[bug]: addClickListener never fires on background/killed app notification tap on Android since Flutter SDK 5.3.6

[NweThazin]

How can we help?

OneSignal.Notifications.addClickListener callback never fires on Android when app is in background or killed state (regression since 5.4.0)

OneSignal.Notifications.addClickListener callback never fires when a notification is tapped while app is in background or killed state on Android. The app opens correctly but does not navigate — the click event is silently dropped. The same setup works correctly on onesignal_flutter: 5.3.4 with no other code changes.

Setup
We initialize OneSignal in main() before runApp() and register the click listener as early as possible — immediately after WidgetsFlutterBinding.ensureInitialized():

Future main() async {
WidgetsFlutterBinding.ensureInitialized();

OneSignal.initialize(appId);
OneSignal.Notifications.addClickListener((event) {
// never fires on 5.4.0+ when app is backgrounded or killed
print('clicked: ${event.notification.title}');
});

runApp(MyApp());
}
Steps to reproduce

Add onesignal_flutter: 5.4.0 or later
Register addClickListener as shown above
Put the app in background or kill it
Send a push notification and tap it
Expected: Listener fires with notification data and app navigates correctly

Actual: App opens to home screen, listener callback is never called

Additional finding

Even registering the listener immediately after WidgetsFlutterBinding.ensureInitialized() — before any await — does not help. This confirms the problem is not on the Flutter/Dart side. The click event is never delivered to Dart at all. INotificationClickListener.onClick() is simply never called by the Android SDK's processFromContext(), regardless of how early the Dart listener is registered.

Could you advise on the correct setup to make addClickListener reliable for background and killed state on Android with the latest SDK version?

Code of Conduct

• I agree to follow this project's Code of Conduct

[nan-li]

Hi @NweThazin thank you for reporting this and confirming this behavior is since SDK v5.3.6. We will look into this issue.

[arthurgiani]

Hi @NweThazin thank you for reporting this and confirming this behavior is since SDK v5.3.6. We will look into this issue.

Thanks @nan-li. This is affecting our android users for a while and hopefully this will be merged soon.

[arthurgiani]

@nan-li @fadi-george do you guys have an expectation for this to be released in a new version?

[fadi-george]

Hey @arthurgiani , please try out the new release with the fix.

[arthurgiani]

@fadi-george updating now, thanks!

[arthurgiani]

@fadi-george @nan-li

I just ran the project in debug/release using the new 5.5.4 version

addClickListener is only triggered when app is terminated, not when the app is on background.

I'm sending my flutter doctor

`Doctor summary (to see all details, run flutter doctor -v):
[✓] Flutter (Channel stable, 3.38.10, on macOS 26.1 25B78 darwin-arm64, locale en-BR)
[!] Android toolchain - develop for Android devices (Android SDK version 35.0.0)
! Some Android licenses not accepted. To resolve this, run: flutter doctor --android-licenses
[✓] Xcode - develop for iOS and macOS (Xcode 26.3)
[✓] Chrome - develop for the web
[✓] Connected device (4 available)
[✓] Network resources

! Doctor found issues in 1 category.`

[nan-li]

Hi @arthurgiani can you tell me more about the behavior you encountered before 5.5.4 regarding when the click listener fires? Was it the same as well? Also, when and where are you adding the click listener?

I had tested these scenarios on 5.5.4, when adding the click listener right after initialization.

1. tap notification after swiping the app away - callback fires
2. tap notification after backpressing the app way - callback fires
3. tap notification after backgrounding app - callback fires
4. Not adding the click listener after init but on a button press: tap notification and then add the click listener late (~ 5 seconds late) - callback fires

[arthurgiani]

Hi @arthurgiani can you tell me more about the behavior you encountered before 5.5.4 regarding when the click listener fires? Was it the same as well? Also, when and where are you adding the click listener?

I had tested these scenarios on 5.5.4, when adding the click listener right after initialization.

1. tap notification after swiping the app away - callback fires
2. tap notification after backpressing the app way - callback fires
3. tap notification after backgrounding app - callback fires
4. Not adding the click listener after init but on a button press: tap notification and then add the click listener late (~ 5 seconds late) - callback fires

Before 5.5.4: The addClickListener was never called when clicking on a push notification.

After 5.5.4: The addClickListener was called when clicking on a push notification when the app is terminated. When the app is opened in background, the listener was never called.

**Reminder: android only. All good on iOS.
** I rolled back to 5.3.5 and everything works well.

[arthurgiani]

@NweThazin can you try on your environment as well? Thank you!