How is notification synchronization working for you?

[Joe920]

I like the idea of the PC & phone notification sync feature in Win10, but in practice it hasn't worked that great for me. I'm curious how others are doing.

Some examples:

• I get Cortana reminders on both PC and 950XL at the same time, but snoozing one doesn't snooze the other.
• A SofaScore notification that's dismissed on the PC stays visible on the phone.
• I use WhatsApp desktop on the PC. I can be messaging using the PC version for a while, and then half a minute later, I get a bunch of past messages one by one in the PC action center, each late message making its own sound. I wish the WhatsApp message sync could be disabled while the PC version is running. The action center messages are also only FYI, since you can't reply from there.
• Recently phone notifications have been showing up with huge (10+ minutes) delays
• Before the update to AU .82 sync had stopped entirely
• The settings on the PC sometimes don't show phone-to-PC sync as an option

Is anyone having better luck with it?

 

[ashram]

If i remember correctly, you can adjust what notifications sync over....

What I do wish for, is a timeout period. If a notification is an hour late, do not show on the PC... it's frustrating sometimes firing up a pc (I have 4 at home, for some reason) and getting 3-4 days of notifications flow in in the 1st 60 seconds.

 

[Joe920]

If i remember correctly, you can adjust what notifications sync over....

What I do wish for, is a timeout period. If a notification is an hour late, do not show on the PC... it's frustrating sometimes firing up a pc (I have 4 at home, for some reason) and getting 3-4 days of notifications flow in in the 1st 60 seconds.

Good idea. They can show up in the action center, but individual notifications should not all 'ping'.

I did turn off WhatsApp notifications on my PC just now.

How about timing, do all notifications show up on PC and phone at the same time? For me WhatsApp messages showed up in batches that are like a minute late.

 

[demon09]

Same here--the idea is great in theory, but messy in practice. I have 3 computers I regularly use (an old laptop converted to a multi-monitor work station, a large Pro laptop, and a Surface Pro 4 portable) and the notifications seem to pop up on all of these items when I turn them on, regardless of being dismissed on one or both of the other devices.

I am running the fast-ring beta on all 3 devices also, so I don't know if it is related to the beta, or just that the software isn't yet delivering what was promised of it.

 

[ashram]

How about timing, do all notifications show up on PC and phone at the same time? For me WhatsApp messages showed up in batches that are like a minute late.

mostly at the same time.... which is strange hearing a notification tone pop up from 3 different locations at once! But yes, dismissing on one device should dismiss on all devices.

 

[EspHack]

doesnt work the way i thought it would, like, making action center on every w10 device signed with your account the exact same list of notifications, pulling the info lets say from one drive, so if i get x notification on x device it just shows up exactly the same everywhere, and if i dismiss it, it would be gone from every device, but no, its more like, phone gets a message, phone notifies pc, then it is a different type of notification the one you see on pc, hardly optimal

 

[karelj]

Hopefully these inconsistent behaviors will be addressed in the upcoming Insider Updates. This is a helpful feature, but it needs work.

 

[ttsoldier]

Timing is hit and miss. Sometimes it's instant. Sometimes it's delayed.

They also need to work on Cortana>Settings>Edit Sync settings on the PC end. That page is bugged.

Dismissing once and dismissing everywhere would also be a great feature. Same for snoozing and completing reminders in Cortana.

 

[pc2k16]

I don't use whats app, so can't comment on that, but.... I have all the same issues as everyone else described in this thread. It seems to me that the Microsoft devs don't actually use a win10 computer and a win10 phone. If they did, just one week of use would show these short comings. It's just common sense if you actually used the two devices in the real world. Snoozing on one device should snooze on the other. Dismiss on one device should dismiss on the other. When your computer is off and you dismiss calendar and reminder notifications throughout the day on your phone, they shouldn't all pop-up when I turn my computer on. I already dismissed them, why dismiss them again on the computer. The band 2 does the same thing, dismiss an event or acknowledge an email or text on your phone and the band 2 still shows them as unread. It should know you read them and clear the tile count. Hopefully they sort this all out soon.

 

[PGrey]

Timing is hit and miss. Sometimes it's instant. Sometimes it's delayed.

They also need to work on Cortana>Settings>Edit Sync settings on the PC end. That page is bugged.

Dismissing once and dismissing everywhere would also be a great feature. Same for snoozing and completing reminders in Cortana.

