Issue with participants not being triggered for prompt

Support
1

Hi there,

I am having a strange issue with app notifications. For this study, we distribute standard Android devices to participants for the ESM period (Samsung Galaxy A03). We have not had any issues for months, but recently, in the middle of a 7 day ESM period, participants stopped being notified of prompts (activity sessions). So on my end as the researcher, the prompts are being logged as being released, and in fact I was with a participant when they received one, and they do seem to be being released, however there is no notification sound/vibration with these.

The strange piece is that if I MANUALLY release a prompt, there IS a vibration/sound for participants. So it is not an issue of vibration settings in the phone or even in the application itself. For some reason only pre-scheduled activity sessions seem to be having this issue. Can you please advise? I am going to try to restart the activity period for these participants and see if perhaps that might work.

2

I just want to clarify that I have checked the notification settings in the phone and the app according to the steps that have been previously posted here. I do believe this is an application issue and is not a device issue. Can someone please look into this?

3

Hi Shreya @shreya.jagtap
This is Amin from Avicenna’s team,
I’m sorry for the inconvenience this has caused you. We have identified an issue with our notification systems and the fix should be released by early next week (Mon, 17th Feb 2025), please make sure your participants are using the latest version of Avicenna app and reload their devices and this should hopefully fix the issue mentioned here.
Best,
Amin

4

Thanks for looking into this Amin! I’m guessing there is no fix before then? I tried resetting the participants devices and setting them up as new participants and relaunching the survey - this worked for one day and now they are not getting notifications again unless the prompt is delivered manually. Is there any workaround before Monday?

We currently have three people enrolled so will just have to pause for all three before then if there is no workaround.

5

@shreya.jagtap This issue shouldn’t be widespread, if that is the case please share the notification template and the criteria for me to take a better look at this.
I highly recommend adding email notifications for the time being, it will help with this issue if the issue is widespread.
Best,
Amin

6

Hi Amin,

So we have three participants in the study, for one of them the app froze, but upon relaunching it seemed to be prompting okay (I got notifications). One of the other two reported intermittent prompts - when I retrieved their device, I got no notifications. For the third participant she had no notifications. We don’t use any criteria and have a very simple sampling design (as I thought this might help us circumvent issues like this). The study ID is 3710 - did you want me to add you any other way?

Thank you! I would really like to get them started tomorrow without any issues, so if you can look into this before that that would be great! Would the update be live by 12:00pm EST?

Unfortunately, with this specific study design we cannot enable email notifications. Participants are being given locked devices on an inpatient unit. They rely on the notifications through the phone. That’s why it’s so important we get this fixed right away.

Thanks,
Shreya

7

Hi there, was this issue fixed? I seem to still be having some issues across some devices. I created a second study with the same sampling scheme and it seems to be working for the first day. Are you able to have someone look into this for me?

8

Hello again Shreya @shreya.jagtap
I’m deeply sorry for my delayed response, unfortunately my forum notifications are all over the place and I didn’t get your response notification.
Unfortunately the app review by Google Play Store is taking a bit longer than expected and the update is not live yet.
The root cause is that at times when a device is turned off for an extended period of time (or is there Avicenna app is stopped working for any reason for an extended period of time) the notification evaluation system loses track of time and causes such issues.
Please add me to your study, my researcher email address is amin.ghaffari@avicennaresearch.com so that I can investigate and see what’s the issue here.
I usually respond to tickets well within 24 hours, even on weekends, if for whatever reason you didn’t get a response within 48 hours, don’t hesitate to send an email to support@avicenaresearch.com.
Again, sorry for the delayed response and any inconvenience this has caused you and thank you for your patience.

9

Hello! Just posting that this issue is still persisting. Notifications are stopping at random times for participants (e.g., random days into the monitoring period). I have witnessed this issue live on multiple occasions now - e.g., been with them with the device when the prompt is showing up on Avicenna but without any sound/vibration to the device even when these settings are toggled on. We have had to stop running participants for this issue. I’ve tried all your suggested solutions but we’ve had this issue for a month. Is there anything else that can be done?

10

Hi Shreya @shreya.jagtap
Unfortunately, it seems like the issue is caused by an OS updated on Samsung’s side. We will try our best to find the root cause and rectify the issue as soon as possible, however due to the isolated nature of the issue on a specific set of smartphones it will take longer than usual. At the time of writing more than 20,000 participants use Avicenna with less than 0.1% having issues and this makes it harder to diagnose.
We will keep working on this issue and hopefully it will be fixed quickly.
Thank you for your patience and understanding and sorry for any inconvenience this is causing you (even though a Samsung update broke the notifications).
Best,
Amin

11

Hi Amin,

Thanks for getting back to me. I agree, I suspect it was from the update as all the issues started then. If it was from the update though, I find it hard to believe I’m the only one having these issues? The Samsung a03 is a very popular budget smartphone, it would be very unlikely I’m the only one out of the 20k users who have these phones and have not experienced any issues. You have said that Samsung “broke” the notifications but it was my understanding that if an phone update precluded the app from working on the device, there would be an update from the app’s end to circumvent this issue?

I understand no one else seems to have come forth with this issue, but it has already been a month that I’ve experienced this with no direct solution provided. Would you have an estimated timeline to expect a fix?

Our team is presenting on the feasibility of this method at an upcoming conference and would benefit from an update on what the next steps would be.

Thanks for your time and assistance,
Shreya

12

Hi there:

I found a couple of threads for samsung phones experiencing similar issues recently:

Same issue here: New S25 Ultra - Notifications not working - Samsung Community - 3126970

What some people recommended was clearing the cache/app - I did this for all the samsung devices. They are working fine today but we will see if they last 7 days. If the fix is clearing the cache/app between each participant, that is a relatively easy fix.

I am also testing on a google pixel device, which should not have these same Samsung OS issues. I find the pixels to have a cleaner android experience, without the Samsung bloatware that can cause unexpected issues on apps.

Just wanted to pass along this info in case you find it helpful or have any further suggestions.

Thanks!
Shreya