iOS 15 Messages Notifications Not Working

I just tested messages on my Mac Mini 2019 and no sound for new message there either. Same on my MacBook Pro 2016.

I do not think it is a specific software problem since all these devices use different operating systems. I may be wrong about that but I am thinking that something has been changed in how the message is sent and the trigger for the sound does not operate. Maybe that is the software but Messages is a different version on all those devices so I am confused as to why one of them does not work.

I installed a third party app called trillian on my iPad, iPone and Mac Pro. I sent messages and the first 2 worked for sound on the iPhone and iPad but then they stopped the sound. It still makes sound on the Mac Pro though.

So is this a device problem and not a software problem????

It's the intermittent issue that confuses me. Sometimes it notifies just for the iphone, sometimes just for the ipad, sometimes for both and sometimes neither one notifies. A pretty large investment to have this going on.

My wife has an iPhone 11 running IOS 12. It works 100% all the time for messages. My iPhone was working until I installed IOS 15. I am so confused at this point and very disappointed in Apple for this. This is very widespread and I cannot believe that Apple has not addressed it yet.

Not sure if you're asking me or rasampson, so I'll answer anyway. :)

As long as bluetooth is completely disabled on my iPhone, I get message notifications on all of my devices (iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch). Once I enable bluetooth on my iPhone, I am back to the problem of not getting ANY message notifications.

It's not a very good workaround...

One thing I forgot about and just got reminded about it. When I get messages from CVS about prescriptions, I get both sound and visual banners in messages. I just got a message from CVS and it worked for both. Also when I get two part login codes messaged to me from Apple, I get sound and banners as well. Very weird as no other messages work for sound or banners

Update - I couldn't figure out why the problem was intermittent for me. Then I realized it didn't happen if my watch was on the charger. I went to Notifications/Messages on the phone where I had selected Custom Notifications in the past, which had been working. Changed it back to "Mirror my iPhone," and a week later the notifications are still working correctly. As an experiment, I set up a new custom notification today and the problem resumed. Has anyone else tried this?

I have the same problem. I did discover that if I set the messages sound to Note (the default), then I would get a sound, but this sound scares my dog because it is the same sound I used as a reminder to give her her allergy shots and she runs out of the room.

I also discovered that the sound for all my contacts has been set to the default Note (automatically - not by me), but I don't hear it unless Note is selected as the sound for messages.

Another problem is that I no longer get messages notifications on my Mac even though I have it set to allow notifications.

That was a lot! Glad it worked. I'm not ready to go that far as I have everything working now except the notifications asking for a sign-in code. I hate to go through all that since my 2014 MacBook Air is on its last legs (can't go past Big Sur). Looking to get a new one soon and hoping that will fix everything.

Thanks Kluunsi and Matthew for your input. We have an 11 which works fine and a 8 plus which is very erratic with the notifications. Would it be safe to say that updates are not the issue but rather the phone itself? I'm at the point of replacing our 7 plus with a Samsung because of all the problems it's creating and my now lack of confidence in Apple products.

No, I don't think it's a hardware issue at all. I think the phones themselves are fine.

I think it's an issue with their new Focus "feature."

What I think happened on my end was, I was playing with the different settings in Focus... then I downloaded an iOS update... and in between messing with Focus and the update, my Phone somehow got stuck into thinking I was in DND mode.

I think this will definitely get fixed in a future iOS update... it's unfortunate I had to jump through so many hoops just to fix it on my end.

I have been dealing with this issue since iOS 15 was released as well. However, to add another twist, the iPhone and watch will alert me when I am on an exclusively cellar network (note: I have tested this with my watch at home and with me to see if the watch was the issue). When I am home, we use Wi-Fi calling and that is when the iMessage notification issues occur. When the screen is locked and asleep, I get no iMessage alerts or banners, until I touch the screen. At that point of touching the screen, all of the banners are present for all of the messages I was not alerted for.

I have Reset All Settings, Reset Network Settings, Erased the iPhone and setup as new, Erased the iPhone and restored from my oldest backup.

Nothing has worked.

I have called several Senior Advisors and finally have caught the attention of Apple Engineering. I worked with this Senior Advisor for over an hour today going over various things and taking screenshots to send to Engineering. I sure hope that something positive comes of this.

I use an iPhone 12 Pro Max, my wife has an iPhone 8 and we both have this messaging issue. We are both on iOS 15.3.1.

I have a close issue. The iPhone mail app will not notify me of new emails. (Used with gmail), and only downloads them when I do it manually.

Wonder whether it is related to the iMessage issue.

I was on the phone with Apple several different times to no avail. They only said that engineering is aware of it. Then how come no fix in this last update?

I downloaded the regular gmail app and that works fine.

I made all these settings on my iMac and iPhone 13 Pro running iOS 15.3.1. I also turned off wifi calling. I don’t have an Apple watch. Still not getting audio notifications of text messages on a locked screen.

I’m having the same problem. After much testing, I have discovered that the alert tone DOESN’T ring when the Messages app is OPEN (as it would be if you’re having a back-and-forth text conversation with someone), but it DOES ring if the app is CLOSED. I think the assumption is that if the app is OPEN and in use, then you don’t need an alert to ring each time the other person sends a reply. While that might seem logical, it really is a false assumption. Sometimes there are significant delays between sending a text and receiving a reply, and the app might be intentionally left open so that you can read a very important reply as soon as you receive it. The irony is that the opposite often happens—you start working on another device while waiting for the alert to tell you that you've received the very important reply, but the alert never rings. So instead of immediately reading the reply (did I mention that it might be very important?), you won’t even know it’s there until you finally check the Messages app to see what’s holding it up. 

I’m still trying to find a way to make the alert tone ring each time a message is received, even if the Messages app is open. I’ve tried all the suggestions I found in various discussions, but none work (and turning Bluetooth off wouldn’t be a good solution even if it did solve the problem, because it needs to left on for many other apps such as “Find My,” which won’t be of any help when you need it if it’s been disabled). If I find something that works, I’ll post it here.