Alert sound not playing when someone joins the waiting room

Question

Hello,One of my users has been having an issue with RingCentral’s personal meeting room where, when a person joins the meeting and enters the waiting room, no chime / notification sound plays. For other users in our organization, that notification does play, despite their settings all being the same. In an attempt to troubleshoot this, I’ve tried to reinstall the RingCentral app, confirmed their settings would allow it (“Toggle Entry and Exit Tones”), and made sure that their Windows settings allowed notifications, all of which have not resolved the issue.

Mary-Community_Moderator · Answer

Since you have already reinstalled the app and verified both the Entry & Exit Tones toggle and Windows notification settings, this issue is usually caused by secondary audio device routing, Windows Focus Assist modes, or background noise suppression filtering out system notification tones.

Here are the step-by-step solutions to resolve this issue:

1. Check Separate Notification / Communication Audio Output

RingCentral sometimes routes system alert sounds (like waiting room chimes) through the Default Communication Device rather than the primary playback device:

In the RingCentral Desktop App, go to Settings > Video > Edit (next to Video meeting settings) > Audio.
Verify that the Speakers output dropdown is set specifically to the user's primary headset/speakers rather than Default System Device.
On Windows, right-click the Speaker icon in the system tray > select Sounds > go to the Playback tab. Ensure their primary headset is set as both Default Device and Default Communication Device.

2. Disable Noise Suppression Over-Filtering

If the user is using a smart headset (like Jabra, Poly, or Logistics) or third-party audio software (like Krisp, Realtek Audio Console, or Waves MaxxAudio), the software may classify the brief chime tone as background noise and suppress it:

Go to Settings > Video > Audio in RingCentral and temporarily set Remove background noise to Off.
Disable any active noise-canceling/background noise filtering utilities in Windows or proprietary headset desktop software.

3. Turn Off Windows Focus Assist / Do Not Disturb

Windows Do Not Disturb / Focus Assist can silence app notification sounds even if banner notifications are enabled:

Open Windows Settings > System > Focus (or Focus Assist / Do Not Disturb).
Turn off Do Not Disturb and ensure no automated focus rules are running during meeting hours.

4. Toggle the In-Meeting Settings State

Sometimes the cloud profile preference for entry tones fails to sync locally to the app client:

While in a active test meeting, click the More (...) or Settings icon.
Toggle Entry & Exit Tones OFF, wait 5 seconds, and toggle it back ON.

If this resolution helped solve your issue, please mark this comment as the best answer! 😊

1. Check Separate Notification / Communication Audio Output

2. Disable Noise Suppression Over-Filtering

3. Turn Off Windows Focus Assist / Do Not Disturb

4. Toggle the In-Meeting Settings State

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