Work Profile Wake Screen Issues

[brianwestco]

I am finding that when using a work profile, if you set the notifications on the work profile to not show sensitive information, whenever a notification is received by an app in the work profile, the notifications do not wake the phones screen, even with the option to wake turned on.   If you set the notifications to show sensitive information, they do wake the screen.

On a the personal profile, it doesn't matter if you show or hide sensitive notifications, as long as the wake screen option is on, notifications to apps in the personal profile wake the screen.

This behavior seems broken to me, is this a bug?

I am currently testing this on a Pixel 7a, with Android 14, build no UQ1A.240205.002.

[Lizzie]

Hello @brianwestco,

Happy Friday to you and welcome to the community.

Just to check has the experience you are seeing now, changed from before or is this the first time you are testing it? Do you see anything when the notifications come through? 

As a side note, I'm also using the screen flash notifications (announced in Android 14) on my pixel device which I find helps a lot to spot notifications. 

[brianwestco]

We have just moved from iPhones to Pixel's, and this is after setting up our pixel's to have a personal and work profile.   When the notification comes through to an app in the work profile, while the screen is off, you see nothing.  When you turn on the screen, prior to unlocking the device, you can see the apps notification is sat on the lock screen.  This behavior does not present when an app is in the personal profile, with the same notification sensitivity setting.

[brianwestco]

.

[Lizzie]

Thanks for the extra information @brianwestco, it's great to see you back in the community. 

I've been testing this on my own device and with the 'Setting work profile notifications' toggle off, my screen is waking to show that there is a notifications (and the buzz notification sounds as well) via work profile, however the lock screen image doesn't show. Is this mirroring what you are seeing and if so are you looking for the whole lock screen image to show? 

Thanks again,

Lizzie

[brianwestco]

After doing a little more testing, i believe I may have found why you may not have reproduced what we are experiencing.

Can i ask if you enrolled your phone onto an mdm platform, as this appears to be the only way you can get a work profile, and did you configure the setting "Lock screen > Work Notifications > When work profile is locked" to "Hide sensitive work content" using an MDM profile, or did you set it manually?

I can only reproduce the behaviour of the wake screen not being woken by an app receiving a notification in the work profile when this setting has been set by MDM. If it is set manually, it works as expected.

I dont believe that this is a SOTI issue, as I can also reproduce it using Manageengine.

Please find attached a video of this behaviour. You will note that on the first notification, i have highlighted that the setting is greyed out, as this is set by the mdm. I then change remove this setting from the profile on MDM, and then highligh that this setting has now changed itself back to the default "Show all work notification content", which is no longer greyed out, and I then set this manually to "Hide sensitive work content", and then proceed to send another notification, which on this occasion wakes the screen. It appears that using MDM to set this is breaking the configured behaviour of waking the screen on notification.

[Lizzie]

Thanks for all your effort here @brianwestco, you've gotta love a video! 😀

Looking at this, I actually think it would be good to raise this as an issue via your EMM, SOTI and provide a bug report. This way they can dive a bit deeper into what is happening here and they will be able to raise it with our engineers if it's on our side. 

It would be great if you can keep me posted. 

Thanks again,

Lizzie

[brianwestco]

I have previously raised this with Soti, who concluded it was a problem with Android, so was out of scope of their support, and they had no intention of escalating this Google.  They didnt even go to the lengths of collecting diagnostic information, they just closed me down, and told me to contact Google.  Other than this community, I have no way of raising an issue, hence me raising it in this community. 

This hasn't just occurred with SOTI.  For my own sanity, and to hammer home the point that this is an Android problem, not a problem with my EMM, I signed up for trials of manage engine, and Hexnode, and with the respective setting for each EMM that changes this setting, have now managed to reproduce the same behaviour with all 3.

Given that I can reproduce this issue with 3 MDM providers, and that it is always with one setting that both restricts the ability for the device owner om a pixel to change "Settings > Display > Lock Screen > When work profile is locked", this is an Android Enterprise Issue, not an EMM issue. I do agree, as a responsible MDM provider, SOTI should be taking it seriously, and escalating via their own Google contacts, however they are not doing so, so I am left trying to get it recognised as an issue myself.

Please advise

[Lizzie]

Thanks @brianwestco for the extra information here, I am so sorry for your back and forth. I've just sent you a direct message to your community inbox. 

Speak to you soon.

Lizzie

[ReeceK]

Hey @brianwestco,

I hope you're doing well.

We've looked into the issue but haven't been able to replicate it on our end. To help us further diagnose the problem, could you check if any of your colleagues with Pixel devices are experiencing the same issue? This will help us determine if it's an isolated case or a broader problem.

Thanks

Reece