Duplicate unread message notifications between dash and dock

[Jake Hoban]

When there are unread messages in a messaging app (e.g. Mattermost, Telegram, Proton Mail, whatsapp-for-linux - some of these are installed from deb and some from snap) the unread count appears in the dash, but stays after I've read the messages unless I also dismiss it from the Gnome dock notification centre. The only way to stop that behaviour seems to be to set "do not disturb" in Gnome dock but that's not what i want. I want notifications for unread messages, which disappear automatically when I've read them.

Screenshot attached - Mattermost icon in dash shows 3 unread messages, although they have all been read. At the top you see the notification centre where I have to click away the messages to make the count on the icon go down.

Ubuntu 24.04, gnome-shell 46.0-0ubuntu5.1

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 24.04
Package: gnome-shell 46.0-0ubuntu5.1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 6.8.0-36.36-generic 6.8.4
Uname: Linux 6.8.0-36-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.28.1-0ubuntu3
Architecture: amd64
CasperMD5CheckResult: pass
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Fri Jun 28 13:20:03 2024
DisplayManager: gdm3
InstallationDate: Installed on 2024-05-12 (47 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 23.10.1 "Mantic Minotaur" - Release amd64 (20231016.1)
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 SHELL=/bin/bash
 TERM=xterm-256color
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
RelatedPackageVersions: mutter-common 46.0-1ubuntu9
SourcePackage: gnome-shell
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to noble on 2024-05-13 (46 days ago)

[Marco Trevisan (Treviño) (3v1n0)]

That's an expected feature, since you have unread notifications, they will show up in the settings.

You can change this though, just run:
 $ gnome-extensions prefs <email address hidden>

Then from the dialog you can tune this behavior from the Application Icons tab, where you can define whether to sum the values or to hide the notifications at all.

Note this can be controlled from the shell too, by enabling the do-not-disturb mode.

[Jake Hoban (truemind)]

Thanks for the response, but I don't think it's expected behaviour.

If I were running Windows with Outlook mail, the Outlook icon in the system tray might show that I have unread messages - then if I go into Outlook and read them, the system tray icon would update and there wouldn't be an unread count anymore.

Right now in Ubuntu, the count does not update after I read the messages. I have to manually clear the notifications as well as reading the messages, in other words an extra non-value-add step.

[Marco Trevisan (Treviño) (3v1n0)]

Sadly the issue is of the applications: They are in charge of removing the notifications they added if these are invalid.

We can't do anything about, the only thing you can do at system level is disabling the counting of the pending notifications per app.

[Jake Hoban (truemind)]

So every single app is doing it wrong? Or does the mechanism only allow them to increment, not decrement the count?

[Marco Trevisan (Treviño) (3v1n0)]

The notifications api allows to remove notifications, but I feel that some of them don't use it correctly