Why is there no sound on my Samsung notifications?

Many Samsung users have experienced an issue where notifications no longer make a sound when received. This can be frustrating as you may miss important notifications if you are not actively looking at your phone’s screen. There are several potential causes for Samsung notifications not making a sound which we will explore in this article.

Briefly, the notification sound may be turned off entirely, the phone volume could be muted or too low, individual app notification sounds may be customized, or there could be a software bug preventing sounds. We’ll walk through the common troubleshooting steps to restore notification sounds on your Samsung device.

Check Notification Settings

The first step in troubleshooting no notification sounds is to check your general notification settings to confirm sounds are enabled. Open the Settings app on your Samsung Galaxy device and tap on “Sounds and Vibration”. On this screen, check that “Vibration intensity” and “Notification sounds” are both toggled on. If “Notification sounds” is disabled, toggle it on and your device’s default notification sound should play. You can tap on “Notification sound” to choose a different default sound if desired.

While in the Sounds and Vibration settings, scroll down and check that the “Do not disturb” feature is disabled – having this enabled will mute all sounds. You can also check the separate app notification settings mentioned in the next section to confirm they are enabled.

If notification sounds are already enabled in your general Settings, the issue likely lies with a specific app’s notification settings or another software problem. Checking here first rules out your general device notification settings being disabled.

Check Individual App Settings

The notification sound settings for individual apps may override the system-wide notification settings on your Samsung Galaxy device. To ensure a specific app’s notifications are not muted or set to a different sound, check the app’s notification settings.

Open the Settings app and go to Notifications > App notifications. Tap on the app you want to check, then tap Notification categories or App icon badges. Look for a setting like “Notification sound” or “Sound” and make sure it is not set to None or Mute.

As an example, if you want your text messaging app notifications to have sound but they currently don’t, open that messaging app’s notification settings and confirm the Notification sound is not disabled. Setting app-specific notification sounds can be useful if you want alerts for critical apps but not others.

According to Samsung’s support article “How to set notification sounds for each app on you Galaxy phone,” you can customize notification sounds on a per-app basis. So if your phone’s notifications are muted overall, checking each app’s individual sound settings is an important troubleshooting step.

Confirm ‘Do Not Disturb’ or ‘Mute’ are not enabled

One common reason for no sound on Samsung notifications is having ‘Do Not Disturb’ or ‘Mute’ enabled, which will mute sounds and vibrations from notifications.

To check if ‘Do Not Disturb’ is enabled:

• Open the Settings app on your Samsung device
• Tap ‘Sounds and vibration’
• Make sure the ‘Do not disturb’ switch is turned off

You can also swipe down from the top of the screen to open the Quick Settings panel and make sure the ‘Do not disturb’ icon is disabled.

Additionally, check that the ‘Mute’ or ‘Vibrate only’ modes are not enabled, as these will also mute notification sounds. The device sound mode can be adjusted in Settings > Sounds and vibration, by using the sound mode switch.

If ‘Do Not Disturb’ or a muted sound mode is enabled, simply turn them off in order to re-enable notification sounds on your Samsung device.

See Samsung’s support article on using Do Not Disturb mode for more details: Use Do not disturb mode on your Galaxy phone.

Check Sound Mode

One of the most common reasons for no sound on Samsung notifications is having the wrong sound mode enabled. On Galaxy devices, you can set the sound mode to Sound, Vibrate, or Mute
(Source). When Vibrate or Mute modes are enabled, notification sounds will be turned off. To restore notification sounds, open Settings and go to Sounds and Vibration. Make sure Sound mode is selected.

In Sound mode, your phone will play notification sounds as normal. Vibrate will turn off the sounds but keep vibrations. Mute will disable both sounds and vibrations for notifications.

Double check that you do not have Do Not Disturb enabled either, as that will mute sounds and vibrations even in Sound mode. Tap on the Do Not Disturb slider to make sure it is disabled if notification sounds are missing.

Update Software

An outdated version of the software can sometimes cause issues with notifications and sounds not working properly. Check if there are any available software updates for your Samsung device. You can do this by going to Settings > Software update and tapping Download and install. Make sure your device is connected to WiFi for the fastest download.

Often major software updates include bug fixes and improvements that resolve problems like missing notification sounds. For example, some Galaxy S23 users found the latest update fixed notification sound issues they were experiencing.

So if notifications and sounds stop working correctly after an update, try installing the latest software version. New updates frequently optimize performance and squash notification bugs. Keeping your Samsung device completely up-to-date is often the best solution.

Reset App Preferences

One option to try fixing notification issues is to reset all of your app preferences back to default settings. On Samsung devices running Android 9 or higher, you can do this by going to Settings > General Management > Reset > Reset App Preferences. Resetting app preferences will clear any customized notification settings you have configured for individual apps and restore them to the default settings. This can resolve problems caused by incorrectly configured notification settings.

After resetting app preferences, you may need to go back into each app’s individual notification settings and reconfigure them how you want. But resetting the preferences first clears out any problematic custom settings that could be causing issues with sounds not working properly. Give this a try if you think notification sounds may have stopped working after you changed notification settings for one or more apps.

Check Accessibility Settings

One possible cause of missing notification sounds is an accessibility or hearing setting that alters audio output. Open the Accessibility settings and look for options related to audio and hearing.

Some options to check include Sound Notifications, which allows assigning unique sounds to apps for identification (source). Also look at options like Mono Audio, Turn Off All Sounds, and Mute All Sounds, which can disable notification audio.

Go through the various accessibility and hearing settings to identify and disable anything that may be suppressing notification sounds.

Try Safe Mode

Booting your Samsung device into safe mode loads the device with only the original software and apps. Safe mode disables any third-party apps and software updates that may be causing issues.

To boot into safe mode on your Samsung:

1. Turn off your device completely.
2. Press and hold the Power button to turn it back on.
3. When the Samsung logo appears, release the Power button and immediately press and hold the Volume down button.
4. Keep holding Volume down until the device finishes restarting. You’ll see “Safe mode” in the bottom left corner.

Test to see if notifications and sounds work normally in safe mode. If the issue persists, it’s likely a hardware problem. But if sounds and notifications work properly, then a third-party app or software update is the culprit.

Booting into safe mode isolates the device from any software changes and helps determine if sound issues are caused by an app or system software. This can help troubleshoot the root cause of missing notification sounds.

Factory Reset

As a last resort, a factory reset may resolve persistent software issues like missing notification sounds. A factory reset will erase all data and settings and restore the device to original factory condition. Before factory resetting, be sure to backup any data you want to keep.

To factory reset your Samsung Galaxy device:

1. Open Settings
2. Tap General management > Reset > Factory data reset
3. Tap Reset and follow the prompts to confirm and erase all data

After the reset completes, set up your device again and test if notification sounds are working properly. If the issue persists after a factory reset, it’s likely a hardware problem that will require service. For software issues, a reset typically resolves them by clearing any corrupted data or settings.

Just remember – factory reset should be a last resort after trying other troubleshooting steps, as you will lose all local data and customizations. But when needed, it can fix persistent software problems like missing notification sounds that other steps cannot.