Where do you see the sync settings, under Cortana?


I'm having a heck of a time, my Messaging app comes up, but it stopped syncing with my Win10m phone, about 10-15 days ago, frustrating.
I can't even get the Skype Beta app to start, I've re-installed it once, it just kicks off, blank blue screen.

 

[ttsoldier]

Where do you see the sync settings, under Cortana?
View attachment 129414

I'm having a heck of a time, my Messaging app comes up, but it stopped syncing with my Win10m phone, about 10-15 days ago, frustrating.
I can't even get the Skype Beta app to start, I've re-installed it once, it just kicks off, blank blue screen.

Are you on the AU?

 

[EspHack]

they seem to be working better now, just the usual 1-2 sec delay, but only from phone to pc, phone doesnt get notifications from pc

 

[demon09]

I wonder if this depends on when they're on the same network though. When I leave my phone on LTE the notifications seem slower than when both the PC and phone are on wifi.

And the not syncing back to the phone thing drives me nuts. I leave my phone on the desk while I'm working, so I dismiss things that come in on the PC, but when I unlock the phone later they're still back there.

 

[milkyway]

you have to enable Cortana first! Click on "Choose one..." under "Cortana language"

 

[PGrey]

Yeah, I hadn't done that, because it doesn't have "English(US)" or whatever it's supposed to be. When I try to choose one of the "non-US" ones, it warns me that I'm choosing a language that doesn't match my location.
For some reason I have to choose from CA, UK, and one or two others (AUS and India I think), so something must be wrong with my locale, in general, although I had gone back and double-checked that before, my other localization settings are English(US).
If it's going to warn me, it would be handy if it listed the one it expects me to choose, or tell me why I can't choose it ;-]

I'll try to find some time to dig in tomorrow, and sort out why my locale is all hosed.

 

[Joe920]

Yeah, I hadn't done that, because it doesn't have "English(US)" or whatever it's supposed to be. When I try to choose one of the "non-US" ones, it warns me that I'm choosing a language that doesn't match my location.

I wonder if you're one of the lucky ones (like me) where Cortana was disabled for the AU. I'm asking because I don't see the 'Notebook' along the left side in your screenshot.

 

[PGrey]

I wonder if you're one of the lucky ones (like me) where Cortana was disabled for the AU. I'm asking because I don't see the 'Notebook' along the left side in your screenshot.

Yeah, apparently, I found a registry change, to re-permission Cortana. I was trying to figure it out through the multitude of settings (mostly privacy), but gave up, and looked up the registry change.
I now have the notebook, but my language selection is still broken, baby-steps, I guess.
I went a checked, I'm English(US) everywhere, my locale, my location, etc, I have all that correct.

Really frustrating, I suppose I could start searching the registry for locales, next.
This shouldn't be that hard, an average user would've given up long ago...

I don't use Cortana on my PC really, which is why I hadn't noticed this for almost two weeks, it was just the messaging which drove me to try and figure it out. It sounds like it's only half-implemented anyway, for now, future-release.

 

[PGrey]

This works for me now, managed to get my language issues sorted, I think anyway ;-]

I'm getting the notification center text-message now, but if I try to click on them, it pulls up my Messaging app, which is still hosed (back to my 7/29 dated messages).
It's not exactly an awesome E-to-E right now, I think they should've disabled more of this, rather than have it pull up apps which are (mostly) broken...

 

[Joe920]

Well this thing is pretty broken. In an effort to get back phone notifications I toggled some settings. Finding one: On the PC unless you enable "search online and include web results" you cannot sync notifications. The setting just disappears. That should be separated. I do want notification sync, but I don't want Bing results when I search on my PC.

Second, after disabling sync on phone and PC, and then re-enabling it, the option 'sync notifications from my phone to this PC' hasn't come back in ten minutes. I do have PC-to-cloud and PC-to-phone (although the second one randomly went missing for a bit).

It's all just so random and opaque. Very frustrating.

Sent from mTalk, a great Tapatalk alternative

 

[Joe920]

After yesterday's production build update notifications from my phone have finally started coming in again on my PC. Not sure if it has to do with me staying on insider this time or whether it's something MS fixed.

The notifications are still delayed, but I had a backlog so let's see how this goes the coming days.

Update: A new text on my phone showed up 12 minutes later on my PC. So not great for urgent messages!