What does “Notifications Silenced” mean on iPhone

My wife and I both have identical iPhone XRs with identical settings. When I text her, I get the "xxx xxx has notifications silenced" message. BUT, when she texts me, all is well, and she doesn't see the same "notifications silenced" message. AND, sometimes, I get a "Delivered Quietly" message along with the "notifications silenced" message. Then an option appears that says something like "deliver anyway". I click on that, and she receives the test and notification and sound. AND, sometimes, the text comes in WITHOUT a sound, or the default sound, or the custom sound she has set up for me.

What's up? Solution please.

So, like many of you I tried everything and nothing worked. Eventually, I got in contact with Apple support and what ended up fixing it for me was to turn off the “Share Focus Status” in the contact settings. I even had my wife turn it back on and it doesn’t show that message anymore. See images below Hope this helps!

1. From phone you are seeing this message coming from, open the contact settings for contact seeing the message.

2. Turn the setting off (and back on if you want). This should instantaneously remove the message.

This doesn't work...phone still shows "no (name) has notifications silenced" still shows no matter what!

Major bug in iOS 15!!!!!

Why did Apple have to over-complicate such a simple feature that actually worked before!!!!!!!!!!!!

This worked to fix the problem for my fiancée and I. My fiancée had to turn the show focus OFF and then ON again to work. Just turning it OFF was not enough to fix it but as soon as she turned it ON again the notifications silenced message disappeared.

I spent about 3 or 4 hours trying to solve this. This was more of an impactful bug for me than most, as I'm a senior physician and my unclear notification status was creating all sorts of problems for administrators, partners, nurses, fellows, residents, and students. Like many here, I tried turning off everything, but could never get better than "Dr Braindead Mac has notifications silenced". To further complicate the issue, I have become heavily dependent on Apple devices (TVs, laptop, home computer, work computer, iphone, ipad, watch) so I couldn't figure out what device was causing the problem. Sharing here, hopefully this will help others.

The solution was totally counterintuitive. I turned off all the Focus features on my laptop and home computers and iPad, just made these changes on my iPhone (since it was the iPhone upgrade that seemed to start all the nonsense):

First go to Settings > Focus and turn on "Share Across Devices"

Then from same tab Settings > Focus > Do Not Disturb tap "Focus Status"

On that screen, toggle "Share Focus Status" to on.

Now go back to Settings > Privacy > Focus and make sure "Shared With" Messages is toggled on. Now toggling on and off the Do Not Disturb setting will work as intended and people should not see either the "Joe Blow has notifications silenced" or "Notify anyway" warnings when the Focus is off.

Agreed. This is just mind boggling horrible. Not sure how this incredibly corrupt feature made it to a “prod” or an active state. As a software analyst myself and as much beta testing as Apple does, I can’t fathom how this ever made it to the mainstream end users. It’s horrible. Every time I try to text my wife, it says she has “notifications silenced”, even though she doesn’t. And yes, we’ve both confirmed it. The functionality was fine as it was. Why in the world would Apple screw with this important feature that so many people rely on to get a decent nights sleep? And even worse, completely screw it up for everyone?? I honestly just don’t get it. Of everything I’ve seen so far in iOS 15, this is one of the biggest disappointments. After MONTHS of Beta testing, THIS is what was rolled out?? The person responsible for this segment should be fired. Hands down. He/she/they didn’t “test” anything and it’s horrible. If anyone on the Apple side is listening/following these threads, PLEASE retract this code set/nominclature or whatever you’re using for this feature. It’s a disaster to say the least, not at all what us “end-users” want or are looking for at all. Just hugely frustrating and a disaster and embarrassment for the Apple IT/IS team responsible for this fiasco.

Hey there Dinyehl!

From what we gather you're having issues with Message notifications being shown as silenced in your conversations.

Have you tried toggling the Focus settings on both devices before restarting the iPhone to test?

If so, can you check your Message notification settings to help make sure everything checks out there?

Change message notifications on iPhone

Keep us updated.

Cheers!

Try this, follow exact steps with no other actions between steps.

• On phone, turn Share Across Devices OFF then ON (if already off, turn on, off and back on) THIS STEP IS IMPORTANT TO FOLLOW EXACTLY!
• Now on phone enable any Focus mode
• Check other devices. Is same Focus mode now enabled?

Try going to Settings>Privacy >Focus and make sure the messages are turned ON.

Then go to Settings>Focus>click on Do not disturb>Options>turn off.

I erased all of the other pre-loaded Focus tabs they installed. Bedtime, work, etc.

Finally fixed it!

You should get a duplicate every time you text yourself. You get the one you send and the one you receive.

These messages should appear on opposite sides of the text thread, just like any other message and reply chain with another person.

Pull down menu from top

look for half moon

tap

the word focus

not the moon

secret menu comes up

tap settings

you’ll see 12:00 am to 12:00 am set

set bottom number to like 06:00 am

focus is set for 12:00 to 96;00 now

next select people that aren’t focused out during focus hours they may call

also you can select apps I selected messenger snd message’s

We appreciate you giving those steps a try. When you have the opportunity, we would recommend that you reach out to Apple Support for further investigation. You can do so using the link below.

Get Support

Warm regards.

Came here looking for a solution to this. My wife's phone is doing the same thing where it shows the silenced notification for her contacts in their messages app. Toggled all the focus stuff off in both the focus and messages settings but didn't help. Went through and individually turned off the "Share Focus Status" on all her contacts too. Please fix this bug.

If you have your sleep schedule thing set up in apple, it automatically mutes your notifications after a certain time (whatever you have set up). try turning off the sleep schedule. that’s what worked for mine.

I am having the same issue. Started today. I have the message on my phone. Other person doesn’t have it. I did one update about a week ago to 15. Haven’t done the second one because, frankly, I’m afraid of what else will go wrong. It’s only doing it with one person but they are getting my texts with sound and notifications and I am getting theirs. The update I haven’t done yet is 15.0.2 apple fix this.