Push notifications from firebase admin sdk - send request succeeds but no notification on device

[tx-tim]

Using the combination of capacitor's PushNotifications plugin from @capacitor/core and capacitor-community/fcm (and following their associated setup guides ), I've had some success sending test notifications from the firebase cloud messaging console, both using a device token OR by pub/sub to a topic. I can also send messages using the admin sdk to firebase, but I am having difficulty closing the loop from the server to the client, which is the one that counts. How might I go about debugging this issue?

This is what I have so far:

Client

The guides are written for an angular app and I've modified the client code appropriately for react. I have a module that initializes the push notification functionality when the user is logged in via a useEffect hook.

export const initPush = () => {

  const registerPush = () => {
    // Request permission to use push notifications - register if granted
    PushNotifications.requestPermission().then((result) => {
      if (result.granted) {
        PushNotifications.register();
      } 
    });

    // On success, we should be able to receive notifications
    PushNotifications.addListener(
      "registration",
      (token: PushNotificationToken) => {
        console.log("Push registration success, token: " + token.value);
        fcm
          .subscribeTo({ topic: **"testTopic"** })
          .then((response) => {
            console.log(response);
          })
      }
    );

    // Show us the notification payload if the app is open on our device
    PushNotifications.addListener(
      "pushNotificationReceived",
      (notification: PushNotification) => {
        alert("Push received: " + JSON.stringify(notification));
      }
    );
  };

 // Only register for mobile devices
  if (Capacitor.platform !== "web") {
    registerPush();
  } 
};

It's ugly, but it achieves the purpose of getting up and running. With this, I can go to the firebase console and send a test notification using my device token or by publishing a message to my testTopic and I get a notification on my device as expected.

However, using the firebase admin sdk on the server (nestjs), my device receives no notification with either technique: sending a token or topic, despite the promise to message.send resolving with a response saying Successfully sent message: projects/myproject...

Server

import * as admin from "firebase-admin";

@Injectable()
export class FirebaseService {
  async sendMessageToTopic(topic: string, message: any): Promise<void> {
    message.topic = "testTopic";
    admin
      .messaging()
      .send(message)
      .then((response: string) => {
        console.info(`Successfully sent message: ${response}`);
      })
      .catch((error: string) => {
        console.error(`Error sending message: ${error}`);
      });
  }
}

The message sent to firebase: {"data":{"foo":"bar"},"topic":"testTopic"}
The http response: Successfully sent message: projects/myproject/messages/5846398191582930197

I also tried targeting messages to registration tokens instead of a topic.

const reg_token =
  "162-char-token";

export class FirebaseService {
  async sendMessageWithToken(topic: string, message: any): Promise<void> {
    const message_with_token = {
      data: { foo: "bar" },
      token: reg_token,
    };

    admin
      .messaging()
      .send(message_with_token)
      .then((response: string) => {
        console.info(`Successfully sent message: ${response}`);
      })
      .catch((error: string) => {
        console.error(`Error sending message: ${error}`);
      });
  }
}

The message sent to firebase: {"data":{"foo":"bar"},"token":"162-char-token"}
response: Successfully sent message_with_token: projects/myproject/messages/1599699140467884

So I have successfully sent notifications from firebase to my device using the firebase cloud messaging console.
I have successfully sent messages to firebase from my server, inferred from the response to the admin.messaging.send call and the increasing cloud messaging report count.

But there is something preventing the notifications sent from my server through firebase from getting to my device.
What could it be?
How could I go about debugging this?
Thank you all :)

edited some wording for clarity

[victorhs98]

Same problema for me. If i use the http method it does work but thats not what i want