Notification Icon with the new Firebase Cloud Messaging system

Yesterday Google presented at Google I/O the new notification system based on the new Firebase. I tried this new FCM ( Firebase Cloud Messaging ) with the example on Github.

The icon of the notification is always the ic_launcher despite I have declared a specific drawable

Why ? Here below the official code for handling the message

public class AppFirebaseMessagingService extends FirebaseMessagingService {

    /**
     * Called when message is received.
     *
     * @param remoteMessage Object representing the message received from Firebase Cloud Messaging.
     */
    // [START receive_message]
    @Override
    public void onMessageReceived(RemoteMessage remoteMessage) {
        // If the application is in the foreground handle both data and notification messages here.
        // Also if you intend on generating your own notifications as a result of a received FCM
        // message, here is where that should be initiated. See sendNotification method below.
        sendNotification(remoteMessage);
    }
    // [END receive_message]

    /**
     * Create and show a simple notification containing the received FCM message.
     *
     * @param remoteMessage FCM RemoteMessage received.
     */
    private void sendNotification(RemoteMessage remoteMessage) {

        Intent intent = new Intent(this, MainActivity.class);
        intent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP);
        PendingIntent pendingIntent = PendingIntent.getActivity(this, 0 /* Request code */, intent,
                PendingIntent.FLAG_ONE_SHOT);

        Uri defaultSoundUri= RingtoneManager.getDefaultUri(RingtoneManager.TYPE_NOTIFICATION);

// this is a my insertion looking for a solution
        int icon = Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= Build.VERSION_CODES.LOLLIPOP ? R.drawable.myicon: R.mipmap.myicon;
        NotificationCompat.Builder notificationBuilder = new NotificationCompat.Builder(this)
                .setSmallIcon(icon)
                .setContentTitle(remoteMessage.getFrom())
                .setContentText(remoteMessage.getNotification().getBody())
                .setAutoCancel(true)
                .setSound(defaultSoundUri)
                .setContentIntent(pendingIntent);

        NotificationManager notificationManager =
                (NotificationManager) getSystemService(Context.NOTIFICATION_SERVICE);

        notificationManager.notify(0 /* ID of notification */, notificationBuilder.build());
    }

}

Unfortunately this was a limitation of Firebase Notifications in SDK 9.0.0-9.6.1. When the app is in the background the launcher icon is use from the manifest (with the requisite Android tinting) for messages sent from the console.

With SDK 9.8.0 however, you can override the default! In your AndroidManifest.xml you can set the following fields to customise the icon and color:

<meta-data
        android:name="com.google.firebase.messaging.default_notification_icon"
        android:resource="@drawable/notification_icon" />
<meta-data android:name="com.google.firebase.messaging.default_notification_color"
        android:resource="@color/google_blue" />

Note that if the app is in the foreground (or a data message is sent) you can completely use your own logic to customise the display. You can also always customise the icon if sending the message from the HTTP/XMPP APIs.

Use a server implementation to send messages to your client and use data type of messages rather than notification type of messages.

This will help you get a callback to onMessageReceived irrespective if your app is in background or foreground and you can generate your custom notification then

atm they are working on that issue https://github.com/firebase/quickstart-android/issues/4

> when you send a notification from the Firebase console is uses your app icon by default, and the Android system will turn that icon solid white when in the notification bar. > > If you are unhappy with that result you should implement FirebaseMessagingService and create the notifications manually when you receive a message. We are working on a way to improve this but for now that's the only way.

edit: with SDK 9.8.0 add to AndroidManifest.xml

<meta-data android:name="com.google.firebase.messaging.default_notification_icon" android:resource="@drawable/my_favorite_pic"/>

My solution is similar to ATom's one, but easier to implement. You don't need to create a class that shadows FirebaseMessagingService completely, you can just override the method that receives the Intent (which is public, at least in version 9.6.1) and take the information to be displayed from the extras. The "hacky" part is that the method name is indeed obfuscated and is gonna change every time you update the Firebase sdk to a new version, but you can look it up quickly by inspecting FirebaseMessagingService with Android Studio and looking for a public method that takes an Intent as the only parameter. In version 9.6.1 it's called zzm. Here's how my service looks like:

public class MyNotificationService extends FirebaseMessagingService {

    public void onMessageReceived(RemoteMessage remoteMessage) {
        // do nothing
    }

