Hi,

My sister-in-law asked me if I had an idea why her cell phone,
"Moto G Stylus", does not "ring" (incoming telephone call).

I told her to check settings and make sure the phone is
not set for "silent" or "vibrate". Also, make sure the
volume is turned up.

She said she did not change any settings, but she
checked to make sure they have not changed.

Does anyone know what else could cause the
no "ring" issue?

Thank You in advance, John

<jaugustine@verizon.net> wrote:

> My sister-in-law asked me if I had an idea why her cell phone,
> "Moto G Stylus", does not "ring" (incoming telephone call).
>
> I told her to check settings and make sure the phone is
> not set for "silent" or "vibrate". Also, make sure the
> volume is turned up.
>
> She said she did not change any settings, but she
> checked to make sure they have not changed.
>
> Does anyone know what else could cause the
> no "ring" issue?

There is the global ring tone. Did she look to see what ring tone was
used for all calls? Mine is set to a very soft ring tone.

Some phones/apps let you assign a ring tone to your contacts. Is it all
calls, or just some calls, like one caller, when the phone doesn't ring?
I set my contact ring tones all to the same loud ring tone.

When I get a call, I can tell if a contact calls me (loud ring tone), or
it is an unknown caller (soft ring tone). The soft ring tone is easy to
ignore, and won't take me when I'm sleeping.

When you select a ring tone (global or per-contact), you should hear the
ring tone as an example, so you know what it will sound like. When she
picks the same or a different ring tone, does she hear anything?

When I change the volume level using the push buttons, each increment of
change makes a beep to let me know how soft or loud would be that
setting. When she changes the volume level, does she hear beeps on each
increment of change?

Has she ever used airplane mode? When I exit airplane mode, one of the
settings does not return. I don't remember what setting does not get
reinstated, but I'll notice a icon is missing in the status bar sometime
later, and have to manually reenable it. I got into the habit of just
turning the volume all the way down instead of using airplane mode.
It's easier to push on the Down Volume button, and hold until it's zero,
than having to drag down from the top of the screen to show the settings
panel, tap on whatever setting it is the doesn't reset, okay the change,
and drag up to get rid of the settings panel.

Besides airplane mode, or enabled silent or vibrate-only sound modes,
does she have DND (Do Not Disturb) mode enabled?

Is she using 3rd party ring tones, like what some app installs will add
(but will delete on uninstall, but settings still point at the sound
file), instead of the built-in ones (that came bundled on the phone)?

I haven't use a Motorola phone in a long time. Last was a flip style
Razr [classic], but had to toss it because carriers dropped 2G. When I
wanted just-a-phone, it was very good for that. The phone was handy in
a pocket when doing physical labor, like helping to build a house or
other construction work, or during yardwork, because the screen was
protected when flipped closed, it was small sized, and it wasn't my
high-priced smartphone that rests in a belt holster (it's too big for
pockets), so if lost I could just buy another and slide the SIM card
from the old broken one into the new one. Plus its battery lasted a
hell of a lot longer than my LG V20 (LG was known to have short battery
life, but I didn't find out until later, so for stretches longer than 10
hours I'd carry a power pack).

Most sound devices with a headphone jack will cut out the speakers to
play sound over just the headset. She didn't leave a headset plugged
in? Or use a dust plug inserted to prevent filth getting into the jack
for the headset? I'd check if there was any debris inside the jack.
When the contacts separate, the speaker gets disconnected. If the
speaker is just a hole in the case, check for debris inside there, too,
but do not stick a pin or paper clip in the hole to clean out as that
could damage the speaker. Just use an air can to blow out the ports,
check with a magnifier and flashlight, and see if the debris got blown
out, or more compacted into the port.

Is her phone paired with a Bluetooth device? If it is an audio device,
could be sound is silenced on the phone, because the BT audio device is
supposed to play the sounds. For example, if she paired her phone to BT
headphones or ear buds, and the audio device is one so it can be paired,
she won't hear any sound from her phone. She could test by playing an
audio file, or just pushing the Up/Down volume buttons (if they make a
beep at each increment of change) to see if any audio is heard. You say
she cannot hear ring tones, but that doesn't say she happens to notice
an incoming call to pickup but hears something or nothing when using the
speakerphone mode (so the call progress can be heard without pressing an
ear against the phone), or she hears something or nothing when she makes
outbound calls.

Has she yet restarted her phone?

When was the last time she got an OS update to her phone? Sometimes a
phone restart is required afterward.

Lastly, and least desired, is doing a factory reset of the phone. I'd
first disable the Play Store app from reinstalling all the apps
registered for that phone. If an app is the problem, you'd reset the
phone, the apps reinstall, and you're back to the problem you had before
the reset. In some phones, go to Android settings -> Backup & Reset,
and disable Auto Restore. On some phones, you are prompted during the
re-initialization if you want to automatically restore your apps and
data. You can also go to:

https://www.google.com/settings/dashboard?hl=en

to delete your backup data under "Other Google services -> Delete backup
data", so there's nothing to restore after re-initializing the phone.

You could also try going into the Play Store app -> settings -> Network
preferences -> Auto-update apps, and select "Don't auto-update apps".
However, I don't trust Google to keep their fingers out of my business
when using their apps. Currently I have auto-update occur only when
connected to wi-fi to prevent eating up my data quota.

<SNIP>

Hi Vanguard,

I wrote down those tips you gave in your reply.

When I hear from my sister-in-law again, I will tell her
those items you suggested.

Again, Thanks, John

In comp.mobile.android, on Mon, 12 Sep 2022 15:02:24 -0400,
jaugustine@verizon.net wrote:

>Hi,
>
> My sister-in-law asked me if I had an idea why her cell phone,
>"Moto G Stylus", does not "ring" (incoming telephone call).
>
> I told her to check settings and make sure the phone is
>not set for "silent" or "vibrate". Also, make sure the
>volume is turned up.
>
> She said she did not change any settings, but she
>checked to make sure they have not changed.

She's lucky. When I don't change my settings, they still change.

> Does anyone know what else could cause the
>no "ring" issue?

IIRC when I switched from linking to the car to the earbuds, the volume
would go to zero for no apparent reason (Maybe it was their nanny plan
to avoid damaging my ears, but then it should have gone to 10 or 20%,
not zero.) Of course that was the volume for listening.

There are 4 volumes, is she checking all of them, or the right one?
It's sort of hard to get to 3 that the phone doesn't consider as
imporant at the moment.

> Thank You in advance, John

I installed from the app store a couple of "extra loud ringtones" and
indeed the Lone Ranger and the others are extra loud, but that won't
help her if the volume is zero.

On 9/12/22 12:02, jaugustine@verizon.net wrote:
> Hi,
>
> My sister-in-law asked me if I had an idea why her cell phone,
> "Moto G Stylus", does not "ring" (incoming telephone call).

With me, it's always because I inadvertently hit the 'Do Not Disturb' button
from the panel that you get when you swipe down from the top of the screen.
Make sure that button is not highlighted.

Toby