Can't seem to open urls

[Tudor]

Hello! Been using this amazing app a while and now I'm trying to make a universal "cast url to TV" system. The plan: when someone sends a "youtu" or a "twitch" etc link to a specific chat app on the TV, automation will read the notification and open the url that is the text of that notification.

Trigger:
- if that app's notification description text contains e.g. "youtu" (youtube.com, youtu.be etc)

(This works, temporarily verified with an action that opens a random app.)

Action:
(following the "Open a webpage" example: https://server47.de/automation/examples.html )
- Start another Program
- by action
- by startActivity()
- activity/action name: android.intent.action.VIEW
- Parameter Type: URI
- Parameter Name: IntentData
- Parameter Value: [notificationText]
- Press Add Intent Pair, Save.

The rule gets triggered, but doesn't work. I also tried with www.youtube.com instead of [notificationText], to debug, no response besides the toast message of starting the rule.

Not sure how to proceed. Perhaps as a last resort, if this method doesn't work, how could I do the equivalent by starting e.g. the NewPipe app and send it the url as a command?

Thanks!!

PS: running on Android 11

[jens]

Thank you for bringing this up. It was a combination of two things. The example was outdated; I have updated it to match the newer configuration screen. The second issue was and error in the code. I have fixed it. I plan to release it until the end of the year.

[Tudor]

Hey are you SURE you've tested things? I came back to it today, I saw and installed your Fdroid update from 2025-12-27, but it's still impossible to do this no matter how I try.

1. The images in your configuration example webpage (https://server47.de/automation/examples.html), under "Open a webpage", seem to still be the same old android ui so I don't think you changed them:
- https://server47.de/automation/images/e ... owser1.png
- https://server47.de/automation/images/e ... owser2.png

2. Here's what I'm doing:
2.a. Try to open a url which is the [notificationText]:






Or,

2.b. To debug, just try to open a simple static url: www.youtube.com




In both cases, Automation says "Activating Rule ..." in a toast message. But then nothing happens. And I don't know how to debug further.

I tried this on 2 devices both running Android 11, on which Automation works for other non-url purposes (automation is able to simply open other apps).

[jens]

When using static URLs it looks like you must include the protocol in the URL, so start with http or https.

As for the one with the variable I've found a bug that will be fixed in v1.8.5.

[Tudor]

Hello yet again. I tried again today. Looked at the updated "Open a Webpage" example. There are 2 problems:

1. If you put only [notificationText] in the "Parameter Value" field, it doesn't work. Probably because it sees "[noti" instead of "https" even though the contents of the variable START WITH "https".

When I put "https[notificationText]" in the "Parameter Value" field - it works, it opens the browser, but obviously the httpshttps://youtube.com URL doesn't work.

2. The action's trigger always works accurately: I ask it to only trigger if the incoming notification includes "youtu".

HOWEVER, the [notificationText] variable from the triggered action, is hit and miss:
- sometimes it prints "1+notification"
- sometimes it prints the contents of a random older notification from the same chat app.
- if i manually clear all notifications, then it sometimes prints the intended youtu link message, and sometimes "1 notification"

Android 11.