How to chase down a mystery notification?

[cadcoke5]

I am having problems figuring out the source of some sort of notification tone. It seems to happen randomly, at any time of day or night. When I check the screen for any notifications, there are none.

I tried sending a mail to my yahoo accout, to see if that was the trigger, but it is not. In the past, I turned off gmail sync, and sent a message there, but that did not trigger the sound. It is not a calender event.

I don't know what else to check. The system seems to allow applications to do sound notifications, without actually providing any way to chase down the offending program.

-Joe

 

[the tall guy]

I am having problems figuring out the source of some sort of notification tone. It seems to happen randomly, at any time of day or night. When I check the screen for any notifications, there are none.

I tried sending a mail to my yahoo accout, to see if that was the trigger, but it is not. In the past, I turned off gmail sync, and sent a message there, but that did not trigger the sound. It is not a calender event.

I don't know what else to check. The system seems to allow applications to do sound notifications, without actually providing any way to chase down the offending program.

-Joe

Might be a weird question, but can you describe the sound? is it one of the tones in the notification sounds within settings? Only reason I ask is that yesterday I heard my phone play a notification of a bottle opening, which turned out to be my calendar

 

[VidJunky]

There are a few ways to narrow this down and at least have a few ideas instead of none. You could change the sound used in the notifications for your different apps, email, texting, calendar, so on and so on. The if the sound doesn't change you'll know it isn't anything you've changed and those can be taken off of the table. However that is work, even if you changed them all to the same and changing the default notification sound would likely change the sound this thing is making. Also all of those other apps include a message in your notification bar so the chances of it being something you are aware of is low. When it happens you can check your App Manager, swipe to the left and see what is running. If something just notified you it probably didn't close right after that so it may still be listed. From that list you should have an idea of what might send a notification and what might not. If nothing else you can at least look at each app listed there and check its settings. That could still be a lot of work depending on your list. You could do the same with your data usage which could help if the trigger was external in nature, however that list will be longer than the what's running list because almost everything uses a little data and it only sorts by the amount and not the most recent. If it is a malicious app, AirPush from the PS might root it out. It will scan all of your apps and tell you which have push notifications. Then you can go look at the reviews for those apps it points out and see if anyone is reporting the same issue you are having, because if it's happening to you it's happening to someone else. That will be your shortest list of things to go through.

 

[cadcoke5]

Thanks for the ideas. I looked at AirPush, but it says that if you have Android 4.1 or higher (I have 4.4) then you don't need it, because you can see what program put a notification up, by long-pressing on the notification. It does not describe that it helps with applications that don't put up a notification.

-joe

 

[lterry913]

Try system settings, accessibilty, notification reminder and set it to off. This is for notifications in the pull down menu when they pop up and most of us don't need that as wee can see the notification bar.

This is how I got random sounds to stop on note 3 so settings may be a lil different on the 4...if this doesn't work it can be a lot a work to narrow it down as each app has it's own notification settings usually.

 

[cadcoke5]

I just turned off notifications, as per your suggestion. But, when I see what sound was already set, it was not the sound I heard. I think the sound was the two note, "Charming Bell," sound. I will probably just leave all notification sounds off, just for diagnostics. If I hear something, then I know it is something that is not controlled by the notifications settings.

By the way, I have not downloaded many applications. So, the most likely candidate is something that came with the T-mobile Note 4.

-Joe

 

[lterry913]

Check to see if NFC is turned on...it will chime when it is turned on and trying to make a connecton or when available...this is another hidden notification native to phone that some can not find. Or perhaps there is a way to silence the notification if you do use NFC. It is found insettings,connectons,NFC

 

[beh]

Whatever you do, do NOT tell your carrier you have this feature or they will charge you extra

 

[cadcoke5]

Thanks for the suggestions, but NFC was already off.

Yesterday I set the sound for notifications to be no sound. But, the sound was still happening. I was able to compare it right away to the "Charming Bell" sound, and it is not a match. In fact, it is not a match for any of the sounds available in the sounds for notifications.

-Joe

 

[cadcoke5]

Found it! It turned out to be Yahoo Mail all along. My prior tests failed for some reason. I suspect my earlier test failed, because Yahoo's mail servers have had a lot of problems for at least the last few weeks. The android application has also been updated recently.

-Joe