Notification sound from URI parse does not work

Question

There are at least 7 questions on Stackoverflow related to this, I have tried every single suggestion and solution multiple times and none of them have worked. Here is my la

Answer 1

I was having a similar problem while testing on API 23. While I do not know the cause of the problem, I did manage to find a workaround that got the job done.

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In one of Google's examples, a notification is constructed thusly:

// Get a notification builder that's compatible with platform versions >= 4
NotificationCompat.Builder builder = new NotificationCompat.Builder(this);

// Define the notification settings.
builder.setSmallIcon(R.drawable.ic_launcher)
        // In a real app, you may want to use a library like Volley
        // to decode the Bitmap.
        .setLargeIcon(BitmapFactory.decodeResource(getResources(),
                R.drawable.ic_launcher))
        .setColor(Color.RED)
        .setContentTitle(notificationDetails)
        .setContentText(getString(R.string.geofence_transition_notification_text))
        .setContentIntent(notificationPendingIntent);

// Dismiss notification once the user touches it.
builder.setAutoCancel(true);

// Get an instance of the Notification manager
NotificationManager mNotificationManager =
        (NotificationManager) getSystemService(Context.NOTIFICATION_SERVICE);

// Issue the notification
mNotificationManager.notify(0, builder.build());

Notice the class NotificationCompat.Builder. For some reason which is beyond me, this did not play any sound other than the default one. In other words, only this worked:

// Define sound URI
Uri soundUri = RingtoneManager.getDefaultUri(RingtoneManager.TYPE_NOTIFICATION); // Default
...
builder.setSound(soundUri); //Set the sound to play

But this didn't:

Uri soundUri = Uri.parse(ContentResolver.SCHEME_ANDROID_RESOURCE + "://" + 
                           getPackageName() + "/" + R.raw.name_of_sound);

After simply replacing the builder class with Notification.Builder (available for API >= 11) the "this didn't" section above started working as expected.

Conclusion: use this if you're willing to sacrifice (or are not interested in) compatibility with API < 11.