Comments on: No Text or Message Notification Alerts or Sounds on iPhone? Fixes

By: Tim Boycott-Brown

Tim Boycott-Brown — Sun, 29 May 2022 19:09:50 +0000

Thanks for your lucid and detailed explanation. I had lost sound on incoming test messages and consequently was late for tea and when I did arrive the tea was cold and I was in the doghouse.
I took your advice and eventually found reset was what was needed.
No more cold tea, (or coffee) very many thanks.
Tim BB

By: Stephen

Stephen — Wed, 04 May 2022 15:14:17 +0000

I am not getting any public safety alerts on my iPhone. And there are no visible options under Notifications to get Government Alerts.

By: Mike

Mike — Tue, 15 Feb 2022 15:15:38 +0000

Have struggled with this for a while. Narrowed it down to having bluetooth on. I understand if you have a bluetooth device connected, you may want your notifications to go to that device. e.g. Apple watch, headphones etc. Problem is that when I notice I miss a text because I didn’t hear any sound, I immediately check my BT to see if it is on and if anything is connected. Each time I miss a text sound, my BT is on, but there is nothing connected. I believe it has something to do with a device that was previously connected and I’ve moved out of range. It doesn’t cut the connection completely.

If I turn Bluetooth off, texts come in as they should. I wish there was a setting where you could select “Phone and BT Device” for alerts.

By: Andrew E.

Andrew E. — Fri, 12 Nov 2021 00:33:55 +0000

When my iPhone 8 is connected to Bluetooth when in my vehicle – it renders navigation voice & message alert ringer both silent – there’s nothing wrong with thee iPhone 8 – as soon as you disable Bluetooth both the navigation voice & message alert ringer work.Problem is when you disable Bluetooth you lose your hands free calling ability & that’s frowned upon,so I do not do that & if I disable Bluetooth it unpairs my iPhone from the system – So the question is – why does Bluetooth eliminate navigation voice & message alerts ? And it’s not only iPhones -same with Samsung’s. Andrew E.

By: Jan

Jan — Tue, 12 Oct 2021 20:40:17 +0000

If you have an Apple watch, turn off Wrist Detection in the Passcode menu of the Apple watch settings menu. This will fix the problem.

By: Christy

Christy — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 20:10:25 +0000

I had this same problem for a very long time and tried everything to fix. What I finally realized was it was due to my Apple Watch settings. I had my watch set to do not disturb and also chosen “mirror my phone”. I turned these off on the watch and problem solved.

By: Cyril Bihary

Cyril Bihary — Fri, 09 Jul 2021 14:32:06 +0000

Thanks for all the information! I completely forgot about the Bluetooth headset! Issue solved!

I am thankful for the time and hard work you put in to assemble this information and share with us.

By: GAIL

GAIL — Mon, 26 Apr 2021 14:54:57 +0000

no help to me. Since I upgraded to latest version of Ios 14.4.2 , I have the problem with no notifications for text messages when iphone is locked. This is on iphone 11. nothing seems to work. I believe it has something to do with the Do Not Disturb option. It is turned off but under Silence, the While Iphone is locked is checked. no way to uncheck this.

By: Roxann

Roxann — Sat, 24 Apr 2021 21:22:24 +0000

I finally figured out what worked for me on my iphone 12 Pro to fix the issue of not getting notifications. At some point I turned off notifications for texts, which I think it was a of a middle of the night notification issue keeping me up or waking me up at night & I just meant to make it temporary, but that wasn’t what happened. I turned notifications back on, but I noticed I was no longer getting notified long after I turned it back on & I noticed a crescent moon was beside each person’s text from everyone who sent a message & even holding my finger on the message and turning off the Do Not Disturb still wasn’t letting my messages alert me. FINALLY, today I figured out that because I didn’t delete each person’s messages (Yes I’m a message hoarder!!) and it was keeping the Do Not Disturb from turning off. So if your a message hoarder…say Goodbye to all those old messages & you will get your ding back!

