S9 Text message ringtone

[Jarvo]

I can’t seem to assign different tunes to individual Contacts messages anymore but still can with their Call ringtone. Am I doing something wrong, any help TIA.

[Tangoman65 · Accepted solution]

That is what you should check your updates for messages in. You may have already had it and havent realised or its a steady roll out, I'm not sure. But the rest of my post should point you in the direction if the update is on your phone already. 

 This is the latest version I have. If yours is the same you should be abke to asign notification tones to each thread. 

Regards Tango.

[wdfrancis58]

I tried the lg ones at Best But. It wasn't on any of them that they're currently selling. 

[BigBrad]

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@wdfrancis58 wrote:

I tried the lg ones at Best But. It wasn't on any of them that they're currently selling. 

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I looked at a coworkers LG the other day.  It had the "Custom Text Tone" setting in the contact file when I checked it.  

[wdfrancis58]

I'm hoping I can find one that does. But they only had 2 options at Best buy. Neither one had it. I won't order online because I'd have to buy it sight unseen. I'll be going to a Sprint store soon to see what they have. 

[Jules2603]

Excuse me!! I'm not a spammer!!!

[Jules2603]

Same for messages open SMS open contact click on notification 

[BigBrad]

Ok.. since the newer posters don't seem to want to read all the previous posts and insist that the app currently works with the "Fix" that Samsung initiated in which the custom text tones are assigned to the conversation thread, I will repeat this again.  It is not fixed.  And to prevent having to go through that long explaination AGAIN about why it doesn't work, I'll cut and paste from about 10 pages back on this conversation.  

I don’t think that reverting back to a previous version of messaging will do the trick.  In the past, the specific tones were assigned through the Contacts app, and not the Message app.  The contact app no longer has the field for “Custom Text Tone.”  There is still a field for “Custom Ring Tone.”  Textra, Mood and all the other texting apps have apparently had to change also since all now seem to use the feature of tagging the Conversation and not the Contact anymore.  I’ve downloaded Mood for example and tried it.  They do the exact thing that Samsung has done with their “Fix”.  They tag the Conversation and have nothing to do with the contacts listing.

Here is a good way to test it. 

Pick 3 friends that you have text conversations with.  Now, using the current method:

Assign Tone A to Friend A’s conversation

Assign Tone B to Friend B’s conversation

Assign Tone C to Friend C’s conversation

Send and receive one on one messages from all three one at a time, and you get Tone A for Friend A, Tone B for Friend B and Tone C for Friend C. 

Now, put all three friends into a Group text scenario.  Send a message to all three and wait for their replies.  You will receive:

Default Tone for Friend A

Default Tone for Friend B

Default Tone for Friend C

So if I assign a custom text tone to someone, I must preserve that thread for all eternity.  Previously, under Nougat, under contacts, you assigned Friend A’s tone to Friend A, Friend B’s Tone to Friend B and Friend C’s Tone to Friend C.  And when they replied, you got their assigned tones, no matter whether they were responding one on one, or in a group. 

For example, my drug store sends me text messages advising me that my prescriptions are due for refill.  So I saved them as a contact and assign a quiet, non-obtrusive tone for them.  Just a quiet beep.  And it’s worked for years.  Now I must preserve these automated texts for all eternity to preserve this quiet beep, or clean them out since I don’t need them and have the next month’s messages revert back to my default tone so I have to stop what I’m doing to check an automated computer message.   I did the same with my Alarm company.  I saved them as a contact and when they send me a message, I want a really loud, obnoxious tone to let me know there is a major problem.  My wife and daughters all have custom individual tones.  If my eldest sends me a message, I know who it is immediatly.  But if she sends a group message to me, my wife, and my other daughter all I get is my default tone.  Where before, I got the individual tones all the time and I knew who it was prior to looking at my phone.  

[Maxozone]

In the United States, The Federal Trade Commission is the one to file complaints; https://www.ftc.gov/faq/consumer-protection/submit-consumer-complaint-ftc

I encourage every disgrundled customer to do this.

[Pigitha]

@BigBrad: you're a hero with patience that makes Job look like a whiny little B**** for explaining, yet again, what the ISSUE here is; what the entire thread is about. Duh. Who are these people anyway, coming in 300 posts deep and chastising those who began the topic for complaining when their fix is so "simple?" I'd wager not a one of them bothered to read the initial post describing what by now has grown to thousands of disgusted Samsung users over removing a very important feature for absolutely no reason. Common sense would tell you that if this many people are so incensed by the removal of the text notification tones it's not as easy as that, and that it really is important to that many users. I noticed on this one thread alone a couple of dozen Samsung customers who are switching to something - anything- else whenever their able to trade. I'm certainly among that crowd; after having almost every model Galaxy since the S3 I'm switching to the iPhone XMax on July 6, the first day I'm eligible to trade it in. I'm paying over a thousand dollars for a device it had better be useful. Bye-bye, Samsung.

