Safe mode and notification sounds

[TutorPros1]

Hi Everyone!

Quite recently, all of my notification sounds have disappeared. Texts, new email, new voicemail, Facebook Messenger, everything. I CAN hear the alarm clock and music.
When I go into the settings for each one, and change the ringtones, I can hear them change, so it's not a question of settings or speakers.
I tried the "move the volume key totally down and up", which worked in the past.
And, for the first time, I opened it in Safe Mode, but I still got no sounds.
Thinking about it now, I think this problem started when I took an international trip and I had to put it in airplane mode. I can't remember hearing a notification sound after that. I'm back home now.

And, just to really stress me out, I can't get out of Safe mode.

Please help. You can imagine how difficult it is to live without notification sounds.

Thanks in advance,
Tutor

 

[B. Diddy]

Does the phone play a ringtone when you receive a call?

Rebooting the phone normally should get it back into normal mode. If it's staying in Safe Mode, then one possibility is that the Vol Down button is stuck in a pressed state, which would force the phone to boot into Safe Mode each time. Since notification tones are controlled along with the ringtone volume, and that's what's controlled by the volume buttons when the phone is idle, then this might also explain why the notification volume is forced down. But if you do actually hear the ringtone when you receive a call, that theory goes out the window.

 

[TutorPros1]

Thanks for responding.

I fixed the safe mode thing.

My ringtone is usually silent and set to only ring once. I changed it to some other ringtone (I could hear the sample tone), but when I called the phone I heard nothing.
So I guess that I can't hear the phone ring either.

However, I can see all of my volumes, and they're all on.

 

[B. Diddy]

That's weird. So when you receive a call, you see the incoming call screen, but nothing plays? Or are you not even notified of the incoming call?

 

[TutorPros1]

I saw no incoming call screen (with the swipe to answer thing, right?)

There is so much more that's gone wrong since I went in and out of Safe mode.
I can't sign in to any of my office apps. Contacted Microsoft and they couldn't help.
Also, switching in and out of Safe mode somehow freed up 2.5 GB storage.

I'm all ears for anything you have to say

Did You Read Where I Said That This Whole Thing whole thing started after I had to put it in plane mode for a day?

 

[Doug Moffat]

Can't help with the sound/notication thing. But the reason I went with the Samsung Frontier watch is that my S8+ wasn't vibrating sufficient to pick up calls and notications. Problem solved.

 

[B. Diddy]

Yes, I did read the part about Airplane Mode, but I don't see how that could have caused these issues.

Have you already tried wiping the cache partition? https://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-29314

 

[TutorPros1]

I have definitely not tried that. That's going to take some dexterity.
After step 4 can I take my time?

The first thing I see is the big word 'samsung" with white background.
That gets replaced a smaller samsung with a. small world. The latter is the logo, and the former without the 6 s, right?

I pushed buttons until it said "cache partition cleared successful". Then I rebooted, but still no notification sound. If I do a full reset, will I lose my contacts or my office stuff or my gallery?

 

[TutorPros1]

I just read that Whatsapp may cause this problem,; and the problem started happening right about the time I installed it.
However, I uninstalled it, rebooted, performed malware before I started this thread.
Is there any chance there can be some residual trace of it still on my phone?

 

[B. Diddy]

A factory reset will wipe out any contacts and photos if they're only saved locally to the phone. If your contacts are saved to your Google account, then they should be synced to your Google Contacts in the cloud -- you should be able to see them if you go to contacts.google.com on your desktop browser. If your contacts are only saved to your local Phone account, then you'd have to export them to a VCF file, and then import them to your Google account: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/1069522?hl=en. Or you could use some other 3rd party app to backup locally saved contacts.

Photos can be backed up easily to your Google Photos: https://support.google.com/photos/answer/6193313?co=GENIE.Platform=Android&hl=en

Other documents can be backed up to Google Drive or to your local computer hard drive. App data can also be backed up using Helium.

If a factory reset doesn't help, then you could also try reinstalling the firmware using Smart Switch: http://www.sammobile.com/forum/showthread.php?t=29914

 

[TutorPros1]

I can't find the CVS file that I exported the stuff to

I think I'm making it worse. I can't follow all of the instruction. It's too advanced for me.
I just transferred all of my contact's email addresses to an excel spreadsheet.
I know that you're trying to help me B. Diddy, but maybe I shouldn't have one of these machines. I'm too old.
It's a shame, because in my wildest dreams I never imagined that technology would be where it is.
I wish so much to use it.

Ironically I found the answer my silent notification problem.
I guess that i sacrificed my phone to give everyone the answer. Which is fine by me.

What solved my silent notification was that I always had call blocking on my phone.
it seems now, that check box has an option to block application sounds as well, so I just unchecked it and kept my call blocking on.

 

[B. Diddy]

I'm glad you found the problem! But this was after you did a factory reset?