iPhone message has notifications silenced

Hey there donms,

Thanks for reaching out to the Apple Support Communities. If you're seeing a message that a contact has notifications silenced when trying to send them a message, this would mean that they have a focus feature enabled preventing them from receiving notifications at that time. For this message to not appear, that contact would need to disable the Focus, or include you as a contact to receive notifications from.

For more details, check out this link here: Allow or silence notifications for a Focus on iPhone - Apple Support

Allow or silence notifications from specific people during a Focus

1. Go to Settings  > Focus, then choose a Focus—for example, Do Not Disturb, Personal, Sleep, or Work.

2. Tap People (or tap Choose People), then do one of the following: 

- Allow specific people: Tap Allow Notifications From, tap , then select from your contacts.

You can also turn on options to allow calls from certain groups of people and allow repeated calls (two or more calls from the same person within 3 minutes).

- Silence specific people: Tap Silence Notifications From, tap , then select from your contacts.

You can also turn on Allow Calls From Silenced People.

We hope that's able to help.

Take care!