[Maxozone]

Thank you for the compliment Pigitha. I like being called a HERO!

[BigBrad]

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@Pigitha wrote:
@BigBrad: you're a hero with patience that makes Job look like a whiny little B**** for explaining, yet again, what the ISSUE here is; what the entire thread is about. Duh. Who are these people anyway, coming in 300 posts deep and chastising those who began the topic for complaining when their fix is so "simple?" I'd wager not a one of them bothered to read the initial post describing what by now has grown to thousands of disgusted Samsung users over removing a very important feature for absolutely no reason. Common sense would tell you that if this many people are so incensed by the removal of the text notification tones it's not as easy as that, and that it really is important to that many users. I noticed on this one thread alone a couple of dozen Samsung customers who are switching to something - anything- else whenever their able to trade. I'm certainly among that crowd; after having almost every model Galaxy since the S3 I'm switching to the iPhone XMax on July 6, the first day I'm eligible to trade it in. I'm paying over a thousand dollars for a device it had better be useful. Bye-bye, Samsung.

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Well, I have to admit...  You got a laugh out of me on that opening comment there.  LOL.. 

The last few times that I've had to explain it, I've given up and did a Cut and paste from above.  I'm about to type a nice long explaination and save it and just paste it the next time that I have to explain it.  (For the 500th time)  I hate to see anyone slipping by the wayside and going to Apple.  I've had way too many horror stories involving iPhones, IPods, and EXPECIALLY iTunes.... (Genuflecting, and sacrificing a lamb to prevent the stirring of the demon Apple)

Maybe I should type up that story and save it for when people want to switch to Apple just because Android moved the clock 3cm to the left.  

[cblackmon10]

When is his update coming?  Thread notifications and custom individual message tones are not the same thing.  Samsung, this should be an easy fix, what is the delay?

[BigBrad]

And nothing but the sounds of Crickets from Samsung...... 

[Niall0]

I take it that, now we're 16 months on from the original "we're looking into the possibility of considering an assessment of whether it's worth while investigating the need for such a feature" from Samsung, their lack of response should be interpreted as "you've already bought the phone, why should we bother putting any effort into making it work the way you like"?

[BigBrad]

Exactly.  However, this will not make me stop harping on it.  I am still waiting for an explaination of WHY.  

[Tangoman65]

You will be waiting till hell freezes over. The S10 phones were released and working on the next grouping (S11) is well on it's way. As said previously once you've got the phone and out of any money back return option, they rub their hands together and proudly announce "SUCKERS"!

[TheBlueCat]

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@AntS wrote:

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We're unable to give a timescale for this, but definitely look out for it in future software updates coming your way.

... ...

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Hi AntS.

It's nearly two years.  Have you got any update on this?

As someone with a software developer background myself, it seems like an awfully long time (& a number of updates later) not to include something that Samsung agrees everyone wants.

...and it's not like it could be a hard thing to implement given that it was already a feature at one point (and most of the code is already there for assigning individual ringtones to contacts' incoming calls).

[AntS]

Hi @TheBlueCat ,

Apologies for the delay. We asked our developers again about this one – but it’s taken some time to get an answer.

They’ve advised that from Android Oreo/8 onwards, Android changed the mechanism to make/modify/delete notifications –  notification sounds included -  in the OS. The specifics of that change meant that custom contact text notification sounds could no longer be supported.

Given that situation, the Messages app developers decided that being able to assign custom notification sounds to the corresponding message thread was the best way to keep as much of that feature as they could for users.

Appreciate that it’s not the news many (including myself) wanted to hear, but hopefully some light has now been shed on how the specific feature was lost and what was done to try to mitigate that.

I'd also like to apologise for any false hope on restoring the specific feature I may have given the Community. Sadly, it appears I was misadvised by an internal source as to exactly what the solution would be when we asked this question before. 🙁

[Tangoman65]

Thanks for the answer (eventually). Although not the answer anyone wanted at least we have a definitive answer. What still puzzles me is that the coding cannot be much if any different so, we can have individual ring tones but not notification tones. But it seems Samsung can't give a flying  🤬 for what its customers want. Just to rake in the money from its sales and sod the after sales. However what ever I say will not change the fact that Samsung are not going to do anything about it! 

Thanks again for passing on the info. 

[userfBGSsCd4Me]

It's nice to finally get a straight answer to this, but I do agree that it doesnt seem like it should be a difficult thing to setup.  Considering all the other android variants did the same thing I imagine samsung just sees that fixing this is just a waste of their profits.  It's very hard to see a feature that existed for over a decade, back to the very first smartphones and say losing such a useful feature isnt a step backward.  

[Maxozone]

Resistance is futile, all will be assimulated into the Borg (Apple-Google). Smile and deal with it

[S9user1]

Thanks so much Jarvo