Silent Mode -phone goes there often - missing calls

[samredman]

I am continuously frustrated by my phone going into "silent mode" and then I miss calls, because it doesn't ring. Occasionally, I will have the phone out and see one appear on the screen... but others, I get no notification until I happen to look at my visual voice mail app or call log.

I can't figure out what is causing this. Must be something I am doing or some app I am using which turns on silent mode? Does the music player do that? I saw in one post where someone mentioned a "silent" button. No reference to that in the (very weak) manual. I don't know what button that is... unless it's the power button at the top which I use to get the screen back on when it goes dark. Is that turning the sound off?

I have seen this same problem mentioned by those who are frustrated with the phone and are making plans to return it. I'm not one of those, because I really like the power of the Droid, but I need a solution for this.

I downloaded the "Where's my Droid?" app which will turn off silent mode (and ring it) if I text it with a code phrase from another phone or online. Perhaps there is an app which will stop this madness of going into silent mode when I don't want it to.

This is quite a dilemma for me. I need to keep the sound on so I can get business calls.

 

[KungFuGeek]

on the unlock screen, if you rotate to the right it unlocks, but if you rotate to the left, it switches it to silent. If this is somehow accedently happening in your pocket, i'd suggest setting an unlock pattern.

 

[Trip]

There are a couple ways silent mode could be turned on,

point 1... is from the lock screen, instead of sliding the lock to the right, if you slide the volume to the left it turns on silent mode...that might happen in your pocket or in a holster (I stopped using the leather belt clip I got from verizon because every time I pulled the phone out of it the screen was active and in many cases had a menu up).

Which brings up point 2...from the lock screen, if you hold down the power button at the top (the one to turn off the screen usually), it brings up a menu which has silent mode on it...

and point 3... if you turn down the ringer volume the whole way it turns on silent mode, but you have to be past the lock screen for that to happen.

I'm sure there is a possibility that an app could be turning it on too, but I'm just pointing out that there are multiple ways for it to happen without it being another app.

You might check out this too...
Silent Mode Jammer v1.1.5 Application for Android | Tools

Not sure if it works with the droid (I have not installed it myself), but you can try it.

 

[LennyPK]

HUMMM,

Mine is doing the same thing. I thought it was something I was inadvertantly doing because I am always hitting things I didn't intend to, but seeing as how it takes more than one selection to set the phone to silent mode I can't see how this is happening.
I am willing to live with a lot of start-up bugs, but this problem a big problem. I missed some important call because of this problem.

Anybody know what's causing the Droid to go into silent mode - seemingly on its own.

 

[LennyPK]

Thanks Tripp,

you were addressing the issue while I was posting. I do use the leather case.
I also notice that many times when I hit the power/lock button it goea directly to the wake-up screen instead of going dark.
Is this possibly related to the problem of going into silent mode.

 

[LennyPK]

Actually, I think Tripps point #3 is my problem. I have to be real careful about how I hold the Droid. I do accidently knock the sound totally out when I pick it up.

 

[samredman]

Those are good tips. I have now set a pattern as suggested. I will now be checking over the next day to see if that solved the "going silent" problem. But, I think that for some reason when using the phone I am causing the sound volume button to go all the way into silent mode (that's for that tip too). I don't know how to stop that... because if that's it... then it is coming from how I grip the phone in a conversation. The directional mode on that "volume switch" is actually intuitively backwards (to me), but if it's happening, I'm never realizing that I'm doing it.

I installed that "Silent mode jammer" app. That seems good... but, it just makes sure that sound goes into vibrate mode, which is certainly better than completely silent. So, that's a partial solution. Hopefully there will be an app (or they improve this one) which would require a "Yes No"confirm before the phone goes into silent mode. I can understand the frustration of those "returning the phone" posters who described this problem. I have missed many calls. Maybe I have now some solutions working... we will see.

Thanks for the help.

 

[samredman]

Ok, I found something deserving of a "bump." This app solves most of the problem for me. It is designed for turning off rings and notifications at night, but it also has an option to cancel silent mode for emergency contacts. The free version allows two, the pay version ("donate" it says, which means purchase, of course) lets you pick your entire list of contacts. This solves for me all of my current business contacts.

