Why I don’t get push notifications in Virola mobile clients?
Push notifications are sent to Virola client apps on mobile devices by Virola server on events such as new messages or calls. Virola server uses APNS and Google GCM (FCM) services to send push notifications. Push notifications are encrypted and transmitted securely through APNS and GCM gateways.
However, if you don't get notifications there can be several reasons for this:
1. Notifications are disabled on your mobile device
This means that notifications are turned off and to turn them on you need to follow these steps:
For iPhone
- Follow Settings on your iPhone
- Select "Notifications" there
- Scroll down and choose Virola 2 from the list
- Ensure that "Allow Notifications" option is turned on
For Android
Depending on your Android device, instructions will be slightly different. You need to open Notifications in Settings or Settings / Apps for Virola and ensure that Notifications are turned on there.
2. Notifications are disabled in your Virola server settings
To manage push notifications configuration for your Virola you need to log into Virola client as administrator and do the following:
- Follow Administration / Push Notifications menu
- Make sure "Enable push notifications" checkbox is checked
- Apply changes if any were made
3. Services used for push notifications are blocked by security system on the Virola server machine, or Virola server does not have access to the Internet
To send notifications your server should have access through HTTPs protocol to the following resources:
- https://fcm.googleapis.com/v1/projects/virola-messenger/messages:send for sending push notifications to Android app
- https://api.push.apple.com for sending push notifications to iOS app
- https://virola.io/pushtoken/api/v1/push_tokens to get push tokens
You need to allow them in your Firewall. If you configure Virola server to work within your local infrastructure, then to have push notifications working, you need to allow the links above to access the Internet.
How to test push notifications
It is possible to test push notifications through Virola client. To see if push notifications work on your mobile devices you need to do the following:
- Log into Virola client as administrator
- Follow Administration / Push Notifications menu
- Click "Test push notifications" link there
- Select whether you would like to send test push notification to yourself or to all Virola users