RemoteServiceException when notification style is applied on Xiaomi phones with Android 11

Question

Without any visible reason, Xiaomi phones with Android 11 started to appear in crashlytics logs. Something happens with notifications. We don't do anything too specific and everything works fine on other Android 11 devices. I wasn't able to reproduce this crash on the affected device. What could be the reason?

First crashes started to appear at the beginning of December, and the amount rapidly grow through January from 10 per day to 100+

crash:

Fatal Exception: android.app.RemoteServiceException
Bad notification(tag=null, id=) posted from package my.application, crashing app(uid=, pid=): Couldn't inflate contentViewsjava.lang.ClassCastException: android.app.Notification$MediaStyle cannot be cast to android.app.Notification$MessagingStyle

Notification style:

    final MediaStyle style = new MediaStyle()
            .setMediaSession(token)
            .setShowActionsInCompactView(PREV_POSITION, PLAY_PAUSE_POSITION, NEXT_POSITION)
            .setCancelButtonIntent(STOP.notificationPending(mContext))
            .setShowCancelButton(true);
    setStyle(style);

Wakerobin

same Fatal Exception: android.app.RemoteServiceException: Bad notification(tag=null, id=100) posted from package in.shadowfax.gandalf, crashing app(uid=XX, pid=XX): Couldn't inflate contentViewsjava.lang.ClassCastException: android.app.Notification$BigTextStyle cannot be cast to android.app.Notification$MessagingStyle – Exanimate

We're not even posting any notification with MessagingStyle. Are you using Freshchat SDK? We recently deployed that, could be that they're using MessagingStyle notifications – Exanimate

No, we don't use it. – Wakerobin

I have the same problem, starting from January – Aquatic

Answer 1

Same problem here. I think this is a bug from MIUI instead of the bug from the app. MIUI changes the notification part a lot for their own look and feel. It may be fixed in future MIUI updates.

Broomstick

Answer 2

From xiaomi:

the crash position is found and i will push R&D to release new version ASAP

And looks like it has been released

Wakerobin

Hi, what is the source of the quote "from Xiaomi" ? I have another issue with some Xiaomi devices. Many thanks – Pederasty

We asked them about this crash directly and got this answer. We don't have it in the crash reports any more – Wakerobin