Firebase RemoteConfig fetch calling each time not after cache expired

Question

Maybe I am missing something, but shouldn't the fetch() be called only if the cached values are older than the cached value?

Having this code called from activity's onCreate

firebaseRC = FirebaseRemoteConfig.getInstance()

firebaseRC.fetch(3600L). .addOnCompleteListener(this, new OnCompleteListener<Void>() {
            @Override
            public void onComplete(@NonNull Task<Void> task) {
                if (task.isSuccessful()) {
                    //THE TASK IS ALWAYS SUCCESSFUL
                    firebaseRC.activateFetched();
                }  
            }
        });

If I start the app on my emulator a few times in a row, the fetch completes successfully each time.

Shouldn't the fetch actually complete with success only if my data is older than 3600 seconds? So starting the app a second time, fetch should complete without onComplete

The docs say:

Remote Config caches values locally after the first successful fetch. By default the cache expires after 12 hours, but you can change the cache expiration for a specific fetch by passing the desired cache expiration to the fetch method. If the values in the cache are older than the desired cache expiration, Remote Config will request fresh config values from the service. If your app requests fresh values using fetch several times, requests are throttled and your app is provided with cached values.

It doesn't say how onComplete will trigger... should I use activateFetched() each time as it has the same value?

Answer 1

The API documentation for fetch() says that the results will come from either cache or server. It doesn't say that a cached result it considered a failure. The fetch will only fail if it can't give you any results at all, which means your app is probably offline and has no previously successful fetched values in cache.