Messages marked as read when session is inactive

[anakin78z]

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See related issue here: nextcloud/talk-android#6370 (comment)

Note: I was able to reproduce this every single time yesterday, but today I'm getting inconsistent behavior, so this may not work for you on first try.

Steps to reproduce

User A & User B

1. User B has Android client, and opens web client on desktop (I'm using Windows 11)
2. User A sends message. User B receives message on web client & no notification on Android. 👍
3. User B opens new window on desktop and fully covers web client.
4. User A sends message. User B receives no notifications. Note: I'm getting inconsistent behavior here. Sometimes the web client is immediately marked as inactive, causing this step to trigger a notification, other times it isn't. It seems to matter what kind of window covers it. Covering it with Steam seems to keep it active every time. If you received a notification here, go back to step 3 and try covering the client with a different window.
5. Wait 5 minutes
6. User A sends another message. User B receives notifications on desktop and Android. However the Android notification immediately disappears.

So something caused the web client to be backgrounded, at which point notifications are enabled again. Looking at the web client network traffic though, it's sending a 'read' event (Endpoint: /chat/{token}/read), marking the message as read.

So this seems like a bug with the web client. It correctly marks the session as backgrounded so notifications can be received, but it shouldn't mark messages as read until the web client receives focus again (or is foregrounded, or whatever the correct mechanism is).

Expected behaviour

Whenever notifications are enabled, messages should not be marked as read.

Actual behaviour

Messages are marked as read, causing notifications to disappear on Android client.

Talk app

Talk app version: (see apps administration page: /index.php/settings/apps)
v24.0.2

Custom Signaling server configured: yes/no and version (see Talk administration settings: /index.php/settings/admin/talk#signaling_server)
no

Custom TURN server configured: yes/no (see Talk administration settings: /index.php/settings/admin/talk#turn_server)
no

Custom STUN server configured: yes/no (see Talk administration settings: /index.php/settings/admin/talk#stun_server)
no

Browser

Microphone available: yes/no
yes
Camera available: yes/no
yes
Operating system: Windows/Ubuntu/Mac/...
Windows 11
Browser name: Firefox/Chrome/Safari/...
Vivaldi
Browser version: 124/125/...
Version
8.1.4087.53 (Official Build) (64-bit)
Chromium Version
150.0.7871.175

Browser log

Details

``` Insert your browser log here, this could for example include: a) The javascript console log b) The network log c) ... ```

Server configuration

Operating system: Ubuntu/RedHat/...
Ubuntu Server

Web server: Apache/Nginx

Database: MySQL/Maria/SQLite/PostgreSQL

PHP version: 8.1/8.2/8.3

Nextcloud Version: (see administration page)
34.0.0 (AIO)

List of activated apps:

Details

If you have access to your command line run e.g.:
sudo -u www-data php occ app:list
from within your server installation folder

Nextcloud configuration:

Details

If you have access to your command line run e.g.:
sudo -u www-data php occ config:list system
from within your Nextcloud installation folder

Server log (data/nextcloud.log)

Details

Insert your server log here

[Antreesy]

All handling should be in https://github.com/nextcloud/spreed/blob/fa2e10bfb460d29a534114b04f68746a5b3eca5e/src/composables/useActiveSession.js

• documentVisibility is immediate trigger (switch to over tab, minimize browser, e.t.c.)
• blur events are coming with a delay of 3 minutes (covering with another app should be it

That covers notifications part.

---

Chat read marker may be prone to bugs, but it also related to documentVisibility:

spreed/src/components/MessagesList/MessagesList.vue

Lines 324 to 328 in fa2e10b

	isChatVisible(visible) {
	if (visible) {
	this.onWindowFocus()
	}
	},

So I assume, if window is covered by another window, that doesn't necessary mean 'page is not visible' for browser engine.

[SystemKeeper]

I saw that as well, and in that case the tab was definietly switched. But I am unable to reproduce it at will (and of course I was unable to check if the visibility really changed), I only notice when I miss notifications on the phone and they are all read..

[YVN4K]

I also frequently encounter this problem

[TiagoRaposoBR]

I managed to reproduce it. If you stay in the conversation window and switches to another application (loses focus), notifications get silenced for 3 minutes. But if you switch to another conversation or the start window before switching focus, all notifications show reliably.
Issue confirmed to happen with six people in a team using the same server. The fix was not confirmed by them, but I can reproduce it every time.

System: Ubuntu 24.04
Talk 23.0.9 self-hosted

From investigating the issue with Claude Code, digging into multiple cloned Nextcloud repositories and my own setup, it seems to be centered around the use of the constant INACTIVE_TIME_MS. There are two triggers to it:

• visibilitychange (document hidden): delay is immediate
• blur (window unfocused but document not hidden): delay takes 3 minutes

The blur code was found in useActiveSession.js, lines 123-126 (visibilitychange is at lines 48:55).

Again, that's a Claude Code research into cloned repository. No actual code was changed to confirm this is the offending block. However, code in place seems to match very strongly to the symptoms and the testing. If you want, I can later ask it to make a small report on its findings.

[Antreesy]

Yes, exactly how it behaves and what I wrote earlier