iOS 14 text notification issues

I have solved the problem of not receiving message notifications/alerts while my iPhone is locked and asleep, for myself at least. 

Apologies in advance for the length of this post. 

This issue has been affecting me for well over 6 months now and I just could not work it out. 

I had tried all the suggestions in this thread, trawled through the interweb for hours trying various fixes, resetting all settings, complete wipes and restores from MacBook backups, fresh installs of iOS while in Recovery Mode etc, all to no avail. 

I even spent a few hours talking with Apple Support staff on a few occasions. 

It was during one of those calls that the problem suddenly seemed to right itself without explanation, as we hadn’t done anything drastic. 

Coincidentally, my wife had just gone out to pick our son up from his Auntie’s, from whom I then received a text message with audible alert and banner appearing on a locked iPhone screen. Amazing! It’s working again, I thought. 

Alas, the problem came back later that evening and continued during the following days. 

This got me to thinking and realising that this only happens when my wife is in close proximity. 

Last year she bought an  Watch. Last year I started leaving my Bluetooth on, due to running the UK COVID-19 exposure app which relies on Bluetooth handshakes between devices that come within range. 

We were sharing the same Apple ID as this suited our needs with Photo Stream, Notes and Calendar automatically going to each other’s devices without the need to manually share. 

I realise that this is not the way that Apple want us to have our devices configured. 

I did several tests with Bluetooth on and off. Bluetooth off on my iPhone resulted in message alerts functioning as should. 

I then did message tests with my phone signed out of Apple ID and wife’s phone signed in and then vice versa. Results were that message alerts and notifications functioned correctly while my phone was locked and asleep. 

The watch has never been linked to my phone and my belief was that it was linked to a specific device, but now I am wondering if it is per Apple ID. 

Could it be possible that alerts were trying to be sent to my wife’s  Watch somehow but just couldn’t make it?

We all know by now how the notifications appear only on Watch and not on iPhone if you are wearing it. Maybe it has to have a passcode and be unlocked. I am no watch expert as I do not own one. 

So, to conclude, my wife’s iPhone and mine have since got divorced. She has her own Apple ID and running her watch alongside and I am now receiving message alerts/notifications normally and as expected while my phone is locked. 

I did have to go into Settings on the watch and then the Apple ID seemed to sync to her new one. 

My iPhone: 11 Pro Max running iOS 14.6

Wife’s iPhone: XS Max running iOS 14.6

Wife’s watch: Series 5 running watchOS 7.5

I hope this post gives you all some ideas or maybe solves the issue for some of you. Good luck. 

I Was experiencing the no notification sound or notification or badge of a message for only one contact of mine and the issue went away for months. The. I was plagued with a new issue of random sound notifcations without any messages. I am now back to the first issue of not having any idea this contact has messaged me until they message me on messenger instead to ask why I’m not replying.

Thanks. What shouldn’t go unnoticed, is the amount of time Apple’s customers are spending spinning their wheels on this issue Apple created with an update, and their continued silence. An acknowledgment that this is an issue they are continuing to work on would be helpful. Or even a response on whether these hacks are viable workarounds would be better. But their continued silence is deafening and gives us the impression that they really aren't concerned about their customers.

 On your phone, go to your main view on WeChat where you see all of your conversations. Towards the top you'll see a section that says "Logged in to WeChat for Mac". Tap on that and then you can turn the mute mobile alerts off.

This iMessages Notifications issue is "AS DESIGNED" by Apple on iOS 14 if you also have an Apple Watch... For details, search for Official Apple Support Article HT204791 (for example: support[dot]apple[dot]com/en-us/HT204791).

That Official Apple article clearly states, "Notifications go to either your Apple Watch or iPhone, but not both." and that, "If your iPhone is unlocked, you'll get notifications on your iPhone instead of your Apple Watch." - and furthermore, "If your iPhone is locked or asleep, you'll get notifications on your Apple Watch, unless your Apple Watch is locked with your passcode."

