General Push Notification Troubleshooting Guide

This section is a general guide for troubleshooting push notifications. We also have specific troubleshooting steps for Android and Apple devices.

Notification Delivery

According to Apple and Google's documentation, push notifications are delivered on a "best effort" basis. It is recommended that you configure backup contact methods (e.g., SMS, email, phone) in case providers have an issue delivering push notifications.

Download the Most Recent Version of the App

You can download the most recent version of the PagerDuty mobile app from the App Store or Google Play. Please see our System Requirements for supported app versions and platforms.

Push Notification Troubleshooting

• In-App Troubleshooting
• Enable Push Notifications in the Mobile App
• Service Disabled or in Maintenance Mode
• Reset Devices and Push Notification Settings
• Multiple or Missing Devices on the User Profile Page
• Send a Test Notification
• Push Notifications for Other Apps
• Firewall and Network Connection
• Blocked Devices on the User Profile Page

In-App Troubleshooting

You can test notifications in the mobile app:

1. From the home screen, tap Settings.
2. Tap Troubleshoot Notifications.

Tests will automatically begin, with a green check mark indicating success. If an issue is identified, an error message with suggested troubleshooting steps will appear.

You can manually run tests again by tapping Run Tests in the top right corner.

Enable Push Notifications in the Mobile App

In the mobile app, tap Settings and make sure you have the following settings configured:

1. Under High-Urgency, select a sound that will play when you receive push notifications for high-urgency incidents.
2. Under Low-Urgency, optionally deactivate the Mute Sound toggle and select a sound that will play when you receive push notifications for low-urgency incidents.

Service Disabled or in Maintenance Mode

If a service is disabled or in maintenance mode, incidents will not trigger. As a result, incident notifications, including push notifications, will not go out.

Reset Devices and Push Notification Settings

In the PagerDuty Mobile App

You may wish to reset your push notification settings and preferences in PagerDuty.

1. In the mobile app, tap Profile picture Edit Contact Methods. In the section Push, tap next to any devices.
2. Log out of the PagerDuty app (if you're logged in)*:
   • On Android: Navigate to Accounts, tap the menu icon on the account, and tap Remove this account.
   • On iOS: Navigate to Accounts, tap Edit and tap next to the account.
3. Force close the app.
4. Open the app and log in to your PagerDuty account.

In Your Device’s Settings App

You can also reset the app in your device’s settings app:

• On Android: Open the Settings app and go to Applications PagerDuty, then select Clear Cache.
• On iOS: Open the Settings app, select PagerDuty, then turn the Reset toggle to the on position.

Multiple or Missing Devices on the User Profile Page

Follow the instructions to reset devices and push notification settings.

If you do not see your device registered under contact methods, review how to register your mobile device for push notifications.

Send a Test Notification in the Web App

These steps outline how to send a test notification to the mobile app from the web app:

1. Add your device as a contact method and add a notification rule for the device.
2. Enable notifications for the PagerDuty app in your phone's Settings.
3. Confirm you have the most recent version of the mobile app.
4. In the web app, navigate to User Icon My Profile. Send a test notification on the Contact Methods page by clicking the Test link to the right of your device’s name.

Push Notifications for Other Apps

In rare circumstances, Apple may block specific devices from its Apple Push Notification Service. If you have any other apps that use push notifications, verify whether those apps are able to receive push notifications. Another place to check is your Notification Center to see when you were last able to receive a notification.

For Android, updating your phone may change the device ID. This can affect push notification delivery.

Firewall and Network Connection

You'll need to connect to the internet to register the PagerDuty app. If the device is connected to Wi-Fi (and no cellular connection is available), inbound and outbound TCP packets need to be sent over port 5223. Check to see whether a firewall is blocking these requests.

To circumvent a firewall that's blocking push notification registration, turn Wi-Fi off on your phone, logout of the PagerDuty app, and log in again while using a cellular data connection. Check the user profile to see if registration was successful.

Blocked Devices on the User Profile Page

If you uninstall and reinstall the PagerDuty mobile app, you may find multiple instances of the same device listed under your push notifications. Since you can only register one device at a time, some entries may have Blocked next to them.

