Q: How do I turn off the silence ?   ( I do not want either always nor only while iPhone is locked).

Sorry, I'm confused.  If you want the phone to ring, just turn off do not disturb.

Okay, and the silent/mute switch on the side is not on?

You can try a simple system reset - press and hold the on/off/sleep button and the home button at the same time until the Apple bootup logo appears.  Once it has restarted see if that fixes things.

Settings/ Do Not Disturb only gives me two choices under the "Silence" heading:  "Always", or "Only while iPhone is locked". There is a check next to the latter and I am unable to remove it. So, my phone never rings while it is locked, and it automatically locks if I leave it for a minute or so. Is there a way to set up so that the phone rings when locked?

This always / only when phone is locked you are referring to.

  It is only when the phone is in do not disturb mode.

So if you do not want eithe of the options and you want the phone to ring then take the do not disturb off.  You will know it is do not disturb mode when the moon icon is showing up.

I had issue of my phone not ringing sometimes and it was due to being in do not disturb mode so I set this setting to manual only.    1st option .

I had a same "problem" and after looking at every setting possible realised that my silent / mute switch was on !!!

The only way to get around the "silence" when the phone is locked, is to NOT LOCK your phone.  In settings you need to unlock it, but that means anybody can see your texts/calls/ etc. if you leave your phone "unsupervised".  Otherwise, if you set up a locking time, you're stuck with the "always" or "when it's locked" option. 

I was missing many calls/messages because of this default that it was driving me crazy!!!

thank you Izet.  that was my problem too.  I didn;t even realize I had trned the switch off

Martina6363 wrote:

 

The only way to get around the "silence" when the phone is locked, is to NOT LOCK your phone.

So if the phone is not locked, how is that turning off silence when it is locked?

FYI: The iPhone is not silenced when locked unless you have Do Not Disturb enabled

I just cann't believe this.  I thought that Apple engineers could do better.

My phone will vibrate when it is in locked mode but will not ring.  Why

did the engineers refuse to allow it to ring?  Why do I have to waste battery

and keep it from locking.  It makes no sense and I cannot understand what

the technical difficulty is here.  I have had plenty of cheap phones which will

ring on incoming calls but a "smart iphone" will not.  My wife has a brand new

5s and she has to keep her's on all the time too.

Who cares11234 wrote:

 

I just cann't believe this.  I thought that Apple engineers could do better.

My phone will vibrate when it is in locked mode but will not ring.  Why

did the engineers refuse to allow it to ring?

They didn't refuse to allow it to ring. It works fine.

Why do I have to waste battery and keep it from locking.

You don't.

I have had plenty of cheap phones which will ring on incoming calls but a "smart iphone" will not. 

iPhone rings fine on incoming calls.

My wife has a brand new 5s and she has to keep her's on all the time too.

Of course you have to keep the phone on.

There is no phone that will ring when it is powered off.

FOR SOME UNUSER-Friendly reason.  The assistive touch status of muting can affect whether the phone can ring while it is screen locked, even DND is turned off. volume is on , etc...        Under accessibility options select   ASSISTIVE TOUCH  Then select the White circle  Then select the Device icon of an Iphone  Then select Unmute.  (this will then show a button of a bell with a line through it)- Note this is the action  the button will do when selected not the status of the process.    Then exit the assistive touch/accessibility options

Thank you! This solved the problem on both my phone and my wifes that appears to have been plaguing folks for quite some time. Maybe you need to underline or highlight the "this will then show a button of a bell with a line through it)- Note this is the action  the button will do when selected not the status of the process".

The button showing the Bell with a line through it should be left displaying - do not click on it and change the status.

Frustration would be overcome if Apple gave a third option to NOT silence or allow de-select in the DO NOT DISTURB setting as well as "Always" and "Only while the iPhone is locked".

Did you ever get a straight answer to your question.  There are a lot of questions like yours and I have the same problem.  Do Not Disturb is NOT TURNED ON and yet phone does not always ring (only vibrates). The ringer is ON, the volume is HIGH yet I miss a lot of calls because it doesn't ring.  I sure would like to know why.