Push notifications no longer appear in IntelliJ

by 
## Summary
Push notifications stopped appearing in IntelliJ IDEA after recent Git configuration changes. Though pushes succeeded silently in the background and appeared correctly in commit logs, users received no visual confirmation (balloons or panel notifications) of push completion. The trigger was changing Git credential settings – specifically unsetting `user.password` globally and enabling **"Use credentials helper"**. No errors appeared in logs.

## Root Cause
The interaction of Git's credential helper and IntelliJ's notification system caused push notifications to be suppressed:
- **Unsetting `user.password`** explicitly removes Git's default password storage.
- Enabling **"Use credentials helper"** in IntelliJ redirects credential handling to an external helper script.
- IntelliJ's notification system **mistakenly classified push events as "in progress"** due to the credentials helper occupying the terminal context after push completion.
- Silent failure occurred because IntelliJ's **event listener logic didn't detect workflow completion** when credentials were managed externally.

## Why This Happens in Real Systems
- **State tracking ambiguity**: Tools often misinterpret process completion when external dependencies (like credentials helpers) control terminal I/O.
- **Side effects**: Disabling password storage changes authentication workflows unexpectedly when combined with IDE features.
- **Fail-silent designs**: Many notification systems degrade silently when edge cases occur rather than surfacing warnings.
- **Configuration interplay**: Security settings like credential helpers often impact unrelated UI systems downstream.

## Real-World Impact
- **Wasted productivity**: Engineers manually verify each push via terminal/Git hosting services.
- **Missed exceptions**: Lack of notification bubbles hides genuine remote rejection errors.
- **Delayed feedback**: Degrades confidence in deployment workflows as users receive no success confirmation.
- **Silent build breaks**: Critical failures (like inaccessible remotes) go unnoticed until later stages.

## Example or Code (if necessary and relevant)
```bash
# Problematic credential setup sequence:
git config --global --unset user.password

How Senior Engineers Fix It

  1. Reset credential chain: Revert to IDE-managed credentials:

    git config --global --add user.password YOUR_PASSWORD

    → Then disable “Use credentials helper” in IntelliJ settings

  2. Manual notification refresh:

    • Invalidate caches (File > Invalidate Caches → Select Clear VFS caches)
    • Restart IntelliJ with Heavenly%__idea__.no.local.history.rebuild=true to reset event subsystem

  3. Fallback workflow: Configure a Git hook surrogate:

    # .git/hooks/post-push
#!/bin/sh
notify-send "Push completed to $1"

  4. Long-term prevention: Upgrade to IntelliJ ≥ 2024.1.2 containing fix IDEADRV-4217 patching the event listener race condition.

Why Juniors Miss It

  • Tunnel vision on logging: Focusing only on explicit errors misses silent behavioral changes (logs showed “push done”).
  • Over-reliance on UI toggles: Assuming notification settings panels control all behaviors distracts from dependency chains.
  • Underestimating side effects: Credential changes are perceived as orthogonal to UI notifications.
  • Confirmation bias: Recent changes seem “unrelated” (credential helper ≠ UI) so alternative causes (e.g., cache issues) get prioritized.