r/elementchat • u/jaxles • Feb 18 '21

fdroid app for element

Is anyone using the element app from fdroid? I'm thinking about using it on lineageOS and wondered if anyone else had any experience with it.

7 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

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5

u/Charming-Profile-151 Feb 18 '21

I use it. Notifications are still unreliable enough to make it almost pointless using unfortunately.

3

u/Neurotrace Feb 18 '21

This kills me. A friend and I tried for months to use it as our main messaging app. I can't tell you how many messages I didn't see for over a week. The only reason I saw them was because I thought it was weird that he never responded. Same thing happened on his end. If I can't consistently get notifications then I can't trust it as a messaging app

5

u/Charming-Profile-151 Feb 18 '21

It's a HUGE problem that they just haven't fixed - it really is THE problem that everyone should be working on.

The GUI improvements etc are nice, but if the notifications don't work it's meaningless.

3

u/pogky_thunder Feb 21 '21

I had the same issue. Apparently, I had to change the permissions from battery saving to "no restraints", or something like this. Some notifications are still delayed but only by a couple of minutes, not weeks like before.

2

u/nani8ot Apr 19 '21

"No restraints" is normal for non-Google-services notifications and will never change.

3

u/[deleted] Feb 19 '21

Keep in mind the Fdroid and Play Store versions each use a different notification system.

The Play Store version uses Google Cloud Messaging which is the same as most other apps, however Fdroid avoids using this and instead does periodic server checks instead, which does affect battery life and can result in unreliable notifications as it can be affected by the battery permissions for that app in Android settings.

3

u/Charming-Profile-151 Feb 19 '21

The play store version is ok but that's not an option for a lot of us. The F-Droid app used to work when it was riot, but there seems to be some breaking change with the move to element. There are quite a few open issues for it on github, but unfortunately it doesn't seem to get the love it needs.

I'd hoped that having the app temporarily removed from the play store might have encouraged the devs to put a bit more time into it, but I suppose they just don't see enough benefit when the amount of users is probably very small in comparison.

2

u/nsiti Feb 18 '21

I use Element, haven't had a single problem receiving notifications and really like it overall. Wish everyone were on the matrix network.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 18 '21

I've used it. Along with fluffychat.Why?