If app notifications in Zoho Desk arrive inconsistently, particularly when you have been tagged or mentioned in a ticket, this is usually down to a technical glitch rather than anything wrong on your side. Email notifications still arrive as normal, but the absence of real-time app alerts can disrupt workflow, especially when a fast response matters.

Why some app notifications don't come through

The most common cause is a feeds refresh or synchronisation issue within Zoho Desk, where the system fails to properly update a user's notification feed even though the mention itself was recorded correctly against the ticket. This tends to affect only a subset of tickets, which is why some notifications get through and others don't. It is a localised sync problem tied to profile data or a cached feed state, not a wider system failure, and the fact that email notifications keep arriving confirms the core mention logic is working fine, it is only the real-time app layer that is affected.

What to do if you are missing tagged notifications

1. Check your notification preferences. Have your admin go to Setup, then Customization, then Notifications, then Feeds Preference, and confirm the toggles for mentions, comments and ticket updates are switched on. It is worth checking even if they look correct, in case something was disabled during a recent update.
2. Force a profile refresh. Even with the right settings, the notification feed for your profile may still need a nudge. Have your admin go to Setup, then User Management, then Agents, locate your profile and select Edit, make a small temporary change such as updating a phone number or adding a note, save it, reopen the profile, revert the change, and save again. This two-step edit forces the system to refresh your profile and re-sync the notification feed, and is a known fix for feed-related glitches.
3. Test with a mention. Have another agent mention you on a ticket comment where you are not the owner. If the notification appears in the app, the fix has worked.

If the issue persists for some tickets

Occasionally the problem lingers for a handful of mentions even after a profile refresh, which points to a rarer edge case in the notification delivery pipeline rather than the core sync issue. If this happens, gather a recent, specific example to raise with support, including the ticket number or URL, the exact date and time you were mentioned, the name of the agent who made the mention, and whether the tag used mention or another method. Notification logs are only kept for a limited time, so a sample from within the past seven days gives support the best chance of tracing the event and spotting any pattern.

Why it only affects some tickets

The fact that some mentions trigger alerts while others don't points to a state-based synchronisation issue rather than a total failure. The system can register the mention correctly but fail to push it to the app feed because of a delayed or incomplete feed refresh, a cached state in the user's session, or temporary latency in the notification service. These are edge cases in how real-time data syncs across platforms rather than bugs in the traditional sense, and the profile refresh effectively resets that state so the system starts fresh.

Avoiding this in future

Review notification settings with your admin periodically, especially after platform updates. Do not dismiss the profile edit trick as trivial, since even a minor change can keep the feed healthy. Encourage the team to flag missing notifications promptly rather than letting them go unreported, and run the test mention method after any configuration change to confirm notifications are still working.