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Android Device Manager - Note 7 remote ringer 'fail'

johnpjackson

johnpjackson

Android Enthusiast
On my Note 7, I discovered last night that Android Device Locator's feature of being able to remotely play the device's ringer from the web control app can be defeated on the phone by having its media volume control turned all the way down. I thought I recalled that in the past, the remote ringer feature caused the ringer to sound a full volume regardless of any of the device's settings for sound and volume. That would make the most sense, given that the purpose of the feature is to help locate a misplaced device. I just happened to have had my device's media volume turned down when I tried testing remote ringing it. I couldn't understand why the test wasn't working, at first. Then I saw that I was getting a notification on the device that Android Device Manager had located it and was ringing the ringer. But, no sound. As soon as I turned the media volume up again, I could hear the ringer.
 
turned media to 0, and set sound mode to silent. went to google.com, made sure I was signed in with my gmail account, did a search for "where's my phone", and used the ring feature once it was located. worked like a charm. might want to check your settings and/or setup again.
 
seVer said:
turned media to 0, and set sound mode to silent. went to google.com, made sure I was signed in with my gmail account, did a search for "where's my phone", and used the ring feature once it was located. worked like a charm. might want to check your settings and/or setup again.
Click to expand...

I put together some more details. When I simply turn my phone's ringer volume all the way down, which is what appears to be what we mean when we say 'silence' the phone, Android Device Manager is still able to remotely play the phone's ringer. However, there's a volume slider in the mixer that is for notification volume. If you turn just THAT slider all the way down, and leave all the rest of them up, THAT prevents Android Device Locator from playing the ringer audibly. The phone gets the notification to do so, no problem, just as if the volume for it was up, but you get no sound playing audibly from it. I'm including snapshots of the notification volume slider that produces this behavior. I'm still thinking this is a flaw with the feature, in the sense that if the intent is to provide a fool-proof way to help locate a misplaced phone (by having it play the ringer sound at full volume), this behavior I stumbled on defeats that.

volume-up.jpg volume-down.jpg
 
seVer said:
turned media to 0, and set sound mode to silent. went to google.com, made sure I was signed in with my gmail account, did a search for "where's my phone", and used the ring feature once it was located. worked like a charm. might want to check your settings and/or setup again.
Click to expand...

the only time I tried this also, it worked even with volume set to zero.
 
left all volumes where they were, except I lowered notification volume to 0. tested again, confirmed your "issue".

I'm not prepared to say it's an issue with the note7 itself, though. might be issue with ADM not being fully compatible since it's a new phone. either that, or a separation between phone volume and a specific setting volume. not many people would turn off JUST the notification volume.

now the question is, can someone with a DIFFERENT phone test and confirm?
 
seVer said:
left all volumes where they were, except I lowered notification volume to 0. tested again, confirmed your "issue".

I'm not prepared to say it's an issue with the note7 itself, though. might be issue with ADM not being fully compatible since it's a new phone. either that, or a separation between phone volume and a specific setting volume. not many people would turn off JUST the notification volume.

now the question is, can someone with a DIFFERENT phone test and confirm?
Click to expand...

I think saying that not many people would turn their notification volume off is skirting kinda close to some passive-aggressive! ;) ;)

I'll tell you how I ran into this. The default Verizon notification sound was pretty loud and obnoxious. In the process of setting up my second, post-exploding-battery, second Note7, I didn't get around to picking a new sound right away, and started to drive me and everyone nearby berserk when one of my social media apps started flooding me with notifications. So I turned the notification volume way down, at the time. Actually, by mistake I turned it all the way down, but thought I had left it up just a little.

And then I forgot about it.

And only days later did I happen to check out the device locator, as I was going back through and checking things with my new replacement phone.

However the gap in the feature arose, I think it'd be more than sensible for Google to fix it. Or Samsung, if it's something they mucked up.

It WILL be interesting to find out if it's just the Note7, or if other Samsung, or other vendors devices, also exhibit the issue.

I also take issue with calling the issue an "issue" ;) ;) ;)
 
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