You can remove these by clicking to the right of these devices. When you take this action, any associated notification rules will also be removed.

Android Push Notification Troubleshooting Guide

This guide covers common troubleshooting steps for mobile app issues specific to Android devices. Please see the section General Push Notification Troubleshooting Guide before using this guide.

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Register Mobile Device

If you do not see your device registered under your contact methods, please log in to the mobile app.

Receive Push Notifications

In order to receive push notifications on your Android device, Google Play Services must be enabled. If Google Play Services are enabled and the steps in the General Push Notification Troubleshooting Guide have not resolved the issue, you can try resetting the app.

To reset the app, go to Settings Apps PagerDuty tap Clear Data.

Delayed Notifications

If you are experiencing delayed notifications on Android 6.0 and newer, it’s possible that Doze mode is causing an issue. You can turn off Doze for PagerDuty by going to Settings Battery Battery Optimization All Apps PagerDuty and selecting Don’t Optimize.

Other phones may have this setting labeled as Don't wake for notifications, which you should also disable to prevent delayed notifications.

Override System Volume

Some versions* of our Android app offer a feature called Override System Volume. The availability of this feature may differ based on your specific device** and/or what other apps you have installed. It is an experimental feature, and we recommend testing it before using it for production notifications.

*Override System Volume has been introduced, removed, and re-introduced due to its experimental nature and breaking changes from new releases of the Android platform. If you don't see the option in the app, make sure you have the latest version from Google Play.

**OnePlus devices on Android 10 and higher do not support Override System Volume for the PagerDuty app.

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Work Profile Limitation

Due to a Work Profile limitation from Android, overriding Do Not Disturb and system volume will not work when the PagerDuty app is under a Work Profile.

For Android 8 (Oreo) and Android 9 (Pie), you can override Do Not Disturb by going to your phone’s settings app Apps & notifications PagerDuty Notifications. Here you should see an option to turn on high and low urgency notifications.

If you find that the PagerDuty notifications are still not overriding Do Not Disturb for Android 8 (Oreo) and Android 9 (Pie), you'll need to set them through Android Settings:

1. Select Settings Apps and Notifications App Info.
2. Find PagerDuty in the list and select App Notifications.
3. Select Advanced and make sure High Urgency and Low Urgency are both turned on.
4. Select High Urgency
   • This will take you to a menu where you can allow PagerDuty to override Do Not Disturb

For Android 7 (Nougat) and lower, this feature is in the mobile app under Settings Override System Volume. The app will attempt to override the system volume settings and use maximum volume for PagerDuty notifications.

For Android 6 (Marshmallow) devices, there is an extra setting that needs to be configured. Under Security Do Not Disturb permissions PagerDuty, turn on PagerDuty to allow it to override your Do Not Disturb settings.

For Android 5 (Lollipop) and Android 6 (Marshmallow), we suggest adding PagerDuty as a Priority app to avoid missing push notifications. To add PagerDuty as a Priority App:

1. Choose the Sounds and Notification listing.
2. Select the PagerDuty app and activate Priority.

Other Sound Issues

If you are receiving push notifications but are unable to hear a sound check the following:

• Android requires a sound to be selected for push notifications. Select a sound under Settings Sound & Notification Default Notification Ringtone.
• For Android 6.0 and newer, make sure the app is set as a prioritized app in priority mode.
• For Android 6.0 and newer, check to see if the app is being silenced by Doze mode.
• Check to see if any other volume-manipulating apps are running.

Apple Push Notification Troubleshooting Guide

This guide covers common troubleshooting steps for mobile app issues specific to Apple devices. Please see the section General Push Notification Troubleshooting Guide for initial troubleshooting steps.

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Register Mobile Device

If you do not see your device registered under your contact methods, please log in to the mobile app.

Enable Notifications in the Notification Center

In iOS, it is possible to turn off notifications for individual apps. In the Settings app, tap Notification Center and make sure the PagerDuty app is listed and enabled to play sounds and show Alerts or Banners. These are the app's default settings. If you don't see the PagerDuty app in the Notification Center, it is possible you didn’t allow PagerDuty to send push notifications when installing the app.

