My Droid - Restoring the sounds to wake up to

Missing sounds of Bach

My Droid life has it excitements of annoyance and discovery but there is never a dull moment.

I cannot remember why I encountered my most recent problem; I had been missing calls for about a month or so because I was not hearing the phone ring.

My ringtone is an MP3 [Music-encoded] file by Johann Sebastian Bach, a church cantata Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, shortened to Wachet auf which in English is Sleepers Wake or in full Wake up, the voice calls to us.

There have been times I have seen the screen on my phone light up but with a non-distinct and unfamiliar sound signifying a call was coming in.

Unravelling the problem

At first I thought it was a bug that I considered getting a volume booster but other features like the dock-mode that allowed me playback my classical collection, the bible or other messages seemed to work fine, I was a bit baffled.

Over the last few months there have some changes to my phone like when I was in India and I used an Indian SIM, that seemed to mess up the workings of SPB Shell 3D, a user interface I had used with my previous Windows Mobile phone that I thought I could not do without.

HTC eventually worked on their HTC Sense user interface that improved its performance after an upgrade that I was no more bothered about the 3rd party application.

Then last month I upgraded my microSD card and I think that was when my ringtone was reset to a default I was unfamiliar with.

Solving the problem

I did not realise how bad it was until this morning when two calls were missed with the phone literally beside me and I was notified of voicemails left by the callers. Then I had had enough and scoured the web for ideas as to why I was not hearing my phone ring.

When I checked the Sound options under the Settings menu, I realised my ringtone was not in the list, so I searched for my original ringtone, set it as the new ringtone and it played back just as I would have expected.

Soon after a call came in and well, I heard my phone ring - Problem solved.

Something to keep in mind

The lesson learnt? Anytime you make any major changes or installations to your mobile phone check that the significant notifications have not been reset.

Primarily, if you expect an audible alert for incoming calls, messages, emails and any other indicators, check those settings and ensure they have not been changed.

Also check that your user interface has not been modified and the frequently accessed applications have not been impaired or corrupted.

In the end, it saves the annoyance of missed calls especially where you are expecting responses for interviews and job applications in a rather turbulent employment-seeking environment.