iOS 14 text notification issues

I went into settings, notifications, messages, and changed the Banner style to persistent and added repeat alerts twice as an added reminder. Notifications for text seem okay now. Not sure if that will fix the issue.

This worked for me:

If you don't see or hear any alerts when your iPhone or iDevice locks (display sleep mode,) enable theShow on Lock Screen setting. Go to Settings > Notifications > Messages and verify that Show on Lock Screen is toggled on.

Hope this Helps!

Good afternoon all.

We all share the problems in this thread. However, please remember to submit feedback to Apple so that the issue is seen by Apple (link is below). It's unclear if they read through these forums. To make the feedback submission less painful, please feel free to copy and paste the description below and enter it into the description field when you submit it. I hope they don't see it as spam since it will be sent from different users. Otherwise, feel free to enter your own description but please submit feedback. It's a path to get our issue escalated to their engineers. Thanks!

https://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html

Description:

Since installing IOS 14, text notifications at best randomly work. When they do not work, there is no numbered text icon, no vibration, no lockscreen banner or an audible tone. The only way to know if there is a new text is to open the chat window and look to see if a new text was received. If there is a new text, its behavior is that of a text that has already been read. The only known workaround is to kill the text window after every single text. No other workarounds have been consistently successful. Please fix this issue.

Having had numerous phone calls with Apple over this now I have stumbled across a bit of a fix for me. With my watch turned off I receive message notifications, as well as WhatsApp. Not all notifications are coming through for other apps but it’s the messaging ones I’m desperate for. Very strange bug. During my Apple care support calls the lady writes everything down, asks me to upload pictures of settings etc but each call now gives me the impression she’s just delaying for an update. The last call I just had asked for the same info and pictures of settings the she asked for in the first call 3 weeks ago!

Maybe 14.3 will cure this, but for now I can’t wear my watch.

Year by year all these problems with Apple stuff just chips away at my confidence in Apple. I’ve gone from a huge fan with every device to a ‘can’t wait to ditch Apple’ kind of guy. They’re just not the company they once were and year on year it gets worse with every new incarnation.

Has everyone updated to iOS 14.3?! Has a section in release notes (that WEREN’T there in the 14.3 RC beta release notes) indicating this may be addressed! I updated hours ago and so far so good. Been a quiet message afternoon so time will be the ultimate test.

heads1 wrote:

For me, the update 14.3 fixed most of this problem. however, the update 14.2 turned notifications to silent on all my contacts. I still have to turn notifications back on for each contact. then i get the notification.

I'm confused by this - I don't see a Notifications setting at all on any of my Contacts.

I have found the only way to get notifications is every time you go out of the message screen you need to clear the app, for some reason if you text someone and just hit the lock button without going out of the messages and clearing it off the background the phone acts as if you still have it open and on that message so therefore you it thinks you have read that message and that’s why you never get any kind of notification. So frustrating! And needs to be fixed!

Updated to 14.3 and after testing for a couple of days, it seems to be working again. Phone is getting notifications, vibrating, and screen is waking up to display notification of texts and iMessages.

I just happened to check my settings in software update. There is a 14.3 update that shows its supposed to fix the text issues. I’m going to do the update and see if that works. See screenshot. Fingers crossed.

Currently, there is no fix for it and Apple hasn't mentioned it in their release notes for beta iOS 14.4.

Various work-arounds in this thread with random & limited success. The only one that has actually worked for me is to kill the text window (swipe it away) after EVERY text that is sent OR received. It's an awful work-around but that's the only that has worked for me.

I have had this issue since 14.2, now on 14.3 and it still persists.

I have noticed a few things.

1. Turning Bluetooth off works, but then that is not a viable solution, especially if you have an Apple Watch or other devices.
2. There seems to be a correlation with text message forwarding to a Mac. I'll sign out of iMessage on my Mac, and it works. I'll sign back in, turn forwarding on, and it works for a while, but then reverts to not waking my Lock Screen. I've found that fully signing out of iMessage on my Mac fixes the problem, but again, that is also not a viable solution.
3. I am not going to reset and set up my phone from new for a third time. I shouldn't have to do that. Apple should fix this.
4. It's basic functionality. They need to get it together.

I've submitted a bug report to Apple, and I suggest everyone should do the same.

I turned Bluetooth off and everything is normal now (I wasn't getting audible alerts for Messages). Everything is working for me now, including my Apple watch, which I assumed it would stop working when I turned off Bluetooth. I turn it back on for my Bluetooth sleep machine at night then back off in the morning and all is fine.

I suspect there are multiple bugs due to the differences in the how the problems are exhibiting themselves.

The problem with not using Messages is that you no longer get SMS messages. Has anyone tried turning off iMessage to see if that changes anything?

Tom

And I tried turning off iMessage, handoff, face tracking, notifications on apple watch, do not disturb schedule and screen dimming settings. Nothing works but turning off bluetooth.

And this is not just messages problem but all push notifications problem.

I was having the same issue. However, I went into my message settings and turned off message forwarding and it seemed to resolve the issue because now I am receiving my message banners and notifications.

My husband had the issue where his IPhone 11 wouldn’t make a sound when he would receive a text message.

This is how I fixed it:

• go into text messages
• click and HOLD one of the messages
• there will be a few options that pop up
• click where it says “show alerts”

This fixed his issue for him. I don’t know if he accidentally clicked “hide alerts” at one point which put a “do not disturb” on that specific contact or if it came with the update but it works now and hopefully this will help others too :)