I have two Moto Z2 Force phones, one for me the other for my wife.  Both are having an issue that when some notification sounds play, they start out at a very low volume.  Bigger issue for my wife since she wears hearing aids and I hadn't really noticed it on my phone until I started a side by side comparison.  Only then did I notice that some (not all) sounds start playing at a lower volume and gradually get louder.  If it's a short notification sound, it never gets loud enough for her to hear (she misse many of my SMS messages because of this).  I've seen this problem reported in other forums and it seems like its been a long time issue.  Are there any fixes, or should I just look at trading phones and going with Samsung?

My understanding is that "it's just the way it works" with no way to change it.

Would changing the inaudible notifications to longer ones (maybe an MP3) allow them to become audible?  That's the only thing I can think of that might help.

I have never seen the problem with ascending notification tones on any of my motorola phones. 

I have seen reports of Facebook and Facebook messenger installation or some other apps somehow causing this problem. 

Try testing in safe mode to see if that works better, that would indicate some 3rd party app is responsible. 

I have tried to reproduce the problem on a few different phones, and I have never been able to. All my notifiications are short and loud - I use the stock notification sounds. 

To reboot into safe mode, tap the power button until you see power off on screen. Then tap and hold power off (on screen) and a new menu will appear to reboot into safe mode.

2 threads about the same problem:

https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Moto-Z-Force/Ascending-ring-increasing-ring-volume-disable/m-p/3815305#M923

https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Moto-Z-Force/not-hearing-phone-ring-is-NOT-a-quot-feature-quot/m-p/3865004#M1599

Just wondering if a solution was ever found for this?

Just over the last week or so, I've noticed my Moto G6 has suddenly started doing this as well. Just thought I'd check in here first, before reporting the issue on the G6 forum.

Hi Scrambow,

This is not an issue with the phone but rather a feature of the phone. The notification sound/ringtone/alarm are all in ascending mode. You will get a low sound volume sound at the beginning then it will ascend to a louder volume.

Best regards,
Rich
Motorola-Lenovo Support

Hi @Agent_Rich,

Thanks for your reply. You're the expert so I don't wish to contradict, but whilst I'm aware that the ringtones and alarms ascend gradually, the notifications are not intended to do this - unless I have a faulty phone, because I've owned it for a month and the notifications have only started to do this over the last week or so.

Plus it makes no sense for notification tones to ascend, because most of them only last less than a second so ascending them means that most of them would never be heard at proper volume (as described in the post).

Even more puzzling is that this morning, the issue went away and notifications tones are now playing properly again!

I wonder if you would be so kind and take a look at this post I've made on the Moto G6 forum in which I describe a test procedure. As I say, right now, it's working fine for me, but yesterday I was able to demonstrate the issue using my test procedure here https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Moto-G6-Moto-G6-Plus-Moto-G6/Notifications-play-too-softly/m-p/4537650

Hi Scrambow,

I have confirmed this, notification tones are also in ascending mode. May I know what's your notification tone?

Best regards,
Rich
Motorola-Lenovo Support

Hi Agent_Rich

I use different tones depending on the app. The issue is intermittent, but anyway I use Vega for Facebook because it's the only available tone in Facebook's list that lasts longer then 3 seconds, so it's the only tone that's audible when the issue is present.

For WhatsApp I use Triad, because for some reason it seems to work OK in practice even when the issue is present, despite it being a short tone.

My default notification tone and ringtone are both custom mp3s.

I have now obtained a second Moto G6 and will unbox it today and set it up to see if the same issue (and the Google hotword detection issue as well) is present. I will be able to keep the original phone for a while as well to make comparisons.

My intention is to not update the second Moto G6 with any security updates for the time being, since my theory is it's likely the issue(s) were introduced after the phone's original PPS29.55-24.

Update/Edit

OK, well I've got the second Moto G6 up and running on PPS29.55-24 and I have to admit I was surprised to find its notifications do in fact work the same way. It can be demonstrated while browsing the list of notification tones in Facebook and WhatsApp and of course while selcting a ringtone - though curiously, not while selecting a default notification tone for the phone. 

So... if this is 'designed behavior' then somewhat perversely, the fact that Moto G6 #1 only did this some of the time (rather than didn't do it some of the time) means it's a buggy phone - but for the exact opposite reason that I thought! :manfrustrated:

What's more, Moto G6 #2 has a noticeably dimmer display than #1, so I'm thinking if one of them goes back to the shop it will be #2.

So I've gotta ask: what on earth was the thinking behind this flawed behaviour that made the developers include this as a 'feature'?

Unless a workaround can be found, the Moto G6 and Z2 Force (and perhaps other models) are next to useless for people with any sort of hearing difficulty - imagine waiting for an imprtant message, and then totally missing it when it arrives because the tone was muted?

What's most infuriating about this bug (because whether it's painted as "a feature of the phone" or not, that's what it is) is that it's so intermittent. This is the case on both of my moto G6 phones, as I've been observing them.

The only workaround I can think of is to create custom notification tones and use them for everything (apart from apps that don't allow it) and make those tones at least 5 seconds long, so that even if you don't hear the start of the tone, you should hear the end of it.

But those would then be annoying when the issue isn't presenting itself, as who wants to be disturbed by a 5-second tone every time an email or WhatsApp message arrives?

I might play around with this idea though by editing in 4 seconds of silence before a short tone. If that works, the result would be you should hear the tone every time, although you would hear it 4 seconds after the message arrives. I'll let you know if this works...