bill

* 22-May-2018(#1)I just noticed errors in the server log when the system tries to send notifications to the Android app.
I think I may have inadvertently deleted the "gametz" project within Google developer console. I know I deleted some projects I found in the google cloud hosting console, thinking they were old/testing stuff. Or, it may be related to them moving everyone to Firebase.
Anyway, I'm looking into it. I may need to put out an update for the app (if I can remember how to do that).
[Note: This is fixed now, please update the app with the Play store to get notifications working again. -bill 5/23/18 ] bill

22-May-2018(#2)It looks like it has been broken since 4/29 at least (my logs don't go back any more than that). No one has complained. Maybe that shows how few people use the app or care and I shouldn't worry about it.
Trying to get this working seems very hard/complicated. A few things are going on that make it tricky. Google has deprecating the GCM (Google Cloud Messaging) system that I used. They want people to migrate to FCM (Firebase Cloud Messaging). But, that's a little complicated. There are guides on how to do the migration, but they mostly don't apply to me because I'm using an unusual web-based framework (Ionic, Cordova/PhoneGap). Ionic itself has a new incompatible version (which was coming out last year as I did the app in the previous version), so most of the docs and support for that are for the new version which isn't what my app used.
The Phonegap notifications plugin I used may support FCM in never versious, but it also seems complicated and would require I upgrade various pieces (Cordova and related plugins for that, which Ionic V1 uses) and add CocoaPods which I've never heard of but would be required to upgrade (seems to be for ios, though).
The app dev stuff I have (e.g. Android Studio and all its pieces, including Java) is out-of-date and generally needs me to upgrade it. I did that a little, but you always get these odd issues/errors that I know nothing about that hopefully don't matter. Overall, the app was sketchy (barely got it working) in a lot of ways, so it's hard to feel confident about it. And, I haven't touched it for over a year and had moved some files on my computer. And, I just don't recall all the juggling and details I had in my head to get it out.
Anyway, I can try to see if I can redo it using Firebase FCM notifications, but it will take me some time to figure it out. I may not be able to get it working. And, I'm not sure how many people it really helps (there have never been a ton of app users).
I had been thinking that the apps might be a worth encouraging people us use since email notifications haven't been working well and continue to be a problem. So, this sucks even more, if I can't get it working again. The ios app also has that annoying $99/yr fee.
I've really been trying to scale back and simplify what I do to keep gametz going since revenue is down and I'm feeling pretty burned out in general. meh, life sucks
ryanflucas

23-May-2018(#7)Is there some way to force notifications to an RSS feed and have an app just check that feed?
I asked around to see how other discussion sites were handling emails for messaging. Many of the smaller forums hopped on the Tapatalk bandwagon or are migrating to Tapatalk Groups cloud hosting since it handles all notifications in their app. I'm sure it brings it's own drawbacks that either haven't come up or nobody has used long enough to determine what they are.
https://www.tapatalk.com/tapatalk_groups