Why don't calendar alarms work?

[AC Question]

I am continuously buying and returning phones because I always find calendar alarm failures. I use the calendar reminders as alarms and sometimes they trigger a notification and sometimes don't. I have found the same issue in these models until now:
- Asus Zenfone Max (Android 6)
- Asus Zenfone 3 Zoom (Android 6)
- Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge (Android 7)
- Samsung Galaxy S8+ (Android 7)
I have contact Samsung, and Asus, and I have tried to contact Google without success. I don't know what can I do for buying a phone when a simple thing such as a calendar alarm works always. This is really driving me nuts and I can't find any help. No one knows about the failure although I see and check that it is there.

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! Are you always using the Google Calendar app, or the stock Calendar app that comes with each phone? Are you routinely installing any 3rd party battery-saver or "RAM booster" app? Do you typically turn on any native power-saving modes?

 

[maykelbembibre]

I have never had any third party app for saving battery or RAM.
I have never turn on any built-in battery saving feature.
I have tried with lots of different calendar applications and all of them have shown the same failure (so the failure must be at the OS itself).

Surprised?

I can't find a feasible reason for this annoying failure to happen to me in so many different phones. I know that in Lollipop this failure never happened to me, but finding a phone with Lollipop installed is very difficult nowadays.

 

[B. Diddy]

When you're setting the alarm for the event, do you always do it within the calendar app on the phone, or do you ever do it on your Google Calendar website on the computer?

Also, one other question about 3rd party apps -- any "RAM booster" apps installed?

 

[maykelbembibre]

I always create reminders locally right in my phone.
No, I have never installed a RAM booster nor anything like that.
It is Android itself and its damned doze mode which must be closing processes and preventing alarms for working.

 

[B. Diddy]

Go to Settings>Battery and look for the Battery Optimization option. Is the Calendar app optimized? (I believe it is by default, so you wouldn't have had to go into this menu any time before.) Try de-optimizing it.

 

[maykelbembibre]

I had already tried that but there wasn't success. It seems like all Android 6 & 7 phones are affected. Is this normal? Has Android let its users behind? Even I bought a Windows Phone, and if calendar alarms do work then I say goodbye to Android.

 

[B. Diddy]

I actually haven't seen this issue raised with any regularity on these forums -- maybe once or twice, but it certainly isn't commonly posted about. That doesn't mean it's not happening, of course, but we can usually gauge the commonality of a problem by how often we see posts about it. Personally, I almost never use calendar event notifications, but the one I do use (a repeating notification every Tuesday to remind me to check my T-Mobile Tuesdays app for free stuff!) has appeared reliably each time. This is on my Nexus 6P running 7.1.2, using the Google Calendar app.

What time are you setting the event notification to trigger? Also, have you ever tried Safe Mode? If you consistently install a certain app that might be interfering, that could potentially be a reason.

 

[Almeuit]

I would ensure you have the Google Calendar app downloaded -- and ensure the notification alerts are setup right on your events. I regularly get notifications from the calendar -- I even got one just today for an appointment I had without issue on my S8+.

 

[maykelbembibre]

I have never reproduced the failure above Android 7.0, so I don't know if it could be corrected in 7.1.1 or 7.1.2. I have returned so many phones that it isn't worth a new attempt at this time.

You the one with an S8+ I don't understand how you made it to work. I had got an S8+ with the Spanish PHE ROM 7.0, I set about 40 reminders along 10 days, and then I had got the first failure, at tenth day, when I rapidly returned it to seller. Perhaps is not a frequent failure but when it happens it is a hell.

I thought if an application I always use could be the culprit, but I am a person of traditions, being using the same apps for years, and the notifications failure never happened when I was at Android 5 or below. In fact, one of my old phones had the calendar failure with Android 6, I downgraded to 5, install just all the same apps I had got before, and the alarm failure never happened again. I have proved that the problem is within Android 6. Although 7 is affected as well.

 

[B. Diddy]

I thought if an application I always use could be the culprit, but I am a person of traditions, being using the same apps for years, and the notifications failure never happened when I was at Android 5 or below. In fact, one of my old phones had the calendar failure with Android 6, I downgraded to 5, install just all the same apps I had got before, and the alarm failure never happened again. I have proved that the problem is within Android 6. Although 7 is affected as well.

