HELP! My ringtones have been wiped out

[ralgrl73]

HELP! A few days ago all of my ringtones were wiped out. ALL. All customizations I had on the phone (default ringtone, personalized ringtones, SMS notification, alarm, etc) have been wiped. This happened a few days ago and I was away on Christmas travel from my computer. Now I'm home and I've copied/pasted all ringtones back to the phone in like 6 locations and nothing is working!!!!! I restarted the phone (twice) and it doesn't seem to be recognizing the files I just copied to it. As a matter of fact, the phone doesn't seem to be offering ANY sounds other than this ONE sound -- so I can't choose anything, not even from a list of what might have been pre-loaded Android sounds. Nothing but the one.

I'm on Verizon, Galaxy S3, Android v 4.1.2.

I have no idea what has happened to wipe things out. Thoughts?

Thanks!

 

[Vasiliy.zhukov]

Hi. Did you try to use any song as a ringtone? Just to check whether it is working. There are many programs for assigning mp3s to different events.

 

[ralgrl73]

Yes. When I choose the ringtone type I choose music and when I'm taken to the next screen to choose the song there is NOTHING in the list to choose from. It is literally a blank screen with a "Back" and "OK" button.

Here's an example of me trying to assign my default ringtone (which, remember, had been done successfully as of 2 weeks ago):
1. Go to Settings
2. Choose "Sound"
3. When looking at the info on the "Sound" screen the "Device Ringtone" says unknown ringtone <---- right there I think that's the first bad sign of something. Even my phone doesn't know which ringtone is chosen, but something is there b/c when I receive calls a stupid chime thingy plays
4. Choose "Device Ringtone" and the next screen lets me choose among:
-- Silent
-- Current Ringtone (no description as to name, etc)
-- System Ringtone (no description as to what this is)
-- Music
I choose "Music"
5. The next screen is the "Select ringtone" screen which is TOTALLY BLANK save for the "Back" and "OK" buttons at the bottom of the screen.

(I would gladly upload a screenshot but now all of a sudden my phone won't save screenshots -- it appears to take the screenshot but then I get a message saying it's unable to save the screenshot). (Grrrreeeaaat).


I've copied my ringtone .mp3s to both the phone and the card and in locations that clearly say "ringtones", "music", "notifications" -- you name it, I've copied the files there. They're all over the place.

HELP!

 

[ralgrl73]

Darn. I was hoping someone would have some insight into this issue. I guess I'll have to do a factory reset, which is obviously the very thing I was hoping posting on this forum could prevent. Once again: help????

 

[94lt1]

I forget. Does the s3 still have a removable SD card?? Is that where your ringtones were stored?

Another possibility...go into settings, all media storage, clear data, force stop. Reboot and see if that helps.. Let me know...

MAXXED OUT!!!!!

 

[Mike.757]

There is a removable sd card. It probably reset everything after 4.3 was installed. Same thing happened to me. Edit: I re read and see you are on 4.1.2. I would check for an update and finish that before you start trying to recover your ringtones.

Doing a fdr will not do anything to recover ring tones. Save yourself some more pain.

Can you go into your music drill down till you see a sing you want to use as a ringtone and press and hold till a menu pops up? It should offer "set as" as one of the choices.

 

[ralgrl73]

There is a removable sd card. It probably reset everything after 4.3 was installed. Same thing happened to me. Edit: I re read and see you are on 4.1.2. I would check for an update and finish that before you start trying to recover your ringtones.

Doing a fdr will not do anything to recover ring tones. Save yourself some more pain.

Can you go into your music drill down till you see a sing you want to use as a ringtone and press and hold till a menu pops up? It should offer "set as" as one of the choices.

Hey there,
Thanks for your reply. I've resolved the issue, but unfortunately the resolution to the issue was to do a hard reset of the device. UGH. Painful. Very painful.

Before doing the reset I:
-- uninstalled a couple of apps that I thought might have caused the problem (GSam, perhaps a setting I did went too far?, and Battery Doctor for the same reason). No help.
-- Upgraded to 4.3. No help.
-- Went to a Verizon store and had someone there try to fix it. He couldn't. No help.

The reset totally restored all tones (both stock and the ones I added to phone after the reset) and as of right now the phone is behaving as I expect (errr, except now mSecure won't install on the device. Don't know what that's about...)

 

[Vasiliy.zhukov]

Sorry for not answering.
We are all on holidays
As for mSecure and other apps you should check the remains of this app in data folder of your device. If there is anything left from previous installation, your device will not let to re-install such apps. /Android/data/

 

[ralgrl73]

Sorry for not answering.
We are all on holidays
As for mSecure and other apps you should check the remains of this app in data folder of your device. If there is anything left from previous installation, your device will not let to re-install such apps. /Android/data/

Thanks for this info. I looked in the /Android/data/ location on both the Card and the Phone and neither location has mSecure data. Still, the app won't install. And this is one app I really depend on and use a lot