I carry a Samsung Galaxy A50 cellphone with about 60 apps installed. Several months ago, the ringtone on my phone quit working. The only way I could get the ringtone to work was to force a hard reboot by pressing the down volume and power buttons at the same time for about 45 seconds. Sometimes I would have to hard reboot several times before the ringtone would start working again. It got to the point that I had to hard reboot every day or so and then the ringtone still might not work. Here is how I finally fixed this problem.
At first, I thought the issue was with an app named Silence Premium which I have used for years to auto mute my phone during calendar events and overnight. I uninstalled Silence Premium and then the ringtone would work for a while…but then fail.
I read many posts and articles on the Internet about similar issues. It turns out this in not an uncommon issue. After rebooting in Safe Mode, I determined this problem was app related since the ringtone worked fine when no apps were loaded. Now the question was which app? It finally dawned on me…my Tic E Google Watch is linked to my phone, which is the problem.
I finally found a post that led me to the right answer. Here is my step-by-step solution by making a configuration change in Google Wear OS:
- Open Google Wear OS on your cellphone
- Go to Notifications under Settings
- Touch “Silence phone while wearing watch“
- Turn off “Silence incoming calls“
That’s it. It took me hours to figure this out. My OCD was going crazy.
So, if you are having issues with the ringtone on your cellphone not working AND you wear a smart watch, check all the settings for your watch too.
Sometimes the most annoying problems can be solved by turning off a simple switch.