Apple suggests following these steps to enable notifications:

1. Delete the PagerDuty app from your device.
2. Turn off your device completely and turn it back on.
3. Go to Settings General Date & Time and set the date ahead a day or more.
4. Turn the device off completely again and turn it back on.
5. Reinstall PagerDuty and tap Allow when prompted to allow push notifications.

Verify Your Device is Registered with PagerDuty

After logging in, we sync your device's push notification token to PagerDuty's servers. This allows us to send push notifications. In the PagerDuty web app, confirm that your device is listed on your profile page under Contact Methods and Notification Rules. If it is not in either section, or you see multiple devices, you'll need to allow notifications when opening the app for the first time. You may also delete and reinstall the app to allow notifications and register your device.

For more information, please read Log in to the Mobile App.

Send a Test Notification

After confirming that your device is listed on your user profile page as a contact method with an associated notification rule, make sure that push notifications are enabled in the mobile app:

1. Make sure you have the latest version of the mobile app installed.
2. From the Open Incidents screen, tap Settings.
3. Make sure the Push Notifications toggle is enabled.
4. In the web app, on your user profile under Contact Methods, click Test next to your device’s name.

Push Notification Doesn't Produce Sound

If push notifications come through, but are not making a sound, in addition to checking sound settings, make sure that your device's Ring/Silent switch is set to Ring. If your device is on silent or vibrate, then PagerDuty notifications will also be on silent or vibrate.

Lastly, check that you are signed in to your Apple ID on your iOS device. Go to Settings iTunes & App Store and enter your Apple ID and password.

Apple Watch Notification Troubleshooting

If there is an issue receiving notifications on your Apple Watch, make sure that you've logged in to the PagerDuty app on your iPhone. Then please check the following:

1. Your Apple Watch must be on your wrist to receive notifications.
2. Your iPhone must be locked to receive watch notifications.
3. On your iPhone, notifications must be turned on for both the PagerDuty app AND the Apple Watch app.
   • You can find this under Settings Notifications PagerDuty Allow Notifications.

Other Notification Issues

• Incident Escalation
• SMS: Restriction on Short Code Messaging
• SMS: India's DND Registry

Incident Escalation

If an incident escalates to a level of an escalation policy level where you’re not present, it is expected you will not receive notifications.

For example:

1. Your notification rules are set to push notify you immediately, email you after 1 minute, and call you after 5 minutes.

2. You are on level 1 of an escalation policy where incidents are escalated after 5 minutes.

3. When an incident is triggered, you receive the push notification immediately, and 1 minute later the email notification. You do not receive a phone call.
4. This is because the incident was escalated to the level 2 on-call user (Ryan) at the 5 minute mark. Since the incident was escalated to someone else it is no longer assigned to you at 5 minutes, so PagerDuty will not send you a phone call notification.

In this case, you will want to change your notification rules to call you in less than 5 minutes OR change the escalation policy to escalate incidents after 6 or more minutes.

SMS: Restriction on Short Code Messaging

Depending on the country where you are located and which cellular provider you're using, there may be a variety of issues that can affect your ability to receive PagerDuty SMS notifications.

Some mobile carriers restrict messages from or to short codes. Typically, all PagerDuty SMS notifications are sent from the short code "PDUTY" (73889). If you aren't receiving PagerDuty notifications via SMS and your phone number meets any of the conditions below, you may need to contact your provider to verify that your account is allowed to receive SMS notifications from short codes.

1. Pay-as-you-go number.
2. Any number that was a pay-as-you-go and is now on a standard plan.
3. Any number that is or was used by a business in the past.

Specific Provider Issues with Short Codes

1. T-Mobile USA has a default content filter set. In order to remove the content filter set, you must specifically call T-Mobile and authorize PagerDuty's short code numbers (73889, 42752, and 43105).
2. If you recently upgraded your device with T-Mobile, they may have put a block on the account that could prevent it from receiving short code messages.

SMS Notification Responses

Due to a variety of factors, some countries may not support responding to SMS messages to Acknowledge or Resolve an incident even if you can receive SMS notifications. Please see the full list in our Supported Countries article.

SMS: India's DND Registry

In India, please make sure that your number is not in the national DND registry. The government provides a lookup utility you can use to determine if a number is listed.