Mobile Notification Won't Send with Image Attachment

Mobile Apps
,
1

For some reason I just cannot get notifications to my iPhone to work with an attached image. I’m sure this is a no brainer for others but continues to elude me after days of researching and trying every permutation possible. Would someone please make me feel silly for not seeing what I’m missing here?

Use Case:
I’m simply trying to attach a stored snapshot image to a notification sent to my iPhone device. I can send text messages every time but as soon as I attach an image, no notification occurs even through the script or automation says it ran and there are no obvious errors in the logs. I’m needing the image to appear as part of the notification (not needing to be clicked into to view)

Environment:

  • iPhone 12 running iOS 12.5
  • HA version: core-2021.12.4
  • Have camera snapshot image sitting at “/config/www/tmp/front_door_camera_snapshot.jpg”

Tests - Sending from Dev Tools > Services (but have also tried automations and scripts with same results):

T1 - Text only. WORKS!

service: notify.mobile_app_<my-iphone>
data:
  message: testing
  title: testing

T2 - T1 + image attachment using image tag with local path. NO NOTIFICATION / NO ERRORS

service: notify.mobile_app_<my-iphone>
data:
  message: Door Bell
  title: Door Bell
  data:
    image: "/local/tmp/front_door_camera_snapshot.jpg"

Putting a URL in the data pack does send but prompts to click on

I’ve also tried:

  • Adding content-type and thumbnail-hidden attributes to the data package
  • Sending a fully qualified domain URL. Notification sends but image doesn’t embed.
  • Adding /config/www/tmp to external allowed list
  • attaching the source camera using entity-I’d

In no scenario have I been able to just get an image to send (and preview) in a notification. What’s the obvious mistake I’m making here? I’ve scoured this board and the google to no avail. All the examples I’ve found don’t work in my setup.

2

Does http://your-server:8123/local/tmp/front_door_camera_snapshot.jpg load in a browser for you?

If so, this sounds like a rare-ish system but where the tiny app the system launches to attach images isn’t being launched. Restarting your phone should do it.

3

I am able to view the image through the FDQ public link. What I’ve since discovered is that for some reason local push is disable on my iphone which is preventing image attachments. I realized this when I tested using my ipad which does have local push enabled. I cannot figure how to change this on my iphone and appears to be the same issue as someone is having in this thread:

So, no longer a configuration issue in HA but a setting issue on the end device HA app.

4

Turns out I only had the external url populated in my iOS HA app. Copying the url into the internal field enabled local push for me. Doh.