iPhone volume decreasing on its own

Having the same problem. When I play an app in the background (usually youtube) and check another app the volume will randomly lower and stay low for 30 - 60 seconds. There's no way to turn the volume back up. So, for instance, if the volume is at 100% then it will still show as being 100% despite an approximately 40% decrease in volume.

Using an iphone 12 pro on the latest operating system.

Bkush04,

Thanks for the follow-up info. It's possible that you might have Attention Awareness enabled on your iPhone. This feature lowers the volume of any alerts or notifications when you are looking at the iPhone. To check this, go to Settings > Face ID & Passcode, and switch Attention Awareness to Off. More info on this can be found here:

Turn Attention Aware features on or off on your iPhone or iPad Pro

Let us know if this helps you.

I’m having the same exact issue, my volume will stay decreased for quite a while though, minutes in most cases not seconds. I’ve tried a lot of different things including getting an entire hardware replacement. The only thing I haven’t done yet is reformat and not restore from back up. Has anyone tried that with any success? I feel this has something to do with Bluetooth settings hijacking the audio. I haven’t fully tested it though. Does anyone on this thread experiencing the issue also own a Tesla? I think that may be a potential cause in my case but I need to test that as well.

Hey apple,

Stop meddling with my volume on my iPod touch. I’m using the volume high for a reason. If it’s not broken stop trying to mess it up even more. Whoever was the coder who’s bright idea that was just fire them. Thanks.

You are not being helpful.

I have the same problem that many others here have described, which is the volume decreases for no reason, even with notifications silenced, even with the mute switch engaged. It decreases for about 30 seconds, then goes back to normal. This is the problem. It’s real.

I know what I am doing and it’s not a user error. Please don’t post anything here insinuating that we are doing something wrong.

This is a real problem that Apple needs to address. It’s a serious bug that completely ruins the iPhone experience, as listening to music is a central function of the device.

I will also add that this is not the first time this bug has surfaced. Seems to happen every few releases of iOS.

Was anyone able to solve this?

I am also having this issue and it is amazingly annoying.

I don't know if this was also happening for the other victims of this bug, but for me, it happens at specific places.

When I am driving it always happens when I am in the same street corner before getting to my home.

When I am walking it always happens right before I get to the gym.

First I thought it was a google maps issue or smth, since I was always using navigation to get back home while driving.

Once it started to happen when walking to the gym, without navigation, I lost it.

If anyone managed to solve it, please let me know how.

iPhone 13 running iOS 15.5

I've got the same issue on an iPhone 11 on 15.6 (though issue has been around for several updates).

Audio volume decreases for ~15 seconds and then increases again. There are no visible notifications that correlate, and no audio ding/sound besides the volume being dampened.

Happens when playing via Spotify, Music or Podcasts, and with no interaction with the device. Device is usually in my pocket with bluetooth earbuds, or connected to carplay and in a cupholder.

Sometimes will happen a couple of times in a short window (like twice in 10-15 minutes), other times 45mins to an hour between events.

Only thing I can think of is an app that is generating events, but without anything showing in the notification center or it playing a sound - very hard to debug short of disabling push for all my apps and slowly re-enabling them. I've just done that for all but a handful of the apps I use the most, will see if that helps.

No matter playing music/YouTube using bluetooth headphone or by its own, my iPhone 14 Pro Max will suddenly lowered the volume by some 30s+. My fix is stop the music, lock the phone and then unlock, the sound will then resume normal. Better than nothing but super annonying!

I think we have experienced the same thing.

It's becoming annoying that when I am playing Apple music and then switch to use Google Map, the volume will just drop by itself. By dropping, I mean even though I turned it up to the maximum, you can barely hear anything. This happens so regularly, basically every day to me now. It happens everytime when I put things on speaker, for example when I am video chatting with someone on phone and then I minimise the video screen...

same issue with iPhone 12 on latest software. Tried all that has been recommended.

what I notice is that when I get a notification the sound lowers for 2-3 seconds. When this happens, it stays low for around 15 seconds and, as others have pointed out, there is no sign of notifications happening in the background.

Help.

This issue is impacting me too. For hours today (and many many times previously) the music plays at a reduced volume. Tried all the fixes mentioned, attention aware, notification volume, restarting the phone, reinstalling softwareisolating the issue to one app.

Today, the app that caused the volume to return to normal level was launching the camera app.

Furthermore, the answer can't always be to restart the phone or reinstall software. Sometimes we are running apps that can't be interrupted with a restart and we certainly shouldn't have to reinstall software every time any thing is wrong with the phone (seems to be Apple's equivalent to ibuprofen). Nevertheless, neither fixes the issue.

Another related issue, my music randomly stops playing when listening via wired headphones. Though it was the attention aware or lift to turn on, so disabled both. Unfortunately, the problem continues. For example it's happened while walking with phone in hand and phone in pocket. Sometimes happening multiple times in a row. I thought maybe the 1/8" plug was partially disconnecting resulting in in stopping, but with testing I couldn’t reproduce it when partially pulled out.

All I want is to listen to music without fighting my device.

Hi Bkush04,

As the sound gets lower as if you received a notification, but you don't see anything, could you have a notification that doesn't have an alert? When you go to Settings > Notifications, for an app, you can have Lock Screen, Notification Center, and Banners turned off but still have Sound turned on. You can double check any app that doesn't show notifications are turned off and that doesn't have these features turned on. Check out Use notifications on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch for more information.

Another thing to check is the output device. Does this happen when connected to multiple devices, such as using your speaker or connecting to a Bluetooth headphone. If it only happens when connected to one output type, see if that output has settings that could be causing this.

Hope this helps.

Have a good day.

I had this same issue and found that it was being caused by a specific app. I have the Dexcom app and, even though I had notifications all turned off, it was still somehow trying to alert me with blood sugar notifications. You may need to delete apps one by one to try to see which one may be causing the issue.