What does “Notifications Silenced” mean on iPhone

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Warm regards.

I found the answer to my problem here just in case anyone else has been suddenly hit by this and reads my rant. It's possible to turn off focus sharing - so they don't get the message anymore: https://webtrickz.com/stop-sharing-focus-status-ios-15/ - apologies for the noise I caused in this thread.

Well I thought I had finally found the answer here. All my Focus settings are off. Then as suggested above I went into the individual person message and YES the Share Focus Status was on for both of the people that were having the issue. I turned it off for both people and then it worked properly for one person but not the other!!!

Yes you are exactly right it seem if you shut it off on one it should turn all your devices off but it doesn’t. I had to do my watch, iPhone, iPad and iMac all individually, after 4 hours of Apple support they never had me do this. Focus should not be this complicated, just curious how did you discover this I found it by trial and error

Try Settings-Messages and toggle off focus

Focus>turn them all off

Go to iPhone settings > Focus. Make sure Share Across Devices option is enabled.

If you disable Share Across Devices, each of your Apple devices will require you to enable/disable Focus settings.

Best to enable this setting and set Focus once for all devices.

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!

To turn this feature off do people can text you again settings>focus

I have solved this problem. I have dumped Message and now use Signal! Works between my partner and myself perfectly!

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!!!!!!!!!!!!

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.

I have a person who has my number but has mild mental issues. They send me iMessages any time of day or night about stupid stuff and various delusions they are having. Even at 3am in the morning. I love them but... I have a life and previously I was able to silence them without them knowing and deal with their hundreds of messages at a time convenient to me. Now they are asking me why it says I have notifications silenced for their message stream. In my case it's true - I have silenced their conversation for the reasons stated. It's never urgent but they can't help themselves. If it were urgent they could always ring. I'm going to have to make something up as a response - but even if this was working correctly this is a gross invasion of MY privacy by Apple. I realise it's probably a mistake but they really haven't thought this through. Why does the other party need to know I've silenced notifications? It's none of their business and there may be good reasons why I want this information to remain private.

Sorry I realise this doesn't address the problem. But it does also say this if you really have silenced notifications. I just wanted to raise the issue that this feature is BAD news and may cause many people problems if they have similar situations to mine.

For everyone one struggling with this, remember that you can mark certain important contacts with emergency bypass. EB contacts’ notifications will play at full volume no matter what. Even if the silence switch on the side of the phone is enabled, or if any focus state is selected. Marking a contact with EB will make their notifications play at full volume no matter what else you do on your phone, short of turning it off. So even if someone’s phone tells them that your notifications are silenced (as described in this thread), you will still hear the notifications.

To enable EB, edit any contact and go to their ringtone and/or text tone settings. At the top, enable the switch for Emergency Bypass. Note that ringtone and text tone bypass are set separately.