Help Alarm is temperamental

[FoxIII]

Right back when the Nokia 3310 was brand new and it was actually pointless for me to have it because no one else could afford a mobile, I have used the alarm feature on all of my phones negating the need for a separate alarm clock.

However, today I find myself (again!) waking up late because the SGS2 alarm did not go off.

This is not a definitive thing. Sometimes it goes off. Sometimes it doesn't. What on earth is going on? I've seen that other people are having trouble with the alarm not going off in the phone is off, but I never turn my phone off. It's constantly on.

What I fail to understand is why the alarm is so temperamental. Perhaps it is because today is a bit cloudy? Or the temperature is a bit lower than normal. Or maybe it's because it just didn't feel like it.

It would be great if someone here has a solution to this problem, but from looking around, it seems others have similar problems.

Can anyone suggest where I would go (officially) to report this? I would not replace the phone based purely on one application not working correctly however important and obviously basic but I do have other issues which, added together, for me make this phone a really, really expensive mistake.

 

[Apollo123]

I reckon it's one of two things:

1) Setting the day incorrectly. Many people aren't used to having to choose which day of the week to set the alarm for, and instead are accustomed to just setting the time. When setting an alarm, you see:
S M T W T F S
Make sure you select the day(s) you want it to go off for. You can check you got it right by reading the message which comes up telling you how long until it'll go off.

2) Task killer. Do you have an app installed for automatically killing apps/processes? That could be stopping it during the night.

 

[Kelmar]

Are you using a task killer?

This is typically the number 1 reason we see when alarms stop working.

If you are, try rebooting the phone, setting the alarm and not killing anything... See if it works.

 

[Gearu]

This would include clearing the RAM I think.

 

[FoxIII]

I have had phones before where I have had to set days so this is not a problem and is set to go off everyday.

I do not clear the ram or have any 'task killer' applications.

I check the alarm every night (I'm paranoid that it may not be set) and it comes up saying "The alarm is set for 6 hours..."

 

[Shotgun84]

Maybe try a different alarm from the market

 

[FoxIII]

Wouldn't an alarm from the market have the same issues? Especially if the phone decides to think the program needs to be closed.

The alarm had been working fine on the 30th and 31st, but this morning, no alarm again. Maybe these phones don't like bank holidays? Again, nothing different was running as from the days that it worked. Maybe because I went to bed with only 90% left on my battery rather than fully charging it?

 

[Shotgun84]

Wouldn't an alarm from the market have the same issues?

Maybe. But then you can get 2 apps which claim to do the same thing, but 1 works and the other doesn't. I'd say its worth a try. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

 

[id_mew]

This happened to be too. My alarm didn't go on and I was late to work.
Like Apollo said, you have to make sure it's set to the correct day, and pay attention to the message that comes up after you save the alarm.
But I'm still paranoid so I'm using my old phone for my alarm.

 

[carajp]

I'm having exactly the same problem - or very nearly.

I haven't tried the alarm itself, but I have an identical problem with the timer. I set it to (say) 40 minutes and sometimes it sounds and sometimes it doesn't. (If it doesn't sound, the screen saying time is up still comes up - not much help if I was grabbing a nap).

It does sound exactly the same problem - the sheer randomness of whether it will work or not makes it effectively useless.

No task killers or similar on my Samsung either.

 

[planetf1]

Using UK Vodafone KG2 firmware and not had any issues with alarms in the 2 weeks I've had it.

No task killers, no root - but lots of apps and configuration done.

I do leave the power on -- I am assuming the alarm doesn't work, *unlike* nokia's which would wake up.

 

[carajp]

I've discovered that third-party timers also don't work sometimes. (Arrgghh).

However, I've possibly stumbled on a solution/work-around but I won't feel confident until I've tested it a lot - so the emphasis is on "possibility".

I've begun to think that if I EXIT the app after setting the timer and return to the home screen, the alarm will sound. If I turn off the phone with the app active, it seems that it doesn't.

Like I say, at the moment I'm testing that theory and it's too soon to be sure (it could still be chance that it's worked like that at the moment).

If anyone else with the same problem would also like to try it....??

Incidentally, I've also had some problems with certain software and Missed Message Flasher not working. Is anyone else with this problem also using Missed Message Flasher or NoLED (which works in much the same way)?

 

[carajp]

Ok, scrub that theory. The alarm didn't sound this time as expected.

Looks like I'm off to buy a mini alarm-clock timer. How incredibly annoying.

 

[Gxavier]

This would include clearing the RAM I think.

Not really. Ive had no problems whatsoever with the alarm. be sure to click on the right days. and also, check the volume. Or maybe it could be the users problem sleeping...

 

[carajp]

Well, it turns out (for me) to be some strange conflict with Missed Message Flasher. After uninstalling this app (annoying, because it's very useful) alarms and timers now appear to work all the time.

As a test, I must have set about 50 different alarms or timers in the last 2 days. Before uninstalling Missed Message Flasher, the alarm sound would not go off around half the time (and whether it did or not seemed completely random). Since uninstalling it, the sound has never once failed.

 

[SebaKL]

oh man, the Alarm is a real nightmare for me. I tried the stock alarm, failed me few times for not apparent reason, and kid was late for school. I don't mind my son is late, but he is picked up by a driver, which is a courtesy of another parent who happen to stay near by, and asked the driver to stop by on the way while sending their kid. So if I'm late, they are late too. So embarrassing...

I set the alarm Monday to Friday for the same time everyday. First few days the alarm worked like charm, then just didn't ring. I don't use any task killers, in fact my apps are very minimal. So I installed Alarm Clock Plus. I tested it, it will play your preferred sound for about 30min nonstop, and has very rich variety of settings. Great... I was happy for about two weeks.
And today, just like the stock alarm, it failed me. Didn't ring, kid was late....

I did flushed the RAM because I was surfing before slip, putting some files to dropbox, playing game meantime and the CPU usage jumped a bit too high. So perhaps this is the reason behind it. But I do remember cleaning Ram many times before sleep and it didn't effect the alarm before.

I do however suspect, that given the app is free and comes with ads, something went wrong when I turned off my WIFI and DATA Network mode. Perhaps unable to connect to the online service, it didn't kicked in. I did write to the Author of the app, asking specifically for that. But no reply yet.

Now I guess I will have to find another alarm to test.
It's a pity, because my Nokia N95 8gb never failed me once. Simpler phone, more reliable, how is that

 

[Slug]

I can only comment on personal experience, but in the four months I've had the GS2 an alarm has never failed to trigger. Stock Clock app only, no third-parties.