Google Drive Plugin Notifications Not Arriving After Enabling Create/Upload Features
Applies to: Mattermost Server v11.7.x and later, mattermost-plugin-google-drive v1.1.0 and later
Symptoms: Users can create and upload files to Google Drive through the plugin, but never receive notifications for comments, permission changes, or @mentions on those files.
🛑 Problem
Google Drive plugin notifications depend on a separate mechanism from file creation and upload. Create and upload use the Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Slides APIs; notifications use the Drive Activity API plus a per-user Drive changes.watch subscription. A working create/upload flow confirms OAuth and those APIs are enabled, but not that notifications are set up.
Notifications require two additional steps: a per-user opt-in slash command (no admin or bulk option), and the Drive Activity API enabled on the OAuth client's Google Cloud project. If the opt-in was never run, no watch channel exists for that user, so notifications cannot fire, regardless of Drive Activity API state.
Symptoms
- Able to create Google docs, sheets and slides from Mattermost. Able to upload MM attachments to a GDrive. Notifications are not coming through when tagged, when a comment is made, or when a permission is updated.
âś… Solution
Enable both required prerequisites: the per-user notification opt-in, and the Drive Activity API on the Google Cloud project. Then verify delivery with a live test.
Have each affected user run the per-user opt-in command
Notifications are opt-in and scoped to the individual user; there is no admin or bulk-enable option. Each user who wants comment, permission, or mention (delivered as a comment) notifications must run:
/google-drive connect /google-drive notifications start
A successful run returns:
Successfully enabled Google Drive activity notifications.
⚠️ Important: If the user instead sees
"Something went wrong while starting Google Drive activity notifications. Please contact your organization admin for support,"capture the server log at that moment. The plugin logs the specific failure reason there (for example, failure to create the Drive service, get the start page token, or register the watch). Common causes are the Site URL not being reachable by Google over HTTPS with a valid, trusted certificate, or an OAuth/token problem.
Enable the Google Drive Activity API
Notifications require the Drive Activity API (driveactivity.googleapis.com) to be enabled on the same Google Cloud project that owns the OAuth client configured in the plugin (the client ID ending in ...apps.googleusercontent.com). This is separate from the Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Slides APIs already in use for file creation.
Enable it at:
https://console.cloud.google.com/apis/library/driveactivity.googleapis.com
Under APIs and Services > API Library in Google Cloud Console, in the project that owns your OAuth client.
⚠️ Important: If this API is not enabled, the plugin's webhook handler fails its Drive Activity query silently: it logs the error server-side and skips the notification, with no user-facing indication anything is wrong. Do not assume notifications are working just because no error was reported to the user.
Confirm your Site URL meets the HTTPS requirement
Google delivers Drive change notifications to your Site URL over HTTPS, so that URL must be reachable by Google with a valid, trusted SSL certificate. A staging or internal-only host without a trusted certificate will cause the watch registration in the opt-in step to fail.
Verify with a live test
With the opted-in user, add a comment or change sharing permissions on a file created through the plugin, and confirm the user receives a direct message from the Google Drive bot.
⚠️ Important: A Google Drive @mention is delivered through the same comment notification path; the plugin does not have a separate "you were mentioned" notification. If comment notifications work, mentions will also work.
Additional Resources
For more information, see:
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