Not hearing sound/vibration when receiving notifications
No sounds when application is open
If you're testing out Pushover for the first time, you may have the Pushover app open while you wait for the message to arrive. In this scenario, you will not hear a notification alert sound and/or feel vibration and you might think something is wrong. By default, the Pushover apps do not play sounds or vibration when the screen is on and the Pushover application is visible, because no notification is generated with the system; the message is received and displayed directly by the running Pushover application which you can see at the top of your message list.
However, this is not how you will typically interact with Pushover. Your device will either be in sleep mode or you will be interacting with another application when a notification arrives. To properly test Pushover, turn the device's screen off or switch to another application before sending your test messages. This will more accurately represent how you will use Pushover most often: to receive notifications while your device is not in use.
To modify this behavior and always generate a system notification, enable the "Play sounds in foreground" option in the app's settings menu:
No sounds even when application is not open
First, ensure that your notification volume is adjusted properly. On Android and iOS, there are separate volume controls for notifications, ringers, alarms, and media/music. When you are using the Pushover app and use your device's volume keys to turn the volume up, you may just be adjusting the volume for your phone ringer which does not affect the volume at which notifications play.
On iOS, open the device's main Settings app, then go to Sounds. There is a volume slider there to adjust the "Ringer and Alerts" volume. Make sure it is at a reasonable level. Also, verify that Pushover is allowed to generate sounds by going to the device's Settings app, then Notification Center, then Pushover, and ensure Sounds is enabled. Also note that on iPhones, the physical mute switch on the side of the phone will mute all notification sounds, so you must unmute it to hear sounds from Pushover.
On Android, open the device's main Settings app, then go to Sound, then Volumes. Adjust the "Ringtone & notifications" volume to a reasonable level.
Verify that your device is not in any Do Not Disturb mode which is silencing notifications.
No sounds with Apple Watch
Please see this article for information about notification sounds on phones with an Apple Watch paired.
Testing notifications
Once you have adjusted the notification volume properly and are not in the Pushover app (or have the screen off), you can test receiving notifications by using our dashboard from your computer to send a notification to your device with a specified sound.
If you are not hearing sound only during certain periods of time, ensure that your Quiet Hours are not in effect, and that any Do Not Disturb functionality is not enabled on your device. Also ensure that any physical mute switch on the device is not active.
Not hearing sounds on a Huawei/Xiaomi Android device
Certain Android devices such as those from Huawei and Xiaomi are known to have problems with notifications due to their non-standard Android implementations (EMUI and MIUI).
These modified versions of Android contain changes to system APIs that applications like Pushover rely on to generate notifications, which often cause notifications to behave differently than on every other Android device.
In addition to battery optimizations that must be disabled, it may be required to reactivate notification sounds by navigating through the system Settings application and activating notifications for all priorities/urgencies, and choosing particular sounds for them. Even with these changes, notification sounds may not work reliably, or may not be customizable. Please contact your device vendor for further support with notifications on these devices, as the problem is not with the Pushover app.
