to stop screwing around with notifications in every Android update and make unread badge counts - which is what users want - an official supported feature.

Yes I realize that you probably can't make them do that.

But please also realize that with the badge being an official undocumented non-feature - a device manufacturer or Google can screw things up any time their left leg pleases, and there is only so much app developers can do. Sometimes this "not much" = "nothing" (as was the case with Samsung's 8.0 update).

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Re: Curious that this is not documented by Samsung. I hope that one day you'll find a brilliant solution to tackle the issue. You've done that in other situations.

There is no solution - they completely locked it down.

It's a bad situation - for all app developers given users' expectations - and I can only reiterate again that it's completely the fault of Google and Samsung (and other device manufacturers... except Sony who did document their badge implementation, but who buys a Sony these days...)

[Kostya Vasilyev]

My S9 updated to 9.0 so I investigated.

Bad news.

The unread badge for Aqua Mail (and a few other apps, I presume) is deliberately blocked by Samsung.

Details:

For a long time (from 4.1 or so) Samsung had a way for apps to set the badge directly. A bunch of apps (including Aqua Mail) used that.

This was completely undocumented and unofficial but it worked.

8.0:

This "direct" way is completely disabled, the new way is "automatic based on app's notifications".

9.0:

The "new automatic" is disabled for apps that used "the old, undocumented" way before. It's baked into the phone's software.

I can rename Aqua's application package (org.kman.AquaMail) without making code changes and the "automatic" badge added in 8.0 starts working.

Now in 9.0 the "direct" way works again. But it works differently from how it used to and what's worse can get "stuck".

---

At this point I'm not sure what to do.

This is 100% a deliberate change by Samsung and a very silly one - if an app already "accepted the new rules" in 8.0 - either keep it working or bring back the old way *exactly how it was before 8.0*.

Needless to say, they never tried to contact us about it.

I have tried using the old method (pre-8.0) on 9.0 - and it sort of worked, but the badge would get stuck and show wrong number again.

So if we released a version with "old method" enabled on 9.0 - we'd get a lot of complaints and at that point it would be hard to fix the badge that's "already there" on users' phones, already stuck and showing wrong number.

I'm more inclined to just do nothing, there will be no badge on 9.0 - maybe until Samsung changes something again.

---

Now apps that never used the 4.* - pre 8.0 method to set the badge (which is most apps, including Gmail and K9 Mail) - just continue to work, the badge is "automatic" based on notifications.

[mikeone]

There is no solution - they completely locked it down.

It's a bad situation - for all app developers given users' expectations - and I can only reiterate again that it's completely the fault of Google and Samsung (and other device manufacturers... except Sony who did document their badge implementation, but who buys a Sony these days...)

I'm still using Sony mobile, since December 2018 with Xperia XZ3. 
No problems with badge counter, all is working fine and runs like clockwork. 👍🏼

[Kostya Vasilyev]

RE: As a S9 user, I definitely need the app icon with unread counter working.

Your best bet is to contact Samsung and ask to straighten it out.

If there are enough people doing it - maybe someone will hear and consider.

For now you can use the app's built-in "message counter" widget.

Re: I'm still using Sony mobile, since December 2018 with Xperia XZ3. 

Sony is the one company which officially documented their "unread badge" functions - back in 6.0 days.

And since it's working to this day - I can only assume that they've not made any random breaking changes since.

Samsung, hello, this is how you do it.

[nma4toro]

Unread badge count not working on Google Pixel 3XL also.  Assuming for reasons noted above.

[glavatskiy]

Unfortunately, counter does not work on Xiaomi Note 7 too.
It's so sad.

[Fcasoli]

I use Nova Launcher and the counter ia working on the app icon