Blaze: Samsung email app duplicate notifications

[Mattaton]

I've had to turn off email notifications on my Blaze because I keep getting notifications for the same email repeatedly.

The app apparently doesn't directly support the Samsung (Galaxy Note 5) email app. It only gives Gmail as an option for email, so I had to just check the email app in the generic app notifications.

I think what happens is this:

I get a new email, I get a notification for it.
I get a second email, I get a notification for that email and the previous one again if it is still unread.
I get a third email, I get 3 more notifications. One for each unread message.
At this moment, I have 2 unread emails (one from PayPal, one from Audible) and 2 notifications for each, 4 total. 
Just sent myself a test email. Now I have 10 notifications:
4 for PayPal, 4 for Audible, and 2 for the new email??? Again, I only actually have 3 emails.
WHAT THE HECK?

As far as I know, this will stack forever if I don't check the emails and mark them as read. Very annoying when my Blaze starts vibrating like a fool when I only received one new email, but it's buzzing for the 10 previous I had already been notified of.

I've had to just disable notifications for the email app. However, for some reason, it just keeps rechecking itself. I'll uncheck it, go for a day or so with no email notifications and then suddenly the Blaze will starting buzzing and I'll have a bunch of email notifications. Sure enough, it's checked in the app again. GAH!!!

Hopefully Fitbit can fix these issues!

[RobertoME]

Hi @Mattaton, thank you for bring this issue to my attention. So far I was reviewing previous reports of issues and this case is not common, in fact this is the first time I see this behavior. I wonder if is only happening with the email app or is happening also with call/text notifications?

In the meantime I recommend the following:

1. Unpair your tracker from your mobile device. You can unpair your tracker in your mobile device's Bluetooth settings. If you are unsure how to verify or change settings for your mobile device, refer to instructions provided by your device manufacturer. For most Android mobile devices, tap Settings > Bluetooth, find your tracker in the list of paired devices, and then tap Forget or Forget Device to unpair your tracker.
2. Reboot your mobile device.
3. In the Fitbit app, tap Allow notifications access and allow access to the Fitbit Notification Service, and then turn on again your notifications and give it another.

Keep me updated how it goes, I'll be around.

[Mattaton]

Hi, Roberto...

I have only noticed this issue with the email app. And again, I cannot select the email app under the specialized email notification. I have to select the email app as a generic app as I would with Facebook messenger, Skype, etc.

I have only seen one other issue with text notifications. I once got a text from my wife and it showed the notification from her. Then later got a text from a friend and it showed both text notifications as being from my friend even though the first had previously been marked from my wife.

I'll give your repairing advice a shot.

Thanks!

[Mattaton]

Roberto,

I don't see Allow notification access anywhere under the fitbit app settings or under the Blaze settings. Where is that?

[ruzickab]

In regards to the E-mail Notification feature only supporting Gmail...  when does Fitbit expect to support the native Samsung Email application for this notification feature?  Most of my e-mail volume comes through the native Samsung Email app - Fitbit already supports native Samsung Calendar app for notifications.  I have the Fitbit Blaze and all the other notifications work very well!

[Mattaton]

ruzickab,

Agreed. I'd definitely like more options for the specialized email notifications than gmail. Although I'm not sure what difference it makes, if any, with how the notifications are delivered.

Are you seeing this behavior with notifications from the Samsung email app?

[Tubadour]

Hi, I do have exactly the same behaviour. Matteton's explanation makes sense to me. It applies on all notifications from generic and selected apps. I switched from Pebble Steel, which did not have this behaviour. Phone is Motorola X Play. Hope someone can sort it out. Regards from Belgium

[RobertoME]

Hi there @Mattaton and @ruzickab. Thank you for joining to our Fitbit Community @Tubadour. I'm sorry I haven't posted anything lately. 

@Mattaton the Allow Notifications access is located on the phone settings, this won't be found on the Fitbit app since is related to your phone privacy or notification center.

Although I was testing this scenario and I wonder if you are receiving repeated notifications for read and unread emails? I experienced the same issue when my emails and text notifications were unread. Once I read the emails or text on the apps, the repeated notifications disappeared from my Blaze.

About the native Samsung app, I recommend to try with the Advanced Notification on your Blaze. For additional details, please review the following post: Extended Notifications for Blaze.

Hope this helps. For anything else let me know.

[Mattaton]

Yes, @RobertoME, I think that's exactly what is happening and what I described in the original post. If I have not been able to read the emails (they're still unread), I am continually notified of the same unread emails over and over. The notifcations stack instead of being aware that a notification for a given email has already been sent. If I read them, though, the notifications don't disappear from my Blaze as you described. The notifications stay until I clear them. I just don't get any new notifications for the now-read messages.
The phone itself handles this properly. It notifies me with each email that comes in, but it doesn't notify me of previous unread emails I have already received notifcation for. It doesn't stack notifications of the same event. It will send a new notifcation with a new email and then have a grouped notification saying I have X unread messages.

But, yes, if you read the emails, the notifications obviously stop. However, if you can't read them, say, you're in a movie theater or something of that nature, the Blaze will keep buzzing for each new email and previous unread emails with new notifications. I might get only 3 emails, but I'll have 15 or so notifications. They just keep stacking.

Thanks!

Matt

[Colinm39]

@RobertoMEI'm noticing duplication of emails, but I'm wondering if the topics I'm involved with I have the Subscribe setting on, and I have posted a reply into the same topic, of course with the email default ticked.

I'm not sure when I would have ticked the subscribe, before or after the post ????

[RobertoME]

Hi @Mattaton and @Colinm39. I'm sorry I haven't posted anything recently.

About what you say @Mattaton you re correct, although the only way to stop the duplicate notifications was as you mentioned. When you read your emails, the notifications alerts wont appear on your Blaze.

@Colinm39 the post subscription begins once you reply on a thread, there is no need to manually subscribe to each topic. So bottom line you are subscribe after the post.

See you around and for more help, keep me posted.

[Aerosmith]

This is happening to me as well, is there any update?  I am using the same app I think (but on a Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge) and the exact behavior described is occurring.  I don't know if it matters, but the email connection is via an Exchange server.  Looking for an update, thank you!

-Aero

[Mattaton]

I don't think the email server matters, this is all due to how the FitBit app interfaces with the phone and pushes notifications to the Blaze.

Basically, FitBit has designed the app to look at any new emails during each check cycle and notify you as though they are ALL brand new emails, not just unread. The check cycle being whenever a new email comes in. It looks at the full list of unread mail and tells you about all of them, even if it's for the 30th time for the oldest ones.

Very annoying, but I'm not sure what is involved in keeping track of which emails the user is already notified of and weeding those out. Maybe an option in the app to receive a counter notification instead of the email itself. So, instead of having the email sent to the Blaze, after the first unread email notification, you'd get a, "You have X unread emails..." Then you'd just get an updated X with each subsequent notification.
But, that may not be the best behavior as then you'd not get an excerpt of new emails when they came in.

One of the previous posters mentioned they had a Pebble watch that handled it well, so I guess it is do-able. It's just a matter of whether FitBit cares to handle it. These days, if tech is more than a year old, it's hard to get companies to do anything to change odd behavior. They're so focused on the next device they want to sell you, they don't really care if you're not happy with the current device. It just makes you more likely to buy the new hotness device that MIGHT fix the issue. (Unless you're so unhappy that you never buy another device from that company again.)

Makes you wonder if it works on iPhone and us lowly Android users aren't worth the time. 😄