Regression: Notification "Mute" / "Do Not Disturb" now clears the notification tray (Cinnamon 6.6.6)

[IbnuParvez]

Distribution

Mint 22

Package version

6.6.6

Graphics hardware in use

No response

Frequency

Quite often

Bug description

Description: Since updating to Cinnamon 6.6.6, the behavior of the notification system has changed in a way that breaks the "Silent" workflow.

Actual Behavior: Now, enabling "Mute" or the master "Enable Notifications" toggle (display-notifications) completely kills the notification service. Notifications no longer reach the tray/history at all if the banners are muted.

Why this is an issue: Users want to be able to work without on-screen interruptions (pop-ups) while still having a record of missed messages in the tray to check later. Currently, there is no way to achieve a "Tray-only" notification state in the latest version of Cinnamon.

System Info:

Linux Mint 22

Cinnamon 6.6.6

Notification Applet: Notifications-Enhanced / Standard Notifications

Steps to reproduce

Now, enabling "Mute" or the master "Enable Notifications" toggle (display-notifications) completely kills the notification service. Notifications no longer reach the tray/history at all if the banners are muted.

Expected behavior

Expected Behavior: Previously, when "Mute" or "Do Not Disturb" was enabled, notification banners were suppressed from the screen, but the notifications still arrived in the system tray (Applet) for later viewing.

Additional information

No response

[fredcw]

This was changed in #12939

I agree, I think there should be a way to disable on screen notification but still have them show in the panel.

[carsteneu]

Maybe to differentiate between "Mute" (suppress popups only) and "Disable" (discard completely)

[Tedpac]

I'm experiencing the exact same regression with the notifications-enhanced@hilyxx applet on Cinnamon 6.6.6. My workflow relied on disabling "Enable notifications" to suppress pop-ups and sounds while still seeing the counter on the panel icon — a "silent but aware" mode for focused work. That's completely broken now.

I strongly agree with @carsteneu's suggestion: differentiating between "Mute" (suppressing pop-ups/sounds, while still delivering to the tray) and "Disable" (completely discarding) would solve both #11403 and this regression cleanly. These are two distinct user intents that shouldn't be collapsed into a single toggle.

[IbnuParvez]

Confirmed on Cinnamon 6.6.7 / Linux Mint 22 — and I have a working fix.
The root cause is in messageTray.js in the _updateState() function. When display-notifications is false, this block destroys incoming notifications instead of routing them to the tray:

    if (notificationsPending) {
        this._notification = this._notificationQueue.shift();
        this._notification.destroy(NotificationDestroyedReason.DISMISSED); // ← kills it permanently
        this._notification = null;
    }
}

The notifications@cinnamon.org applet only receives notifications via the notify-applet-update signal, which only fires after a popup finishes displaying on screen. So with DND on, no popup = no signal = applet gets nothing.
Fix: replace that block with a direct emit to the applet, bypassing the screen display:

    if (notificationsPending && extensionsHandlingNotifications > 0) {
        this._notification = this._notificationQueue.shift();
        this.emit('notify-applet-update', this._notification);
        this._notification = null;
    }
}

Tested and working on Cinnamon 6.6.7. Notifications appear silently in the tray with no on-screen popup when DND is active.

[mz1193]

Confirmed on Cinnamon 6.6.7 / Linux Mint 22 — and I have a working fix. The root cause is in messageTray.js in the _updateState() function. When display-notifications is false, this block destroys incoming notifications instead of routing them to the tray:

    if (notificationsPending) {
        this._notification = this._notificationQueue.shift();
        this._notification.destroy(NotificationDestroyedReason.DISMISSED); // ← kills it permanently
        this._notification = null;
    }
}

The notifications@cinnamon.org applet only receives notifications via the notify-applet-update signal, which only fires after a popup finishes displaying on screen. So with DND on, no popup = no signal = applet gets nothing. Fix: replace that block with a direct emit to the applet, bypassing the screen display:

    if (notificationsPending && extensionsHandlingNotifications > 0) {
        this._notification = this._notificationQueue.shift();
        this.emit('notify-applet-update', this._notification);
        this._notification = null;
    }
}

Tested and working on Cinnamon 6.6.7. Notifications appear silently in the tray with no on-screen popup when DND is active.

This fix works great, thank you for it. Hope to see it merged in the future!

[IbnuParvez]

Confirmed on Cinnamon 6.6.7 / Linux Mint 22 — and I have a working fix. The root cause is in messageTray.js in the _updateState() function. When display-notifications is false, this block destroys incoming notifications instead of routing them to the tray:

    if (notificationsPending) {
        this._notification = this._notificationQueue.shift();
        this._notification.destroy(NotificationDestroyedReason.DISMISSED); // ← kills it permanently
        this._notification = null;
    }
}

The notifications@cinnamon.org applet only receives notifications via the notify-applet-update signal, which only fires after a popup finishes displaying on screen. So with DND on, no popup = no signal = applet gets nothing. Fix: replace that block with a direct emit to the applet, bypassing the screen display:

    if (notificationsPending && extensionsHandlingNotifications > 0) {
        this._notification = this._notificationQueue.shift();
        this.emit('notify-applet-update', this._notification);
        this._notification = null;
    }
}

Tested and working on Cinnamon 6.6.7. Notifications appear silently in the tray with no on-screen popup when DND is active.

This fix works great, thank you for it. Hope to see it merged in the future!

Thank you. Hope so too