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Android Central ran a piece a few days ago explaining how it's time for smartphone fans to get excited about Huawei, because -- and I made the same point in my MateBook hands-on -- that the Chinese tech giant has begun its aggressive expansion in hopes of overtaking both Apple and Samsung as the world's top dog smartphone brand (that's not an assumption on my or Android Central's part: the company's head of consumer electronics, Richard Yu, said so to the Wall Street Journal last month). Now, that's easier said than done, but Huawei is a huge company with lots of financial backing, its products are seeing sales growth, and it's already mastered the art of crafting top of the line hardware. The only thing holding back Huawei's phones, at least to tech reviewers, is its very iOS-like EMUI mobile operation system. But even that's about to be changed, as Huawei has hired a former Apple designer to overhaul EMUI to make it more streamlined, more "usable", more ... Google.
Now I personally don't have a big problem with EMUI. I like some of the changes it's incorporated, though I think those square-ish iPhone-like icons don't look that great. But I can't deny that there's one major flaw to EMUI, one that have angered at least one other reviewer so much, he's declared Huawei phones unusable because of it.
Common issues that can cause problems downloading or sending photos, videos, or Voice Messages include: Your phone might be having. Huawei Y5 Prime USB Driver is a small program used for Windows to connecting mobile with PC via USB data cable. Using USB Driver you can manage your PC and you can transfer photos, call history, messages, videos, and recording, etc from Huawei Y5 to PC and PC to Huawei Y5.
That problem is this (well, if you've read the title of this piece you already know): Huawei phones often fail to send you notifications. It could be something major, like a Facebook messenger message from the girlfriend wondering where you are (respond too late, and be prepared for an interrogation). Or something minor, like that Instagram like of your lunch. Chances are, if you're using a Huawei phone just out of the box without any tweaks, you won't get alerts on updates to some of your apps.
This is partly due to EMUI's very aggressive battery saving methods, which forbid apps from running in the background when the phone's screen is off. It's also partly due to the phone somehow thinking notifications aren't worthy to take up real estate on your pull-down shade unless you've marked the app "priority."
Now I personally don't have a big problem with EMUI. I like some of the changes it's incorporated, though I think those square-ish iPhone-like icons don't look that great. But I can't deny that there's one major flaw to EMUI, one that have angered at least one other reviewer so much, he's declared Huawei phones unusable because of it.
That problem is this (well, if you've read the title of this piece you already know): Huawei phones often fail to send you notifications. It could be something major, like a Facebook messenger message from the girlfriend wondering where you are (respond too late, and be prepared for an interrogation). Or something minor, like that Instagram like of your lunch. Chances are, if you're using a Huawei phone just out of the box without any tweaks, you won't get alerts on updates to some of your apps.
This is partly due to EMUI's very aggressive battery saving methods, which forbid apps from running in the background when the phone's screen is off. It's also partly due to the phone somehow thinking notifications aren't worthy to take up real estate on your pull-down shade unless you've marked the app 'priority.'
EMUI (short for Emotion User Interface) has a lot of critics. While I don't think it's all that bad, its notifications are half broken. Photo Credit: Huawei
Just going into the phone's notification center and marking, say, Google Spaces a priority isn't enough. You might still miss that link your friend just posted. Neither will 'whitelisting' Facebook messenger in the battery manager part be enough to ensure you get every Facebook message. Going into Doze settings and telling them to quit putting your Whatsapp to sleep won't do the trick either. With Huawei phones, you have to do all three.
Step 1: Go to settings --> advanced settings --> battery manager --> protected apps, then find the app you want to see notifications from, and protect it. This is 'whitelisting' the app so Huawei's overeager software doesn't shut it down for no reason.
Step 2: Go to settings --> apps --> advanced --> ignore battery optimizations, then find the app and ignore it. Don't be tricked by the misleading wording, 'ignoring' the app actually means to let it run, because you're telling the battery optimization function, aka Doze, to 'ignore' that app.
Step 3: Go to settings --> notification panel & status bar --> notification center, then find the app, then activate 'allow notifications' and also 'priority display'. You have to activate the priority part too to make sure you get notifications. I've tried just activating allow notifications but not priority and I still didn't get notifications from that app.
You have to complete all three steps to ensure you get full notifications from that app. It's not a big deal to hardcore Android users who know how to around a phone, but the average smartphone user aren't going to know how to do that, and they'll just wonder why they never get notified of Facebook messages.
Hopefully, Huawei's new and improved software that's coming this fall will address this issue and make the phone's notifications functional right out of the box.
Summary
Common issues that can cause problems downloading or sending photos, videos, or Voice Messages include:
- Your phone might be having connectivity problems.
- Your phone's date and time are set incorrectly.
- There is an issue with your SD card:
- There is not enough space on the SD card.
- The SD card is set to read-only mode.
- The SD card is corrupted.
Details
Double check (and even triple check) that your phone has an active internet connection with a strong signal. Try loading a webpage to make sure. If you are certain that your phone is connected (try connecting to different Wi-Fi hotspots and/or 4G), keep reading.
Check that the date and time are set correctly on your phone. If your date is incorrect, you will not be able to connect to the WhatsApp servers to download your media. See how to correctly set your date here.
Sometimes WhatsApp may have difficulty saving files to your SD card. If so, follow these troubleshooting steps:
- Make sure there is enough space on your SD card. If your SD card is full, WhatsApp will not be able to save anything to it. Make more space available by deleting any unnecessary files.
- Ensure your SD card is not set to read only mode. Try saving a file to your SD card that is not from WhatsApp. If the file saves, your card is not read-only, WhatsApp Messenger should be able to save files to it. If you cannot save anything, your card is likely set to read only mode. You will need to change this; please check your phone's manual for instructions.
- If there is enough free space and you can save files to your SD card, but you still cannot download any files to it from WhatsApp, you may need to delete WhatsApp data from your SD card:
IMPORTANT: This will erase ALL WhatsApp chat history backups and downloaded files.- This would be a good time to back up your WhatsApp data. To back up your WhatsApp data, copy the 'WhatsApp' folder on your SD card to your computer.
- Open the SD card folder on your phone and delete the 'WhatsApp' folder. All of your WhatsApp media is now erased. WhatsApp will still open - and your chats will still be there - but your media (photos, videos, audio) will be gone.
- Restart your phone.
- WhatsApp should be able to save your downloaded files now.
- Still reading? Remember step 2, when you checked to see if your SD card was read only? If you could not save any files to it, your SD card may be corrupted. In this case, you may need to reformat your SD card. This means erasing the entire SD card and resetting it:
IMPORTANT: This will erase ALL data on your SD card.- Once you format the SD card you will not be able to get back your data.
- If possible, backup anything on the SD card. One way to do this is to plug the SD card into a computer with an SD card reader, and copy the files over.
- On your Android phone, go to Settings > Storage.
- If it exists, tap Unmount storage card.
- Tap Format SD card or Erase SD card.
- Reboot your phone.
If all of these steps did not work, it may be that there is an issue with your SD card. You may need to purchase a new SD card in order to save/send files.