Notifications feeling sluggish? This popular Android game may be to blame

Published 2 days ago

Who needs reliable notifications on their phones?

Last week Niantic announced the global rollout for Pikmin Bloom, a new augmented reality game that functions much like a souped-up step counter complemented by Nintendo's adorable Pikmin graphics. Well, it would appear things aren't so rosy a week from launch now that many users are experiencing delayed notifications. A bug report that called out this issue was initially filed around Bloom's launch. Thankfully this bug report is finally gaining some traction now that many more reports are spreading across the web complaining about similar notification problems. Niantic support has at least confirmed it is looking into the bug, though there's still no confirmation whether or not this is a problem for everyone who has the game installed or simply a select few.

Niantic's Pikmin Bloom forum contains a bug report where many users are complaining about delayed SMS notifications when they have Pikmin Bloom running or even simply installed. I went ahead and put this bug to the test and can confirm I did not receive any SMS alerts when the game was open on my ROG 5 (Android 11). These missing alerts showed up once I closed Pikmin Bloom, with one that was delayed well beyond the rest, arriving ten minutes after I had closed Bloom. While I can't confirm that Pikmin Bloom is the cause for these delays, my experience aligns with the bug reports spread across Niantic's community site and Reddit. So it would seem there may very well be some kind of problem with Pikmin Bloom and receive timely notifications on Android. Some users have even reported problems with repeat notifications, though I have not experienced this. It would also appear this bug is not limited to SMS alerts, with a range of notifications affected.

If you find that you're suffering from this bug, the solution appears to be uninstalling or force-closing Pikmin Bloom so that you can once again receive your notifications as they arrive. AP has reached out to Niantic, but so far, we have not received a response. The good news is the bug report on the official community site has been acknowledged by Niantic's support, so at the very least, the studio is aware and looking into the problem.

Here's hoping Niantic can get this bug squashed in short order.

Thanks: Jason