My app users are subscribed to a variety of cloud messaging topics. Occasionally a users device token/ID will change. I need to lookup the old token, grab all the topics the user was subscribed to - subscribe the users new token to all the same topics and then remove the old device tokens from those groups.
However, I am noticing that as soon as the user gets a new device token it seems they are instantly removed from the previous topics. Thus I am not able to retrieve all the subscribed topics with the old token/ID - and if I can't do that, it seems I have no way to subscribe the users new token to all the appropriate topics because I am unable to find out what the topics were.
Is there some trick or method that I need to do to deal with this issue?
Related
I've incorporated Firebase Cloud Messaging into my app. After messing around, I kind of understood the premise of how it operates. So, as a result, I structured my code so that when users sign up the FCM token is stored. After creating two accounts, I realise both FCM tokens for the user were the same.
Looked online and sorted this issue, and now I can refresh the token on launch, and still append the new FCM token when users initially sign up.
So now, I ask the question - Users are created with a fcmToken field (which I can refer to in my code), however, due to the fact a new token is generated on launch each time does this render the token(s) stored for each user useless? Or can I still push to the specific user using the fcmToken?
I've looked online, but can't seem to find an answer.
FCM tokens don't uniquely identify an individual end user. They identify a specific installation of an app on a specific device. When sending with that token, it doesn't matter who is signed in to the app (or if anyone is signed in at all) - the app will still receive it and need to figure out what to do with it. It's up to you to decide what to do with that message, given the sign-in state of the user. If you expect that your app could have multiple users sharing a single app on a single device, then you will probably want to send something in the payload to determine who that message was intended for, if necessary.
#doug great answer, but there's a common implementation problem when people share a device, so please add a warning, something like: often only the last logged in user should receive push notifications, otherwise he could see messages from the person who was logged in before. your backend should not only store all the devices a user is logged in, but also for each device who the last active user is and check this upon sending a push. the question whether you receive push or not when logged out is a common topic, too.
We are building an app with chat functionality in Flutter, and I have figured out almost everything about how it should be done, except how the notifications can be sent to only one device (Or possibly a few devices).
The best option so far is to send the notification to an FCM registration token since we use Firebase for all of our back-end, but I can't do that without knowing the token. And the only way I can know that is to store it in Firestore (For example the users document) and retrieve it when needed. Is this a good solution, and what happens if the registration token changes? Should I update the token every time the user opens the app to make sure that it is correct?
You don't need to store the token on the server, you just need to know who you are sending the message to. Just follow these steps
Client
1.a When you app starts, retrieve the token via getToken()
1.b Store it locally
1.c if it has changed, send it to a Cloud function, and register it to a topic or device group
1.d Dont forget to register to onTokenRefresh() to repeat 1.a-c for new tokens
Server
2.a Implement the function corresponding to 1.c
2.b When required, send messages to a topic or device group
The way I understand Firebase Cloud Messaging at the moment, I will want to save all FCM tokens a user might have across devices to my backend and send a notification to all of these tokens at once when I want to notify that user about something.
Multiple tokens
Until this point, I assumed that each device only has one active token, however, reading this section of the documentation:
To enable this feature, make sure you have each sender's sender ID. When requesting registration, the client app fetches the token multiple times, each time with a different sender ID in audience field, using the token retrieval method for the given platform
Does this mean that I might need to target multiple active tokens per device?
Deletion
And now coming to the really important question. A simple solution to the above problem would be to simply store every token I ever retrieve in the backend and thus ensuring that my user will always receive the message.
However, what do I do if the user signs out of my app using Firebase Authentication, i.e. a different account is used in the same app on the same device?
I assume that the tokens I sent to my backend for this device will still be active - so now this user will receive notifications from another account because that account was signed in on the device previously.
I do have access to the current FCM token and I could delete that from my backend before signing out the old user, but considering the "Multiple tokens" section: how do I make sure that I can delete all FCM tokens of the old user from my backend?
Uniqueness
Additionally, assuming that old tokens are just dead for the device (will not trigger notifications anymore) when new ones are generated, can I be sure that this token will never be assigned to another device in the future?
TL;DR
How can I make sure that I have the correct FCM token(s) for my user stored in my backend and more importantly: how can I ensure that no tokens of other users are saved for some user in my backend?
I read through:
https://stackoverflow.com/a/40158260/6509751
However, I still do not know how to deal with multiple tokens.
Does this mean that I might need to target multiple active tokens per device?