Night Ringer
Night ringer free (and 99 cent donate) allows the creation of sound profiles for phone ring and text message notifications. profiles are outdoor, silent, night & custom...

I love this phone... but, that is one design flaw which I'll guess is causing a lot of returns, which could be avoided with a minor fix... maybe the "upgrade" on Dec 11 will repair that shortcoming.

But, all these fixes are great for me for the time being. I am still looking for that app which totally stops inadvertant silent mode setting (by forcing a deliberate yes no confirmation dialog)... but, for now I have sort of done the "belt and suspenders" approach and I am not missing my calls. .

 

[JLB09]

Very helpful thread. My first night with my new droid and I missed two calls this morning. I could not understand why but then noticed that magically during the night my ringer had turned to silent mode.

I had remembered this thread and downloaded the Night Ringer app and feel this should solve this problem.

so thanks a bunch.

 

[New2u]

The problem i've seen with silent mode is there are 2 different ways to set it and with 2 separate results.

If you set the phone on silent through the screen lick or by holding the power button down, it will truely be set as silent. While if you go into menu > settings > sounds and set it to silent there, it will set it to vibrate and not completely silent, and that's how i like mine, so I can still know when people are calling. (This is also if you have vibrate set on the phone, if you don't then silent mode works the same either way.) Very frustrating to me, because i did set it to silent mode once and it never vibrated. You would imagine if the vibrate function is set that no matter how you set the silent mode it will notice that, but it doesn't.

 

[Diablo2112]

Very frustrating to me, because i did set it to silent mode once and it never vibrated. You would imagine if the vibrate function is set that no matter how you set the silent mode it will notice that, but it doesn't.

+1. Word.

The vibrate function should be COMPLETELY independent of volume settings/silent mode. If you set the vibrate mode to ON in the settings, then it should ALWAYS vibrate, irregardless of what the ringer volume is set to.

The fact that different silent modes (especially the reverse-swipe) may or may not turn off vibration is almost a killer flaw for me. 99% - no, strike that - 100% of the time when I reverse swipe, its because I'm in an environment where an audible ring would be inappropriate (movie, business meeting, etc.) I *still* want the phone to vibrate so I know a call is coming in, yet the reverse swipe cancels that.

Motorola/Google *please* address this behavior in an upcoming update. I know you're reading this....

 

[Anonymouse]

Very frustrating to me, because i did set it to silent mode once and it never vibrated. You would imagine if the vibrate function is set that no matter how you set the silent mode it will notice that, but it doesn't.

+1. Word.

The vibrate function should be COMPLETELY independent of volume settings/silent mode. If you set the vibrate mode to ON in the settings, then it should ALWAYS vibrate, irregardless of what the ringer volume is set to.

The fact that different silent modes (especially the reverse-swipe) may or may not turn off vibration is almost a killer flaw for me. 99% - no, strike that - 100% of the time when I reverse swipe, its because I'm in an environment where an audible ring would be inappropriate (movie, business meeting, etc.) I *still* want the phone to vibrate so I know a call is coming in, yet the reverse swipe cancels that.

Motorola/Google *please* address this behavior in an upcoming update. I know you're reading this....

Yeah, they should make it so you can set it so instead of making it silent, it puts it on vibrate.

 

[New2u]

Well they do, but the only way you can get it to do it is by using the silent within the menu > settings > sounds and then hitting the silent button, that is the ONLY way it will go into vibrate if it's checked off. The other 2 ways will put it completely silent. I checked it out before i had posted it, i had the vibrate checked, and then i used the silent mode from the lock screen, and it made it 100% silent, the same happened when i did the power button silent. But if you go through the menu, and you hit the silent button, it sets it to vibrate if you have it checked off, if you don't have vibrate checked off then it goes 100% silent. Seems like a little bit of code overlook here. Someone forgot a few IF commands

 

[Sweet Daddy]

I just read in another forum that the Droid goes into silent mode when you plug in the usb charger and then disconnect it.

 

[lstroyan]

I've not seen the "goes silent on USB connect".

I like Ringer Toggle Widget for controlling silent, as well as "ear" for setting up profiles.