Hi,
I hope my “problem” isn’t too tiny to deal with. Also, I don’t know whether it has to do with Antenna Pod or my phone’s OS, which is kind of Beta.
Phone model:
Fairphone 3
Android 9
OS: /e/
(and I’m still kinda new to Android)
I really like having basic controls available on the lockscreen, but one day they disappeared and didn’t come back. I wasn’t sure whether I’d reset a Setting that I shouldn’t have, but they all seemed to be OK.
So I uninstalled and then reinstalled Antenna Pod, and the lockscreen controls were back, yay! But then they disappeared again. Yes, I had once again customized a couple of settings but not as many as before, and nothing that would deactivate lockscreen controls - I think? Anyway, I put back the default settings as far as I could recall them, but it didn’t help.
So I guess I could try reinstalling once again and then not changing any settings at all, and see if the lockscreen controls disappear again, but I don’t look forward to having to search for and subscribe to all my podcasts all over again, so I thought I would try asking first. (Also, I wouldn’t be thrilled about not customizing settings at all.)
Has anyone else had this kind of problem? Any tips?
You can use the “database export” feature. It contains subscriptions and played status but (currently) not settings. If you are able to find out which setting causes the problem, it would help a lot.
Thanks for the hot tip on the database export!
Now I’ll give the new new installation a couple days to see if the lockscreen feature disappears all by itself without me changing any settings. If it doesn’t, I’ll start testing one setting at a time.
Hi again, I’ve figured it out:
The setting change that makes the lockscreen controls disappear isn’t in Antenna Pod, it’s in the phone’s Settings, under Notifications. I don’t need the little green “badge” (if that’s the right word) showing up on the Antenna Pod icon on my phone’s screen when a podcast has been updated, so I switched off notifications for Antenna Pod in the phone’s settings.
Through process of elimination I now know that this is what caused the problem. Why? I don’t know. Is it an Android thing? Or an /e/ thing? I don’t know (yet, but I’ll check in with the /e/ forum).
The good news is, reactivating notifications immediately reactivates the Antenna Pod lockscreen feature.
The bad news: I constantly have a little exclamation point on the Antenna Pod icon. Oh well, I’ll survive it
I was really glad to get that quick response, ByteHamster, thanks!
Update – just a bit more detail. I posted this in the /e/ forum as well.
In the phone settings under Apps and Notifications, there are six options (called categories) for Antenna Pod under Notifications. Only one of them causes the lockscreen controls to disappear when ‘unchecked’: the ‘Currently playing’ category. I suppose it’s a bit logical. But I don’t need that notification badge showing up on my homescreen, and I wish i could get rid of it! (But I get it if this is a low-priority issue.)
Did you know that you can tap on that “Currently playing” notification channel and change more settings? On my device, there is a “Show notification dot” option that is disabled by default. Maybe it somehow got enabled on your device.
Cool that you bought a Fairphone and use /e/ OS! I hope that’s a combination that will occur more and more (I myself am using a Fairphone 2 atm) And thank a lot for chipping in here - no issue is too small to discuss, plus it might help others as well!
So if I understood correctly, we know the exclamation mark can be romoved by tweaking the /e/ settings, but you didn’t manage to only remove the badge, right? Did also look for the "Show notification dot” option in the other notification categories? As I’m on Android 7 I don’t know which categories there are, but I’d expect it under something like ‘new episodes’?
Btw, these notification dots are an Android thing I think, not /e/-specific. And anything interesting from the /e/ forum?
Hi @keunes
Thanks! I’m very new to Android (after ten years of iPhone) and not the most tech-y person, so I often don’t know which issues are related to which layer of the whole smartphone thing. (And I don’t always know or understand the terms for this stuff.)
Right - removing the dot means also not having Antenna Pod controls on the lockscreen.
I did a search for “dot” in settings and found “Allow notification dots” in Apps & notif → Notifications – it was already off – and “Hide notifications dots” under “When the screen is on” on a page called “Custom restrictions”, but I don’t know what Custom Restrictions is under.* Anyway, I activated the “Hide…” checkbox, but nothing changed.
(When I hit the “back” arrow at the top (next to “Custom restrictions”) it just goes back to the search window. When I enter “Custom restrictions” in the search field, I get nothing.)
Nothing from the /e/ forum so far. Just that one of the support people added “support” and “fairphone” tags to my post.
Did you try to disable the other categories? Does the notification dot only disappear when you disable the ‘currently playing’ channel? It would be helpful if we can rule out the other channels, so if you haven’t done so already, could you disable them one by one, keeping the other ones active?
I can check the coming week if I can manipulate this behaviour on Fairphone’s own Android version, when I receive back my Fairphone 3 (currently in repair).
(I myself am using a Fairphone 2 atm) And thank a lot for chipping in here - no issue is too small to discuss, plus it might help others as well!
