Technician notifications not working - can you disable or modify intelligent notification

Hello

after reading the forums and online I think I'm suffering from intelligent notification

Here's my problem ( ServiceDesk 9.0 Build 9040)

My technicians get notifications sent to them when a ticket is assigned to our group and when a ticket is updated. My end users get a notification sent to them when their ticket is created and when its closed. When the technician does a 'reply' from inside the ticket, the end user gets the reply.

However what I'm missing is:

My technicians don't get an email when a ticket is assigned to them
My technicians don't get an email when an end user replies to a ticket

The only way they see these two things is if they look at the ticket in service desk

Further, under admin - notification roles - both of these are checked:

Alert(or Notify) technician by e-mail when there is a new reply from the requester.
Alert technician by e-mail when a request is assigned.

I would think those 2 checkboxes would solve my problems, but it doesn't. And what I've read online is there is something called 'intelligent notification' that is not sending these because the technician is considered 'logged in'.

I want the notifications to happen though, is there a way to disable/turn off that 'smart' functionality?

thanks!