GCM client does not receive downstream messages

Question

My app server is sending out messages to GCM successfully, however, in the client side, the messages are not being received, even though it has the token and it has been subscribed to different topics. For listening to the incoming messages, I am using an extension of GcmListenerService. Since this is a service, it starts from the mainactivity. Bellow is the relevant part of the manifest:

 <!-- [START gcm_permission] -->
<uses-permission android:name="com.google.android.c2dm.permission.RECEIVE" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.WAKE_LOCK" />
<!-- [END gcm_permission] -->
<!-- [START gcm_receiver] -->
    <receiver
        android:name="com.google.android.gms.gcm.GcmReceiver"
        android:exported="true"
        android:permission="com.google.android.c2dm.permission.SEND" >
        <intent-filter>
            <action android:name="com.google.android.c2dm.intent.RECEIVE" />
            <category android:name="my.app" />
        </intent-filter>
    </receiver>
    <!-- [END gcm_receiver] -->
    <!-- [START gcm_listener] -->
    <service
        android:name="my.app.MyGcmListenerService"
        android:exported="false" >
        <intent-filter>
            <action android:name="com.google.android.c2dm.intent.RECEIVE" />
        </intent-filter>
    </service>
    <!-- [END gcm_listener] -->
    <!-- [START instanceId_listener] -->
    <service
        android:name="my.app.MyInstanceIDListenerService"
        android:exported="false">
        <intent-filter>
            <action android:name="com.google.android.gms.iid.InstanceID"/>
        </intent-filter>
    </service>
    <!-- [END instanceId_listener] -->
    <service
        android:name="my.app.RegisterIntentService"
        android:exported="false">
    </service>

The GCM listener is below:

public class MyGcmListenerService  extends GcmListenerService {

private static final String TAG = "MyGcmListenerService";


// [START receive_message]
@Override
public void onMessageReceived(String from, Bundle data) {
    String message = data.getString("message");
    Log.d(TAG, "From: " + from);
    Log.d(TAG, "Message: " + message);


    if (from.startsWith("/topics/")) {
        // message received from some topic.
        //TOPICS = {"News","Updates","GeneralInfo"};

        if (from.split("/")[2].equals("News")) {
            ....

As it was mentioned before, the GCM listener is being started from the mainactivity as a regular service.

 //starting the listener service for messages
    intentGCMListen = new Intent(this,MyGcmListenerService.class);
    startService(intentGCMListen);

In the example (GCM quickstart) that I followed, which is basically the core of my deployment for GCM in this part, there is no such a start for the GCM listener service. I assumed that it should be started because it is a service. Any ideas why the messages are not being downloaded from the GCM server?

UPDATE

The bash script that I am using for sending the messages from the server to GCM is:

#!/bin/bash
api_key=AIadasdasdsa
message=$1
topic=/topics/GeneralInfo
curl --header "Authorization: key=$api_key" --header Content-Type:"application/json" https://gcm-http.googleapis.com/gcm/send  -d "{\"to\":\"$topic\",\"data\":{\"message\":\"$message\"}}"

Answer 1

I think you are missing the BroadcastReceiver in your code that serves the purpose of receiving the Broadcast that has been send by the GCM server for your app clients to process. You need to check for the following lines in the code:

    /**
     * Receiving push messages
     * */
    private final BroadcastReceiver mHandleMessageReceiver = new BroadcastReceiver() {
        @Override
        public void onReceive(Context context, Intent intent) {

            String newMessage = intent.getExtras().getString(EXTRA_MESSAGE);
            // Waking up mobile if it is sleeping
            WakeLocker.acquire(getApplicationContext());

            /**
            * Take appropriate action on this message
            * depending upon your app requirement
            * For now i am just displaying it on the screen
            * */

            // Showing received message
            lblMessage.append(newMessage + "\n");           
            Toast.makeText(getApplicationContext(), "New Message: " + newMessage, Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();

            // Releasing wake lock
            WakeLocker.release();
       }
   };

For more code description take a look at this tutorial.