iOS 14 text notification issues

I had this start to happen to me very recently. No texts would have sounds or notifications. I just checked my notification settings for iMessage and somehow they got switched to “deliver quietly” where no sounds were set to play and the alerts for new messages were to only show up in the Notification Center (Not on the Lock Screen or as banners). I also noticed one of my conversations had been muted (once again, not by me) so I had to unmute that too.

I turned off Bluetooth and notifications worked for me sporadically. I have since unpaired my Apple watch and totally removed it from my account. I have now not missed any notifications for two weeks and Carplay GPS is no longer causing my entire infotainment system to crash in my Honda.

Ridiculous I have had to go to this length for a positive result but wanted to share my experience to maybe help others.

I turned off Bluetooth and then sent myself a test text message from https://www.bulksms.com/test/ and I received a notification. I turned Bluetooth back on and sent another test text message and did not receive a notification, so I turned Bluetooth back off and now everything works as it should. My Apple Watch works (receives notifications) despite not being paired to my phone through Bluetooth. I assume that is because I am currently on a wifi network.

It’s an issue specific to IOS 14. I’ve never had an Apple Watch, iPad , MAC or anything other Apple device other than an iPhone and the issue still randomly occurs. It first appeared when I installed iOS 14 on my IPhone-X. I upgraded to the IPhone 12 Pro Max and the issue persists.

Now for clarity sakes, I’m referencing ONLY sms/iMessage. This post has nothing to do with any other messaging or notification app/service (WhatsApp, etc). You can rebuild from a fresh iOS 14 load but most users here who have tried that have experienced temporary relief as the bugs eventually return.

The only work-around that has proven useful is the kill the messaging app after every text, sent OR received. It’s an awful and inconvenient work-around but it works.

[Edited by Moderator]

Text notifications are working for me now. It wasn’t the update that fixed it though as they were still not working after I installed 14.4. I have an XS Max

A few weeks ago I was messing with the date and time and received a text message when the date was set to Feb 2, 2021. I didn’t make the connection then, but that is when I started not getting text notifications at all after I reverted back to the correct date.

That message had stayed at the top of my message list despite getting many messages after it but I had not made the connection that the date was wrong on that particular message.

I finally deleted the “future” messages, restarted my phone and now have text notifications.

I have discovered a workaround. I have also been using iMessage on a second device, an iPad Air 2. I have found that when the second device is disconnected from the internet, or signed out of iMessage, my iPhone notifications behave normally.

Not ideal but I am relieved to have found anything that somewhat reduces this terrible inconvenience.

I hope this helps others!

If you have a tiny half moon (do not disturb sign) to the left of the message , then you have enabled do not disturb for messages from that contact. This is easily done if you swipe left to show the delete message option as the do not disturb option is next to the delete option. To turn off do not disturb, swipe left and select the do not disturb option to toggle it off again.

Got to notifications then select banners allow always. Then scroll down in the notifications menu to messages. Then select allow notifications. It worked as I just did it myself and had a friend message and boom 🤯 it works! This has been painstakingly annoying over the last few months to work out. But got there. Hopefully this helps

Click on messages and make sure all 3 are ticked on. Allow banners when locked and it will definitely work I’ve had this problem for months and worked it out going through settings the other day and checking this thread hence I posted it straight away as I know this is frustrating. Notifications, banners - allow when locked. Messages, allow always or tick all boxes so you can get notifications. See how notifications is untucked on yours. I have 11pro running iOS 14.4

Apparently the notifications for Messages can be turned "on" and "off" for individual senders. What have worked for me (iOS 14.4) is the following:

• Open "Messages".
• Select the main page (with the title "Messages" on top) on which you see the last messages from your various contacts. I.e. you need to go one step back from any open conversation.
• Click and hold a message from the contact (from which you are not getting alerts) until you see a drop-down menu. [NB: Don't click on the photo / name in the circle but on the message].
• Click on "Show Alerts"

Hope this helps.

So this is what I did to fix this issue, whether or not it will work for everyone I have no idea. My issue started slightly after I began using my AirPod pros and Siri began announcing my messages. I struggled with this problem for the past 4 months and just realized that maybe Siri was still “announcing” the messages in the background and thus cancelling out notifications. So I turned off the Siri announcements and low and behold my message notifications were suddenly turned to deliver silently (previously had been set to banner, badges and sounds). So I turned the banners badges and sounds back on and my messages are working again! I will update on if this is a lasting solution

Hi hadanjm

Have you tested this? "If you turn off Wrist Detection (on your iPhone, in the Watch app, go to: My Watch > General > Wrist Detection), then all notification alerts will be delivered to both devices."

I have also logged out of iMessage and FaceTime with my Apple-ID so that only I use my phone number.

Work for me and I have the combination iPhone / Watch.

I had a long call with Senior Support. He was very nice. He had me take a bunch of screenshots of all my settings. He said he would escalate to the engineering team and told me to reply to the email if I had any questions or problems before he got back to me. He said he would email me to schedule a callback when he had more info. 4 days later I get an email that says "We tried to call you, but we couldn't reach you. If you still need help, you can call us back or choose another support option." A: I didn't miss any calls from Apple because I looked at the missed calls and ... nothing there. And B: I never got an email to schedule a new callback. So I reply to the email from the senior support tech: "I received an email saying that Apple tried contacting me and that because they couldn’t reach me, my case was closed. I did not miss any calls today, so I’m hoping that was just an email sent in error as I did not know about any new calls that were scheduled. Did I miss an email from you? Please let me know next steps."

Radio silent for 3 days now. Maybe dude works 10X4s or something. I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt. The ONLY reason I called into Apple was to make sure as many people as possible talk to as many tech support agents as possible. I knew they were not going to offer me a fix, but I didn't expect them to just close the case on me. I have a fix. It's signing out of Apple ID in iMessage. It has worked since January and I'm fine with the workaround. If they email me back, great. If not, I'm not fussed. But this fix does not work for everyone. So, even if I'm okay with my workaround, others are not OR haven't even found a different workaround that works for them. I just wanted to provide a much info as possible.

This forum is not read by Apple. I know people have said it a hundred times, but it is true. I worked for Apple for a long time, and I don't even know if they do much with the feedback they get from the feedback link. But I know for a fact there is a field in their call logging system for "KNOWN ISSUE." If enough calls get taken on a particular issue, they change the status of that issue to "Known Issue" and it does eventually make it to the right people. Eventually. It's heartbreaking to me that this issue has persisted this long without being classified as such. I love Apple, and I loved working for them, but the fact that they basically ghosted on me is concerning. I will give this dude until Monday. After that, I'm done. I have spent so many hours on this and I just don't have time anymore.

Perhaps this will help someone with this notifications issue. My wife was having the same problem after updating to 14.4.2, messages were arriving on her iPad but she was getting the notification. I read somewhere whilst researching it, to check that hide alerts hasn’t been turned on by the update. At the top of a message thread, touch the name of the person the thread is from, then the 'i', and makes sure hide alerts is off. Might not help with everyone's problem but I kept overlooking it.

Thanks, so much, Nigel! I have found that I can usually fix the issue after an update by turning off Bluetooth and turning it back on but continued to miss alerts for one person, who is my most frequent messager. Thanks to you, I found Hide Alerts turned on for that one person. Certainly I had not done that; I wasn't even aware of the feature.