iOS 15 Messages Notifications Not Working

I have to keep the Text Tone on Note in the Sounds & Haptics setting. If I change it to anything else, it won't make a sound. If I want a different sound, I have to assign a different text tone to each of my contacts individually. You just pick a contact and hit edit. Then scroll down to Text Tone. Works on my 12 Mini.

The problem with audio notification of incoming text messages when the iPhone screen is locked appears to be fixed for my iPhone 13 Pro running iOS 15.3.1. I spent a total of about 7 hours on the phone with 6 different Apple advisors yesterday and today. What worked for me was going to Settings > General > Transfer or Reset iPhone > Reset. I had to make a lot of setting changes afterward, but I tested for incoming text ping after each small group of changes, and the ping is still working. I haven't touched the Focus settings at all and am afraid to.

I hope my experience is helpful to others.

I take it back. Audio notification of incoming text messages is broken again. What broke it was turning on Text Message Forwarding in Settings > Messages so that I could send and receive text messages on my iMac, etc. Even turning Text Message Forwarding back off did not fix the audio notification problem. I've reported this to my Senior Apple Advisor, who is reportedly in touch with Apple engineering.

I tried this a couple of nights ago after I saw your message. It worked for the night for me, but the next day, I was right back to square one, and not getting any audio or visual alerts for my text messages.

The reset procedure I described above did return the iPhone 13 Pro to factory settings, but it did not delete apps or wipe out Notes, Contacts, Calendar, etc. As I said above, this procedure restored the audio ping for incoming text messages but, as soon as I turned on Text Message Forwarding, so I could also receive text messages on my iMac, this killed the audio ping on my iPhone.

Completely wiping the iPhone and reinstalling the iOS also restored the audio ping. But when I restored the phone from backup, the audio ping was gone again. Resetting the iPhone at that point, as described above, once again restored the text message ping, but it died again as soon as I turned on Text Message Forwarding. Strangely, turning Text Message Forwarding back off did NOT restore the text message ping.

I have another phone call scheduled with my Apple Senior Advisor for this evening. I don't expect he'll do anything but collect my information and analytics, and forward them to his engineering department.

I just had a meeting with my senior advisor. He informed me that the engineering team escalated this issue to an even higher engineering team.

Apparently the engineering team did identify the issue. The senior advisor did not share with me what the issue was but assured me that they have gathered all the information they needed from me which included screenshots and logs.

Now this escalated engineering team is working on the fix. From what I gather there is no anticipated timeline known for the release of this fix.

Fingers crossed, I hope it comes with 15.4.

I'm new to this thread, but not new to the problem. My iPhone Xr and Apple Watch are plagued by the same issue (no notifications on incoming messages).

Both iMessages (blue) and SMS (text) are impacted.

I've tried many/most of the suggestions posted on this thread (and elsewhere), to no avail.

The bug is random - occasionally I'll get a notification on the watch, but not very often.

I found a workaround, of sorts. I've added the watchOS Messages app as a 'complication' on the face of the watch. Whenever a new message arrives, the complication immediately displays X UNREAD, so I can see that new messages are waiting to be viewed by glancing at the watch. Better than no notification at all.

Another observation that I've not seen reported on this thread - I found that if I disable Bluetooth on the iPhone, the notifications are restored on the phone. Even if it is sleeping/locked, an incoming message will trigger the expected visual/audible/haptic notification on the phone. I surmise that the firmware on the phone is suppressing notifications on the phone thinking that the watch is going to provide the notification. That's by design. But with BT turned off, the phone decides that it needs to issue the notification. That's purely conjecture. Needless to say, leaving BT turned off on the phone is not an acceptable solution.

I also have a senior advisor working on the case. She has contacted Engineering about the bug. There's no evidence that the Engineering people she contacts are in touch with those reported by @christiansaint in the previous post.

I too had another 1.5 hour telephone session with my senior advisor last night. He took me through every possible setting on the iPhone 13 Pro running 15.3.1 and failed to find a solution to the text notification issue. He was clearly just collecting data for engineering, including my phone's analytics. Our next phone call is scheduled for Saturday night after he expects to have spoken with engineering.

I think we should all bill Apple for testing their iOS that they persist in releasing before it has been thoroughly tested and debugged. I've spent about 25 hours troubleshooting problems with 15.3.1, including repairing damage caused by Apple "advisors".

If you're referring to the fact that e-mail doesn't always open to the inbox, I have the same issue, and have been on the phone with Apple support for hours over it. They assure me engineering is working on it.

@Kluunsi,

On my 10Xr, the choice of notification sound makes no difference.

I've tried it with Note. Nothing

I've changed the sound to something else. Nothing.

I've changed it back to Note. Nothing.

Correction: I should really say "usually nothing". Every once in a while, a notification of an incoming message will sneak through and trigger the sound and haptic alert. Seems entirely random.

On my phone (and watch), it's only the iOS Messages app that is defective. Other messaging apps such as Signal work fine.

I thought I had found a workaround by setting the messages tone to Note and assigning a different one (Minuet) to to each contact, but I've just discovered that It didn't work for all my contacts. I left a comment on the Apple feedback page regarding the problem. I think Apple needs to hear from more people. Surely the many people on this thread aren't the only ones.

I had the same problem. The first support person had me wipe the phone and reinstall everything. It seemed to work for a bit but I stopped hearing notifications again. This support person asked if my sound was on my iwatch. It was set to silent. She explained that if you have an Apple watch, the message notification sound AUTOMATICALLY goes to the watch. So if your watch is set to silent, you won't hear anything. And there's NO way to change that!!! Frustrating because I like my watch on silent, but I want to hear my text notifications...anyway. If you have a watch, that's good to know.

I have a call scheduled with my senior advisor for this evening to update me on the text notification, Mail, and Calendar issues. The Calendar issue is similar to the Mail issue. The opening page for Calendar is often a specific event rather than the calendar view. I'll post a summary of the call here.