Unread messages icon missing from taskbar following 4.7.0 upgrade

[bbodenmiller]

I confirm (by marking "x" in the [ ] below: [x]):

• [x] This is not a troubleshooting question. Troubleshooting questions go here: http://www.mattermost.org/troubleshoot/.
• [x] This doesn't reproduce on web browsers (such as in Chrome). If it does, issue reports go to the Mattermost Server repository.
• [x] I have read contributing guidelines.

---

Summary

Red unread messages icon missing from taskbar following 4.7.0 upgrade

Environment

• Operating System: Windows 10
• Mattermost Desktop App version: 4.7.0
• Mattermost Server version: 5.33.3

Steps to reproduce

1. Have desktop 4.6.1 installed
2. Upgrade to 4.7.0
3. Verify option is enabled in settings

Expected behavior

Red unread messages icon shows in taskbar

Observed behavior

No red unread messages icon in taskbar. The icon for direct mentions/replies (red icon with number) appears to work fine.

Possible fixes

[bbodenmiller]

Exiting Mattermost & reopening did not seem to fix issue. Nor did exiting, shutting down explorer.exe, reopening explorer.exe, then reopening Mattermost. Oddly however selecting log out in app, exiting app, reopening, then relogging in seems to have brought back unread icon.

Update: it disappeared again. Had to logout and back in again to get it working again.

[bbodenmiller]

Possibly related: I'm getting the taskbar icon flashing on new message arrival as well despite having that option disabled in settings. https://github.com/mattermost/desktop/issues/1649

Tried deleting config.json & starting over. No change, still flashing on new messages despite being disabled.

[Willyfrog]

hello @bbodenmiller and thanks for reporting, did you use the same type of installer in both instances? if you go to the apps configuration there is only one mattermost install, right?

[bbodenmiller]

@Willyfrog correct. I used mattermost-desktop-setup-4.6.1-win.exe and mattermost-desktop-setup-4.7.0-win.exe.

Only one Mattermost installed:

[Willyfrog]

yes, I can replicate with the same exes, I'll fill a ticket to investigate further

[Willyfrog]

restarting windows seems to fix it, maybe the file was locked by the old version until restart?

[bbodenmiller]

@Willyfrog restarting didn't fix it for me. Earlier selecting log out in app, exiting app, reopening, then relogging brought back unread icon. Now that's not even working.

[Willyfrog]

if you go to the config file, which value does it have? does it change if you change it within the settings?

[bbodenmiller]

@Willyfrog values:

{
  "teams": [
    {
      "name": "xxxx",
      "url": "xxxx",
      "order": 0
    }
  ],
  "showTrayIcon": true,
  "trayIconTheme": "light",
  "version": 2,
  "minimizeToTray": true,
  "notifications": {
    "flashWindow": 0,
    "bounceIcon": false,
    "bounceIconType": "informational"
  },
  "showUnreadBadge": true,
  "useSpellChecker": true,
  "spellCheckerLocale": "en-US",
  "enableHardwareAcceleration": true,
  "autostart": true,
  "darkMode": false
}

Changing settings in UI changes things in config file as expected. e.g. "flashWindow": 2,, "showUnreadBadge": false,

[Willyfrog]

can you go to the folder where the config is stored and remove everything but the json files? it might be something that is cached from a previous version.

the path to that folder usually is c:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Mattermost

[bbodenmiller]

@Willyfrog this may have worked for unread icon but it's not practical for us to tell all users to do this. Also it didn't fix https://github.com/mattermost/desktop/issues/1649.

[Willyfrog]

so far, this is the only report I have, hence the manual fix. If there are many other reporting the same problem then a fix would be needed.

[incx444]

Had the same thing with 4.7.0 desktop for several weeks, upgraded from 4.6.2. Taskbar would not reset the red numberless unread messages bubble unless I switched to another channel or person in the UI. In addition, after installing server 5.37 the bubble started appearing with no visible new traffic on the server. Went back to 4.6.2, all is working again.

[Willyfrog]

Had the same thing with 4.7.0 desktop for several weeks, upgraded from 4.6.2. Taskbar would not reset the red numberless unread messages bubble unless I switched to another channel or person in the UI. In addition, after installing server 5.37 the bubble started appearing with no visible new traffic on the server. Went back to 4.6.2, all is working again.

hello and thanks for the report, this is a different bug that will be solved in 4.7.1

[amyblais]

Opened a ticket for the original report https://mattermost.atlassian.net/browse/MM-37807.

