"Sounds keeps stopping" message; can't change Ringtone or other Notification sounds

Help Fairphone 4
1

I keep receiving the message “Sounds keeps stopping” whenever I try and change my Ringtone or any other Notification sound. After a few seconds, I am then returned to the previous screen.
Android 11.
This problem persists even when I “Turn it off and on again!”
I don’t recall doing anything particular to cause the issue. I had previously successfully changed my Ringtone and some Notification sounds.
I have taken out the SIM and SD card, and then replaced them.

2

Hi Sowena and welcome to the community forum!
Which option did you choose for your SD card, either extending internal storage, or as removable/external? Are you aware of the problems associated with extending internal storage?

3

Hi OldRoutard,

Thanks for your prompt response.

I chose the “removable/external” option for the SD card.

I’m very new to the Fairphone world, having just started using my FP4 a few days ago .
I wasn’t aware of the problems to which you referred.

4

That seems fine ~ external.

To see if it an app issue you can try starting in safe mode or even a factory reset.

5

Thanks for your response, Amoun.

I didn’t do a “start in safe mode” or a factory reset because the problem has gone away!

Which is both pleasing and a bit frustrating - because I don’t know what fixed it. I hope it doesn’t recur.

Anyway I’m pleased to have the ringtone of my choice.

1 Like
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Glad it’s now working. :slightly_smiling_face:
Would it be possible to post (or confirm) the exact wording of the error message you were getting?
There were a lot of audio problems early on with generic A11, hopefully none have made it onto the FP4!

7

Hi OldRoutard,

Thanks for your response. The wording was “Sounds keeps stopping”

Which is odd because I can’t find an App called sounds on my phone.

2 Likes
8

Thanks Sowena. I think “Sounds” here refers to the audio service, not a specific app.

Well this problem has already been reported for A11 but on a Pixel 2. However the linked post doesn’t help beyond letting us know that this appears to be an A11 problem. I saw one other reference, for a different phone but also A11. Hopefully it won’t recur for you but post back here if it does.

2 Likes
9

There is actually a app called “Sounds” (com.android.soundpicker). That’s the app responsible for showing the dialog to change ringtones.
Would be really interesting to find out why it’s crashing… :thinking:

If it happens again, you can try to clear its cache / storage. The app can be accessed e.g. by searching for “Sounds” in the Settings, it’s on the bottom of the list.

3 Likes
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Thanks, hirnsushi. Yes, found that App by following your instructions. Thanks.

1 Like
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It’s also happening on my Fairphone 4.

I tried:

  • rebooting
  • clearing cache
  • clearing storage
  • force stopping the “Sounds” app

But it didn’t seem to work.

For me it also results in the default “ringtone” being played whenever I’m called instead of my selected .mp3 file. My morning Alarm however works with the set .mp3, but I guess it’s not using the “Sounds” app in the background :thinking:

Does anyone have an idea what else I could try?

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Welcome to the community :wave:

The “Sounds” app is only used to choose the ringtone, the different apps are the ones that should be actually playing the sound.

Are you receiving the “Sounds keeps stopping” message or does your phone not play the ringtone you selected? If it’s the latter this is probably a different problem :thinking:

  • Are you using a SD card and is the .mp3 you are trying to play stored there?
  • Are you using a 3rd party app for your alarm?
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Thanks :slight_smile:

Yes, the “Sounds keeps stopping” message appears when I select the Sounds app after clicking on the “Phone ringtone” Setting.
The only other option I get to find sound files is by using the App Amaze. There I can find the file and it’s properly shown in the settings when I select it, but it won’t play when I’m called. If my memory isn’t wrong. This worked at the beginning.

To your questions:

No. I don’t have an SD card in the phone currently.

The Alarm is just the regular Android clock app.

14

Allrighty, so that’s indeed the same issue.

Since you have already tried the workarounds and your setup is apparently pretty standard maybe a logcat could reveal some additional information. Are you familiar with adb? If you aren’t, you can follow the first two steps of this guide.
Afterwards run:

  • $ adb shell "logcat -c && logcat > /sdcard/logcat.txt"
  • Try changing the ringtone in the settings and wait for it to crash
  • Press Ctrl+C in the terminal you have adb running
  • $ adb pull /sdcard/logcat.txt
  • Upload logcat.txt to something like Pastebin, GDrive, Dropbox, Mega, or whatever you have access to :slightly_smiling_face:
15

Thank you for your help already. It’s always nice to learn a bit more android command line foo :slight_smile:

So I uploaded an excerpt of my logs to filen.

I think the most important part is:

03-27 12:36:23.236  8062  8062 E AndroidRuntime: java.lang.RuntimeException: Unable to start activity ComponentInfo{com.android.soundpicker/com.android.soundpicker.RingtonePickerActivity}: java.lang.NumberFormatException: For input string: "monk_theme.mp3"
...
03-27 12:36:23.236  8062  8062 E AndroidRuntime: 	at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:952)
03-27 12:36:23.236  8062  8062 E AndroidRuntime: Caused by: java.lang.NumberFormatException: For input string: "monk_theme.mp3"

Here, "monk_theme.mp3" is the file I selected as ringtone via Amaze.

1 Like
16

:tada:

I’ve been able to fix it :nerd_face:. Thanks @hirnsushi for showing me how to get the logs.

I’ll leave the solution here for anyone else to find it:

Root Cause of this :lady_beetle:

Using some file manager app (e.g. Amaze) to select the ringtone results in a setting being stored that crashes the com.android.soundpicker.

Symptoms

  • Your selected ringtone will not play
    • since the com.android.soundpicker handles this and it cannot parse the setting so it defaults to the default sound
  • You cannot undo the mistake inside the Android UI
    • since com.android.soundpicker cannot start with the existing setting, but it’s the only app that would store a correct setting

Solution: adb shell to the rescue

Luckily one can set the settings manually through adb:

1. Preparation

2. Get Settings

List all system settings:

adb shell settings list system
  • Look for: alarm_alert=, notification_sound=, and ringtone=
  • Any entry which does NOT start with content://0@media will probably crash
  • In my case the problem was ringtone=content://0@com.amaze.filemanager/storage_root/storage/emulated/0/Ringtones/monk_theme.mp3

3. Get one of the not broken alarm settings

adb shell settings get system notification_sound

In my case this returns:

content://0@media/external/audio/media/30?title=Snappy&canonical=1

Since the above seems to be a default android sound you can probably just copy it

4. Overwrite the settings that cause com.android.soundpicker to crash

adb shell settings put system ringtone content://0@media/external/audio/media/30?title=Snappy&canonical=1

5. :tada: Use Android UI again

Now you can use the Android UI again to change the sound settings as com.android.soundpicker will no longer crash.
Remember to only use the soundpicker to set your ringtones. Otherwise you might need to do the whole ceremony again :wink:

3 Likes
17

Where would I report such a bug?

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19

Hello !

I tried to set a custom ringtone via an application that allows me to select a “clip” of the music instead of the full thing. Now I’m stuck with a “cut_temp.wav” as a ringtone, and instead of playing the song, I just have a “ding” sound that repeats. When I try to change the ringtone, I get a “Sounds systematically stops” (not a perfect translation, my phone’s in French) and so I can’t change the ringtone. I suspect it’s because it’s a .wav file, but I don’t know of to correct this ?

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