Then one possibility is that one of the apps you routinely install started having compatibility issues with Marshmallow, and it wasn't corrected since then. This kind of thing wouldn't be an Android system problem per se -- it's more of a coding issue with the 3rd party app developer that they need to fix (not Google).

 

[maykelbembibre]

And how can an application which hasn't got anything to do with notifications stop them from working? I mean, if an application had issues with a new operating system, the normal would be that the application fails, but not that it makes fail an independent component of the OS.

Wow this is so difficult. Shouldn't be Android sturdy enough for not stopping working by the fault of an application?
Nevertheless I haven't got an application that is able to remove notifications. Well it is said that the simplest explanation should be the correct one. What is it? I bet it is doze. Doze stops things from working. If the device is in full sleep it is expected that it cannot reproduce an alert.

 

[B. Diddy]

I'm not technical enough to know how or why this might happen, but it's simple enough to test -- just boot into Safe Mode as I mentioned before and see if the problem persists. If the problem goes away, then something you installed is almost certainly causing the problem.

 

[chanchan05]

Maybe you can give details as to how exactly do the alarms fail? I have an S7 Edge and never had a calendar notification fail to show an alert.

Like maybe give an example of the alarm that failed and the exact steps on how you made it.

 

[cracktech]

I always create reminders locally right in my phone.
No, I have never installed a RAM booster nor anything like that.
It is Android itself and its damned doze mode which must be closing processes and preventing alarms for working.

am with you bro! But mine is on a different app. I am a Muslim so I installed an "Azan" app on most of my Android to alert me on every prayer 5 time daily. I find that on certain models the app doesnt work at all and had to switch over to another developer app. But here is the puzzling part is on my Oppo Neo 5 Running Lollipop not one single "Azan" app from Playstore (there are at least 40+ developer).none would work ("notify" alerts). I guess you are facing the same problems but for Google Calendar not to alert is puzzling but not unheard of on China branded phones with Google Apps installed. Forget about"RAM booster" "Power saving" advise you are getting if a Google App doesnt work on a China brand device means it doesnt work (unless you root and modify to get it working) and I only buy China brand phones and avoid Samsung/iPhones like a plaugue.

 

[maykelbembibre]

The problem is not related to applications. It happens in safe mode as well.

 

[B. Diddy]

Would you mind showing a screenshot of how you're setting up the calendar alarm? Just make sure you don't include any identifying information, like your email address.

 

[maykelbembibre]

I don't know how to upload an screenshot but it is very basic. You have to do it exactly like this:
- Open the calendar.
- I assume that the calendar has got permission to notify and it is configured to do so.
- You create an event that alerts right 5 minutes after you get up at the morning. It is very important to not use the phone at night neither at the morning before the alert time. You set the notification on time. Set the event as daily repeated, save and exit.
- Synchronize the phone's time with your wrist clock and disable the automatic time.
- Each morning wait until your wrist clock reaches the time of the alert. Some mornings you will see the notification and some others will not. It is random.
- There must not be any other calendar event but the one being tested. The failure is reproduced when there are at least 24 hours between consecutive alerts.

As you can see it seems like the failure is constrainted to very specific conditions. It is not related to doze. I tested it. It is neither related to any installed application neither battery optimisation. The problem is right at the core of the calendar service of the operating system. It forgets, delays or messes alarms around when there are at least 24 hours between them. Perhaps the failure isn't related to not being using the phone before the alert but I haven't tested that. The Android calendar service is shared by every calendar application so installing any other calendar doesn't help.

 

[B. Diddy]

- Synchronize the phone's time with your wrist clock and disable the automatic time.
- Each morning wait until your wrist clock reaches the time of the alert. Some mornings you will see the notification and some others will not. It is random.

Sorry if i'm missing something, but this is the first time I saw anything about a wrist clock. Are you talking about a smartwatch? What do you mean by disabling the automatic time?

 

[chanchan05]

Hmm. I get my alarms every day so I don't see anything off.