[LcHicks]

@Willyfrog, I am having the same issue as @bbodenmiller. For your stop-gap fix suggestion, do you mean to delete everything in that folder except the .json files? Including all the folders? I have 129 items in that folder.

[Willyfrog]

yes, I'd suggest to first quit the app completely, and then remove anything that it is not a .json file. All the others will be generated on start, but the json ones are your config.

[LcHicks]

@Willyfrog I exited the mattermost app completely (from the system tray) and deleted all the non-.json files and folders. I can confirm I am still seeing this issue. There is a notification bubble on a non-selected team yet the taskbar alert icon is missing.

[Willyfrog]

@LcHicks which version of mattermost are you running?

[LcHicks]

The desktop client is 4.7.2, the server is 5.33.3

[LcHicks]

This problem is still present in desktop client version 5.0.1 and server versions as follows: Mattermost Version: 5.39.2 Database Schema Version: 5.38.2

[devinbinnie]

Unfortunately this is not reproducible by anyone internally. I'll leave this open as Help Wanted if anyone is able to reproduce and make a fix for it, but it works correctly for myself and other team members.

[LcHicks]

@Willyfrog, @devinbinnie, and @bbodenmiller

I think I found a way to fix this:

• Expand your icon tray to see hidden icons
  • This is the little taskbar area that has your battery life, clock, etc
• Right click on the Mattermost icon
• Click on settings
• Uncheck the box "Show red badge on taskbar icon to indicate unread messages"
• Wait for the settings to save, ~ 2 seconds
• Re-check the box "Show red badge on taskbar icon to indicate unread messages"
• Wait for the settings to save, ~ 2 seconds

Now the icon seems to be working for me again. Perhaps these steps I took will help point to a root cause? Or perhaps resetting this setting upon an update or re-install would be a good best practice?

[devinbinnie]

@Willyfrog, @devinbinnie, and @bbodenmiller

I think I found a way to fix this:

• Expand your icon tray to see hidden icons

  • This is the little taskbar area that has your battery life, clock, etc

• Right click on the Mattermost icon

• Click on settings

• Uncheck the box "Show red badge on taskbar icon to indicate unread messages"

• Wait for the settings to save, ~ 2 seconds

• Re-check the box "Show red badge on taskbar icon to indicate unread messages"

• Wait for the settings to save, ~ 2 seconds

Now the icon seems to be working for me again. Perhaps these steps I took will help point to a root cause? Or perhaps resetting this setting upon an update or re-install would be a good best practice?

It's possible that because of this that the setting wasn't being saved correctly. I did some rework of the Settings page last week that might fix an issue like this. Would be nice to see if this helps anyone else :)

Thanks for the insight @LcHicks!

[LcHicks]

Update

@devinbinnie I have now found that my fix above only partway fixed the issue.

My company has many different Mattermost teams. I am a part of 14 different teams. I have found the the fix I did above enables the notification pip to show up only when the notification is for the team I have selected to view. If any other teams have notifications, the pip doesn't show up. It doesn't matter what team was last selected, the behavior is the same: notification pip is only showing notifications for the currently selected team.

[devinbinnie]

I have found the the fix I did above enables the notification pip to show up only when the notification is for the team I have selected to view. If any other teams have notifications, the pip doesn't show up. It doesn't matter what team was last selected, the behavior is the same: notification pip is only showing notifications for the currently selected team.

That issue was fixed in this PR: https://github.com/mattermost/desktop/pull/2020 The fix is available in the current nightly build available here: https://community-daily.mattermost.com/core/channels/desktop-builds

It will be released as part of v5.1 in May.

[LcHicks]

@devinbinnie, another update from today: Each day I shutdown my work computer at the end of the day. When I booted it up today and started using Mattermost, the problem I first had re-appeared (red notification pip on taskbar icon doesn't show up unless the Mattermost program is the "focused" program).

I then did my same fix as before and the notification pip was working again today.

Therefore, there's something happening upon computer shutdown/start-up that is causing the issue to come back.
I have tested exiting out of Mattermost and then re-opening and the notification pip was still working. So the reversion back to failed functionality is happening upon shutdown/power-up and not on Mattermost exit/re-opening.

[devinbinnie]

Is there something on your work computer that might be verifying files perhaps? Or stopping the app from writing to the tray icon? Since it's a work computer I wouldn't be surprised if some security applications may be restricting access.

[devinbinnie]

Closing as inactive, feel free to re-open if this is still an issue on v5.3