An application has a single active token for each sender ID. It's fairly uncommon to have multiple sender ID, and you'd usually know if if you do. If you're sending from a single back-end, there's usually no need for having multiple sender IDs.
I am new to firebase. I want to send notification to my list of followers(group of members like instagram).
I created a unique topic for each user and all the followers of a user will subscribe to the topic. when i send a notification to the topic, notification not delivered to all followers consistently.
When User clicks follow button i am subscribing to the topic by
FirebaseMessaging.getInstance().subscribeToTopic(FollowerUserID);
by clicking unfollow i am unsubscribing the topic
FirebaseMessaging.getInstance().unsubscribeFromTopic(FollowerUserID);
I have used Firebase cloud functions for pushing notification to the Topic.
If Firebase Token changed for a user whether we need subscribe the topic again?
I don't know how the subscribe/unsubscribe model works. will anyone explain how its works ?
kindly help me get out of this problem.
Suggest me the best way to send notifications to group of peoples(Followers).
First thing first.
If a firebase user token changes and that token was subscribed to a cloud messaging notification then he will no longer receive any notifications, also if he was subscribed to a topic and that topic changes he won't get any notifications from the new topic
For your business logic, I'd make a cloud messaging topic for each user and whenever someone follows that user I will subscribe that user token to the topic of the followed user.
say user X followed user Y, and user Z followed user X. both Y and Z will subscribe to topic X.
check this link
https://firebase.google.com/docs/cloud-messaging/admin/manage-topic-subscriptions
Firebase Cloud Messaging topics subscribe based on Instance ID, not FCM Token. An Instance ID uniquely identifies an app device instance and does not change unless the user uninstalls the app. If an app instance is subscribed to a topic, it will remain subscribed to it. While FCM Tokens periodically refresh, this does not affect topic subscriptions. There is no need to resubscribe users every time a token refreshes. See the guide for some useful information. You can also see the reference indicating how subscribeToTopic works with the Instance ID.
I'm looking at implementing messaging between mobile and browser apps using Firebase cloud messaging and i have a few questions, that the docs don't seem to answer.
For being able to receive messages, you need a Registration Token (RT).
Messages can be send to a RT, to a topic or to a device group notification_key.The RT can also be used:
directly
to subscribe to a topic
to add to a device group
The RT can also expire/change.
In my app, I'm maintaining a list of RT per user. Now, when the RT changes:
Do I have to unsubscribe the old token and subscribe the new token to topics?
Do I have to remove the old token and add the new token to device groups?
Is it possible to get information about device groups/topics for a token?
Can I add a token to a device group more than once?
Can I subscribe a token to a topic more than once?
Will multiple subscriptions/additions of the same token result in receiving duplicate messages
Sorry, that's a lot of questions, but I guess, for somebody who has gone through this, it should be pie ;)
Do I have to unsubscribe the old token and subscribe the new token to topics?
AFAIK, you don't have to unsubscribe the old token, since it will be discarded by FCM itself. For the new token, yes, you'll have to subscribe it to the topic you need. The usual thing is done (in Android) by having subscribeToTopic() in onTokenRefreshed().
Do I have to remove the old token and add the new token to device groups?
Yes. You have to handle the mapping/relationships for Device Group Messaging. See my answer here. This is different from topics. The token will be invalidated, but will be kept as part of the list of registration tokens for the corresponding registration key.
It's why there's a possibility to receive a NotRegistred error on one of the tokens if you send to Device Group. :)
Is it possible to get information about device groups/topics for a token?
For Device Group Messaging (same with #2), the developer (you) have to manage these details yourself. For topics, you can use the InstanceID API. Specifically, set details parameter to true:
[optional] boolean details: set this query parameter to true to get available IID token details, including connection information and FCM or GCM topic subscription information (if any) for the device associated with this token. When not specified, defaults to false.
Can I add a token to a device group more than once?
Ahmm. Yes. Do you mean the same token? If so, I haven't tried it yet. Might as well do some checking on the client side before adding.
Can I subscribe a token to a topic more than once?
If you mean re-subscribing, then yes. If you mean duplicate request to subscribe, I think the result would still be a success. No changes in behavior though.
Will multiple subscriptions/additions of the same token result in receiving duplicate messages?
Tested it out. You won't receive duplicate messages for both duplicate topic subscriptions and adding the same token to a device group. It seems that FCM ignores the request to subscribe/add a Registration token if it's already subscribed/added to a device group.