Lollipop - custom notification sound installed, but it isn't recognised - a solution

[Lucy Melford]

I've owned a Samsung Galaxy S5 since its release day in April 2014. In the last few days I've installed Android Lollipop 5.0. Mostly this is an attractive update, but with some minor irritations.

One was that my favourite imported (i.e. not built-in) notification sound (Message 2.aac) was no longer recognised, and, pending a fix, I apparently had to be content with one of the built-in sounds.

But I saw a way around this, which I offer to Forum readers. I already knew that any song in the Music folder could be turned into a ringtone or an alarm sound. I therefore copied Message 2.aac into the Music folder, and made it into an alarm sound (it could alternatively be made into a ringtone). That done, I deleted Message 2.aac from the Music folder.

It was now in the root directory, and Lollipop could use it not only as an alarm, but as a notification sound. Thus I got my favourite sound for incoming emails and texts up and running!

I suppose any procedure involving a built-in app that places a sound in the root directory will be the basis for a workaround. I thought readers might like to know about it. Whether it's an elegant solution is of course quite another matter!

Lucy Melford

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central, and thanks for the tip! It should work if you move any mp3 or wav file to the corresponding directory (Ringtones, Notifications, or Alarms). Where was your Message 2.aac file to begin with, where it wasn't being recognized?

 

[Lucy Melford]

It was on the 'Notification' folder on the SD card. I experimented with moving it to the 'Notification' folder in the device. Then with creating 'notification' folders in both places (i.e. root-type folder names in lower case). No joy. But turning Message 2.aac into a song, which could then be written to a root folder by the built-in Music player, seemed likely to work - and it did!

Lucy

 

[B. Diddy]

I wonder if part of the issue is that it's an aac file, not mp3 or wav (although supposedly, m4a files should work, which is what aac is). Sometimes, when you transfer a sound file to one of those folders, you have to either wait several minutes or reboot the device before the file shows up in the list. It's probably dependent on when the system's Media Scanner runs to check on new media files.

 

[Lucy Melford]

The various built-in noises in the root folders all seem to be .ogg files, so I did consider converting the .aac file I had to .ogg, using software on my desktop PC, and then importing it via a USB cable. As the 'song-made-into-alarm' technique was successful, I never attempted the '.aac to .ogg' method. It might work, though.

As for whether notification sounds matter, it obviously depends on the kind of life you lead, and where you carry your phone. I need to hear my many emails and messages arriving every time, so that I can reply promptly. And I need especially sharp, clear sounds because my phone is often buried in my bag, not a pocket. If you don't carry your life around in a bag, then you won't have this problem! Perhaps you can see why installing custom sounds, that my (older) ears have been long attuned to, would be an important issue for me.

Lucy

 

[B. Diddy]

Don't mind that previous rude post--it was likely from a spammer, and deleted by a Moderator.

 

[MCoats]

My custom notifications are .mp3 files. I copied the one I was using into the music folder on my sd card. I then played it in the music player app. Went to the clock app, set the alarm sound as the mp3 file. Then went to the music folder and deleted the .mp3 file. Apparently it didn't copy it to the root as yours did cause I can't select it as a notification and it's gone as an alarm sound.

Any suggestions? Thanks