Question Hidden alarm going off at 6am every day

[rb3193]

Hi,

Sorry if I've put this in the wrong place or anything. I have a very strange problem I can't get to the bottom of.

About a month ago, seemingly out of nowhere, a random alarm started going off on my Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra at 6am. There's nothing on the screen to indicate it is going off, nothing in notification history etc but it happened every night. It lasts for about 10-15 seconds then stops and doesn't happen again until 6am the next day.

About 10 days after that, I got a Google Pixel 8. I moved all my apps and data over to the new phone using Smart Switch and wiped the Samsung.

The same alarm then started going off on the Google phone. I have performed a factory reset on it with no success and really don't know what else to try.

I saw a few ideas from other places and have also tried opening the phone in safe mode and putting on do not disturb, both with no success.

It's incredibly annoying and wakes myself and my girlfriend up every single morning. I feel like I'm going mad not being able to work out why it's happening.

Any ideas would be much appreciated and happy to answer any questions anyone might have.

Thanks!

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! In case it's the NFC radio detecting something, try turning off NFC in the system settings. https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/3470787?hl=en

 

[mustang7757]

Also try turning notifications off for chrome

 

[rb3193]

Thanks, have tried both those ideas and will report back if it makes a difference. Guessing if it works, it'll mean long term that I'll have to turn NFC on to pay by phone then manually off again when it's not in use?

 

[B. Diddy]

Thanks, have tried both those ideas and will report back if it makes a difference. Guessing if it works, it'll mean long term that I'll have to turn NFC on to pay by phone then manually off again when it's not in use?

If it doesn't happen with NFC off, that would suggest that something with an NFC chip might be near the phone when that alarm tone goes off. This can happen with certain credit cards or ID cards. It may be just a matter of identifying something with an NFC chip near where you set your phone and making sure you move it away from the phone.

 

[fuzzylumpkin]

Thanks, have tried both those ideas and will report back if it makes a difference. Guessing if it works, it'll mean long term that I'll have to turn NFC on to pay by phone then manually off again when it's not in use?

I set up a routine to turn on NFC, as well as do a few other things, when I leave my home WiFi network and vice versa when I join it. You will need a third party app like Tasker to do similar though since you moved to a Pixel.

If it's not the NFC thing, don't forget to look through things like the calendar for recurring events and such. Also check that it didn't port over both Samsung clock and Google clock and the alarm isn't coming from whichever one of those you don't use.

 

[rb3193]

No luck on those changes, have checked calendar and for a second clock app, turned off notifications and NFC and uninstalled some apps and it's still going. I assumed doing a full factory reset would fix it, but it just carried on at the same time every morning straight away

 

[B. Diddy]

Are you hearing one of the preinstalled alarm tones, or is it something different from the typical Pixel sounds?

 

[rb3193]

It's different, I'll try and record it next time but it feels more like a system sound than a typical phone alarm if that makes sense

 

[belodion]

Set an alarm for 05.55, then take the phone outside and see what happens at 06.00.

 

[J Dubbs]

No luck on those changes, have checked calendar and for a second clock app, turned off notifications and NFC and uninstalled some apps and it's still going. I assumed doing a full factory reset would fix it, but it just carried on at the same time every morning straight away

So this problem followed you from phone to phone when you restored everything to the new phone. When you factory reset the Pixel did you also restore from your backup? That would just bring the problem along again if you did.

I would do a factory reset and start fresh, without restoring anything, and see if the problems still there. If it isn't then start adding apps back one at a time till you find the problem app. I've read multiple posts about this exact problem being caused by third party apps... unfortunately I don't remember the apps involved

You could also try resetting all app preferences, or even reset all settings before you factory reset again.