    @Override
    public void zzm(Intent intent) {
        Intent launchIntent = new Intent(this, SplashScreenActivity.class);
        launchIntent.setAction(Intent.ACTION_MAIN);
        launchIntent.addCategory(Intent.CATEGORY_LAUNCHER);
        PendingIntent pendingIntent = PendingIntent.getActivity(this, 0 /* R    equest code */, launchIntent,
                PendingIntent.FLAG_ONE_SHOT);
        Bitmap rawBitmap = BitmapFactory.decodeResource(getResources(),
                R.mipmap.ic_launcher);
        NotificationCompat.Builder notificationBuilder = new NotificationCompat.Builder(this)
                .setSmallIcon(R.drawable.ic_notification)
                .setLargeIcon(rawBitmap)
                .setContentTitle(intent.getStringExtra("gcm.notification.title"))
                .setContentText(intent.getStringExtra("gcm.notification.body"))
                .setAutoCancel(true)
                .setContentIntent(pendingIntent);

        NotificationManager notificationManager =
                (NotificationManager)     getSystemService(Context.NOTIFICATION_SERVICE);

        notificationManager.notify(0 /* ID of notification */, notificationBuilder.build());
    }
}

if your app is in background the notification icon will be set onMessage Receive method but if you app is in foreground the notification icon will be the one you defined on manifest

Just set targetSdkVersion to 19. The notification icon will be colored. Then wait for Firebase to fix this issue.

There is also one ugly but working way. Decompile FirebaseMessagingService.class and modify it's behavior. Then just put the class to the right package in yout app and dex use it instead of the class in the messaging lib itself. It is quite easy and working.

There is method:

private void zzo(Intent intent) {
    Bundle bundle = intent.getExtras();
    bundle.remove("android.support.content.wakelockid");
    if (zza.zzac(bundle)) {  // true if msg is notification sent from FirebaseConsole
        if (!zza.zzdc((Context)this)) { // true if app is on foreground
            zza.zzer((Context)this).zzas(bundle); // create notification
            return;
        }
        // parse notification data to allow use it in onMessageReceived whe app is on foreground
        if (FirebaseMessagingService.zzav(bundle)) {
            zzb.zzo((Context)this, intent);
        }
    }
    this.onMessageReceived(new RemoteMessage(bundle));
}

This code is from version 9.4.0, method will have different names in different version because of obfuscation.

I'm triggering my notifications from FCM console and through HTTP/JSON ... with the same result.

I can handle the title, full message, but the icon is always a default white circle:

Notification screenshot

Instead of my custom icon in the code (setSmallIcon or setSmallIcon) or default icon from the app:

 Intent intent = new Intent(this, MainActivity.class);
    // use System.currentTimeMillis() to have a unique ID for the pending intent
    PendingIntent pIntent = PendingIntent.getActivity(this, (int) System.currentTimeMillis(), intent, 0);

    if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT < 16) {
        Notification n  = new Notification.Builder(this)
                .setContentTitle(messageTitle)
                .setContentText(messageBody)
                .setSmallIcon(R.mipmap.ic_launcher)
                .setContentIntent(pIntent)
                .setAutoCancel(true).getNotification();
        NotificationManager notificationManager =
                (NotificationManager) getSystemService(NOTIFICATION_SERVICE);
        //notificationManager.notify(0, n);
        notificationManager.notify(id, n);
    } else {
        Bitmap bm = BitmapFactory.decodeResource(getResources(), R.mipmap.ic_launcher);

        Notification n  = new Notification.Builder(this)
                .setContentTitle(messageTitle)
                .setContentText(messageBody)
                .setSmallIcon(R.drawable.ic_stat_ic_notification)
                .setLargeIcon(bm)
                .setContentIntent(pIntent)
                .setAutoCancel(true).build();

        NotificationManager notificationManager =
                (NotificationManager) getSystemService(NOTIFICATION_SERVICE);
        //notificationManager.notify(0, n);
        notificationManager.notify(id, n);
    }

write this

<meta-data 
         android:name="com.google.firebase.messaging.default_notification_icon"
         android:resource="@drawable/ic_notification" />

right down <application.....>

Thought I would add an answer to this one, since my problem was simple but hard to notice. In particular I had copy/pasted an existing meta-data element when creating my com.google.firebase.messaging.default_notification_icon, which used an android:value tag to specify its value. This will not work for the notification icon, and once I changed it to android:resource everything worked as expected.