By: Paula

Paula — Sat, 20 Mar 2021 14:11:34 +0000

We fixed this on an iPhone 11 and an iPhone 12. Go to Settings then Notifications. Open Messages and switch on to Allow Notifications. We don’t know how/why both of our phones finally went silent but after is change they are finally fixed!!

By: Jodi

Jodi — Sat, 09 Jan 2021 22:32:54 +0000

Oh my gosh, game changer. I have tried so many things to get my text notifications to work. Now they do!! thanks so much.
Fresh query: when I got my apple watch (6) I didn’t say yes to the blood oxygen app. Now I can’t seem to find it anywhere… any suggestions greatly appreciated.

By: Ken west

Ken west — Sat, 09 Jan 2021 15:20:56 +0000

I had the phone ring but no alert sounds, no keyboard sounds, music would not play through the speaker.
I tried everything including reboots, hard reboot, resets, etc. Then I noticed that I could hear the alert sounds & music through the headphones, aha! must be a headphone issue! Using a wooden toothpick and a flashlight I was able to pick out a couple of good chunks of lint from the headphone jack. Voila! it works! Now I have to go back into my phone and set it all up again, oh well….

By: Jeff

Jeff — Mon, 19 Oct 2020 03:54:40 +0000

I have an iPhone XR and at least 3 times (most likely more) my phone has reset any kind of notification for text messages. I do get notified when an automated text comes in (that I haven’t already blocked), but not with messages from my contacts. Has anyone ever experienced this?

By: Jeff

Jeff — Mon, 19 Oct 2020 03:52:58 +0000

In reply to Andy. I have an iPhone XR and at least 3 times (most likely more) my phone has reset any kind of notification for text messages. I do get notified when an automated text comes in (that I haven’t already blocked), but not with messages from my contacts. Has anyone ever experienced this?

By: dma

dma — Mon, 31 Aug 2020 15:02:17 +0000

Thank you! I tried everything. Finally resetting to “default” for the sounds worked. I hadn’t been using any exotic sounds, just the ones that came with the phone, but “default” works now.

By: Kerry

Kerry — Tue, 25 Aug 2020 22:29:05 +0000

Great suggestions but none of them seem to address my problem. When my phone is near my MacBook Pro there is no audible notification on my phone when I receive a text message or iMessage. iMessage notifies on the MacBook but I get NO notification on either if it is a non iPhone text message. I don’t know there was a text message until I happen to pick up my phone.

By: Andy

Andy — Mon, 24 Aug 2020 16:11:09 +0000

Wow! best help page ever! Thanks

By: Robert

Robert — Sun, 02 Aug 2020 17:00:25 +0000

If you have ever temporarily changed the date on your phone to some future date for testing that might have trigged the problem. If you receive a notification from a friend during the time you set the date forward then set the date back to normal, you will not get notifications for that friend until that test date is reached. i.e. If you set the date 3 months forward, receive a message, then set the date back, it will be 3 months before you get notifications again. I imagine that the Apple developers have some check in their code that makes sure to notify you only if a message comes is is NOT dated earlier than a pervious message you have been notified for. The only way to fix this is to either wait until that date or delete all message history from that person. You might be able to fix it also if you know the exact message that came in while you had your phone date set to the future and delete it. (I wasn’t able to try that)

As a software developer working on iPhone apps I often need to change my phone date for testing. When I stopped receiving messages from my girlfriend I tried everything to fix it except deleting our history. When I downloaded my iPhone message database to my laptop I saw the message that was out of date and recorded it on my calendar. When we got to that date my notifications started working again. Unfortunately the message in question was a “reaction” to one of my messages and I couldn’t figure out how to delete that like a normal message.

By: Constance

Constance — Thu, 25 Jun 2020 19:16:37 +0000

In reply to Sue.

after trying dozens of suggestions from friends and everything on this page — this worked. WTF? Why didn’t apple tell me this?
Many thanks

By: Steven Joyner

Steven Joyner — Sat, 02 May 2020 14:47:23 +0000

As I last resort I powered the phone off and then back on again and wouldn’t you know it, it’s fixed. Sometimes the good old ‘reboot’ is all you need !!