Family switching from Skype: Issues with mixed connection methods and ntfy/UnifiedPush

Support in English
1

Hi All,

As a family we looking for a Skype alternative and I would like to get everyone switched over the Jami.

The primary use case is 2 little girls (cousins) that live on opposite ends of the world staying in touch.

Starting Setup

  • Android Tablet (LineageOS) 20250331-01
  • Android Phone (LineageOS) 20250410-01
  • No registered accounts on public directory/blockchain

Experience

  1. Using ntfy app on any of the devices, nothing works. I can add the contacts they appear online but no messages appear on the opposite devices, only the device you typed it on. Calls never ring on the receiver side.
  2. Both devices on the same network with local peer discovery turned on using Local DHT, worked the best without any notable issues.
  3. Using Local DHT on both sides using different wifi networks seems to mostly work. After switching the setting messages did not work straight away and did not appear on ether device until one of the devices was restarted. Calls mostly worked except for denying a call on the phone once got stuck requiring a force stop to make the incoming call notification go away.
  4. If one device was on Local DHT and the other on UnifiedPush using ntfy, status indicated as online and typing indicators worked but nothing else messages would not appear on ether device and calls would just ring on the initiators side but never on the receiver side.

Questions

I am very confused and dont know how to interpret my experience. Before recommending it to the rest of the family and rolling it out to other Android and Apple devices I want to try and understand what is going on here and figure out the most reliable option and guide the setup of the rest of the families devices.

  1. Is mixing connection methods (UnifiedPush and Local DHT) officially supported?
  2. What’s the recommended setup for families across different networks and device types?
  3. Are there known issues with ntfy as a UnifiedPush distributor?
  4. Do I need to do some additional steps to get ntfy working?

Thank you

2

It’s expected. :expressionless_face: The default DHT proxy serves hundreds of clients, so it reaches the limit of ntfy.sh quickly. ntfy app may be useful when it’s used with a self-hosted server.(Based on my experience in 2023, I haven’t used jami android for 12 months.)

1 Like
3

Okay, what I have learnt or concluded based on testing. Please correct me if incorrect.

  1. Mixing connection methods seems to not work. All clients needs to be on the same connection method.
  2. The Play store version supports Google Firebase notifications, the FDroid version does not and instead supports UnifedPush. If you are mixing versions your only option is local node.
  3. Using the free/public ntfy.sh default instance does not work well unless you willing to support them and pay them as the public/free has limits and gives very inconsistent results. I setup a self hosted ntfy, it took a while to get the un* permissions correct but once setup and working and all Android devices were setup with FDroid version and the ntfy app with credentials to the self hosted instance it worked great and reliably.
  4. Permission/access is key setting up UnifiedPush on ntfy once this was setup. It worked really well. You can just add the app and expect it to work.

Additional to the above.

I have not been successful connecting a IOS IPhone to an Andriod device. No messages ever seem to flow and both contacts never show as been online. I only have one IOS device to test this on so unable to test IOS to IOS.

So the question is ISO to Android is supported? My use case requires a mixed device environment.

1 Like
4

I don’t understand the “local node” option. Let me tag @kkostiuk

5

That is a mode under the Connectivity mode item in the Connectivity group of the App Settings in the Android version, which means receiving connection requests in the background like the desktop version without using push notifications.

6

You may be interested in setting up Jami for servers, as you have contacts in different time zones.