Have you got a boiler room? I know where we are houses have central heating and radiators, not so much in parts of america i know..
if you do, a good way is to place the seeds in 4 sheets of disposable towel, 2 under 2 over, moisten, and leave in a small tupaware sealed pot in the boiler room overnight, nice and warm in there, it should form condensation on the lid and they should sprout overnight.
i dont know if ph is as important in germination, but we make sure any water that goes near our plants is between 5.5 and 6 at every stage.
Sounds like a bad loada seeds to me. If you got the seeds out of some green you had, thats most likely the reason, you want to be using brown seeds not green ones, the green ones you are likely to find in purchaced bud will be dry, crispy, maybe even hollow and have a slim to no chance of germination IME..
hope this helps