- I have reproduced this behavior with iPhone 12 Pro running iOS 14.6 and Apple Watch 6 running watchOS 7.5..

IMHO, this means it is a HORRIBLE design change decision in iOS 14 by Apple, but it is NOT any kind of "bug" and more like an Intentional Design Flaw...

I urge you to file a complaint or at least submit feedback with Apple to allow DUAL-NOTIFICATIONS on both the Watch AND the iPhone for iMessages simultaneously, and hopefully with enough complaints they will add this obviously highly desired behavior.

I don’t have a watch, but I do have an iPad. I was lucky enough to have someone from Apple actually call me back after filling out the feedback form. Over the last three weeks he’s had me download lots of analytics and hopefully something can be figured out. He did have me turn iMessage off on my iPad, no big deal I don’t use them there. My suggestion would be for them to allow you to select notification priority between devices, in other words if you want notifications on all devices you can set it as such. If you want only notifications on one device, you can decide which one.

If you turn off wrist detection you turn off most of the features of the watch including EKG fall detection emergency call in other words you might as well just turn off the **** watch. I turned off my watch six weeks ago and I’ve had no problem with notifications I turn the watch on the notification stop. This is really getting ridiculous they spend money for a watch I cannot wear

Hey Apple, I see you're pushing out another major iOS 14 update tonight. iOS 14.6. Hope you've FIXED this test notification bug you've introduced in iOS 14. As you can see in this posting and other similar ones, you have 1000's of customers complaining about this issue spending countless hours on dubious hacks to try to get the phone and watch text message notifications to reliably work again. So far, no feedback from you guys or the support team.

There aren't 1,000s in this thread and on a lot of other sites it is repeats. Since this "bug" as you call it is not affecting 100% of iPhones the only way for Apple engineers to deal with it is to be able to see logs from phones that are having the problem. Have you contacted Apple support?

allensinmarietta wrote:

Hey Apple, I see you're pushing out another major iOS 14 update tonight.

Apple doesn't read here for suggestions or feedback. Their participation here is minimal and limited primarily to making sure everyone follows the rules and answering questions that have gone unanswered for more than 12 hours and which can be answered with a link to a support article.

I get the sound notification, but nothing appears on my Lock Screen or Home Screen. It never has for the entire time I’ve owned the phone (iPhone 7, about 2 & a half years). Tried quite a few things to fix it, nothing works.

This problem suddenly occured last week out of nowhere. I am not receiving any notifications from WhatsApp and also Google Mail. Or to be specific, sometimes it works, most times it doesn't. Went to the Apple Store yesterday and the employee there told me the last thing to try is to reset the phone and then set it up as a new phone, only using my contacts, chats etc. from iCloud and the redownload every single app individually. Well, this didn't work either and I am so frustrated, that Apple doesn't seem to fix this. Honestly, my phone is useless when I don't see certain messages in time and I cannot check my apps every couple of minutes to be up to date.

Well, here we are in June 2021 and it just started happening to my iPhone X (10) Running ver 14.6. Apple support acts if they never heard of this. The store tech guys couldn't figure it out. They texted my number and it sounded and vibrated with the alert 1 out of 3 times. Going to Droid after this phone. I'm done with Apple. And I have 3 laptops, 1 iMac, and 2 new iWatches. All going as soon as I can.

Update. Now my wife's iPhone X just started doing this today.

Right. All Apple does is act like they are surprised it is doing this. Thye ask the same old questions....is your phone on silent, is your volume up, **** like that. They know the problem exists but will not admit to it and apparently are not addressing the problem.

Hello all,

I had that problem too. Now I receive push messages again.

For me, it was due to apps that I hadn't updated for a while. These included YouTube, Whatsapp, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Aliexpress, H&M and many more.

I updated about 110 apps and it worked. I received all the passed push-messages also! Maybe it is an app that is causing this problem. So, please check and update your apps.

I hope I could help you. I am using iPhone XS Max - iOS 4.16.