Sudden influx of notifications reported on OnePlus phones

Most of us have a large number of apps installed on our smartphones, but in day to day life, we only use a handful of those. So it makes sense that our phones have the ability to only show notifications from frequently used apps.

But what if one day you wake up to see that your phone is showing notifications from almost every installed app? Would be chaotic, right?

Well, sadly, that’s what’s reportedly happening with users of OnePlus smartphones. From OnePlus 6 owners to those using the OnePlus 5/5T and even OnePlus 3/3T, all are reporting sudden influx of notifications.

Take a look at some of the complaints to get a better understanding:

I have almost a couple of hundred apps on my phone and obviously I don’t use all of them all the time. Normally, I wouldn’t get any notifications from apps for which “Battery Optimization” was turned on. Suddenly, since yesterday, I am getting notifications from each and every app on my phone. I checked Battery Optimization and it’s still turned on for all the apps (except the 5 that I’ve manually turned it off for) and I’m still getting notifications from all 200

Let’s say I have 50 apps installed on my phone. Now, earlier I was getting notification from my 10 most used apps which is fine. If I was opening an app(not so commonly used) then I was getting its notification only when opened. Now what is happening: I am getting all 50 apps’ notification. As a result of which my notification drawer has become freaking lengthy & it is very difficult to look out for a particular app, let’s say I did a banking transaction & I am looking out for OTP message in that list of notifications. believe me, it is a mess

https://twitter.com/Shaitaaaaan/status/1049906544899489792
https://twitter.com/thecoffeehog/status/1050062523129565184
https://twitter.com/TheVarunK/status/1049236809534910465

What’s strange with this problem is that users say it has suddenly popped up – it’s not like the device was updated and then immediately after the issue showed up.

Yeah bro, I have a OP6, and same as you this weekend I got countless notifications from apps which I don’t use frequently as you mentioned. I didn’t understand at all……I don’t get notifications at all from these apps but all of a sudden they started popping up. Annoying….

The problem is that it started suddenly. Everything was fine. The OS was doing its job by suppressing notifications for unused apps there by reducing the clutter and optimizing battery. Suddenly, everything has gone haywire

There are multiple threads discussing about this problem on the official OnePlus forum. While reports from OnePlus 6 and OnePlus 5/5T users (1,2,3,4) started surfacing last week onward, OnePlus 3/3T users started complaining over a couple of weeks back.

There are reports on Reddit as well.

Clearly, this is not an issue with OnePlus’ Pie implementation, as devices that haven’t received the latest Android OS update are also exhibiting this erratic behavior.

Several users have confirmed that battery optimization is turned on in their case, and are suspecting that the feature has stopped working properly. Even if that’s the case, the question remains: how can this happen all of a sudden, and that too, on a range of OnePlus phones?

A potential answer could be that this is a result of a server side change. And we are not alone in suspecting this:

While we couldn’t find any official word about the issue on the company’s forum, one user confirmed they have sent logs and screenshots for debugging purposes to a OnePlus bug hunter. So it seems the company is at least aware of the problem.

As for workarounds, following is one that an affected user said worked for them:

goto battery settings – battery optimization – click on 3 dot menu – Advances optimization – disable “Advanced Optimization”
now reboot in to recovery and clear the cache
after reboot enable the “advanced optimization”

There’s currently no information on how long it will take for OnePlus to fix the problem (if it lies at their end). Rest assured, we are keeping a tab on the matter, and will let you know as and when any news worthy development takes place on the matter.

Until then, do let us know about your experience with notifications by dropping a comment below.

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