Horn alert sounds keep playing on my iPhone

As soon as I came out of 'do not disturb' mode (on my iPhone 15 running 1OS 18) this morning it started playing the horn alerts associated with AMBER alerts and other emergency alerts. The sounds are inconsistent in that sometimes there's just one sequence while at other times, there are multiple sequences. Their periodicity seems random -- sometimes 1 minute apart up to 20 minutes apart. I have turned off all emergency alerts in settings and they still occur. The only thing that works to shut them off is 'silent mode' or 'do not disturb' mode. The nature of the problem makes me wonder if it could be a virus of some sort meant to annoy the user.

iPhone 15 Pro Max, iOS 18

Posted on Jun 4, 2025 11:58 AM

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4 replies

Jun 4, 2025 6:14 PM in response to davidfromsequim

Mr. Bill3 sent a suggestion which I checked but there were no other alerts or ringtones using the 'horn' sound. The emergency alerts were the only ones. This morning, one of the first things I tried was a reboot but that didn't work -- eventually I turned off all the emergency alerts but that didn't stop the random horn soundings. Later I did a second reboot and that seems to have silenced the horn (3+ hours now and counting).

Jun 4, 2025 9:20 PM in response to davidfromsequim

Here, perhaps, is a clue as to why the horn sound kept playing...I received an iCloud mail that seemed to want me to use the Find My app -- here is that mail.

Since nothing was missing from my stable of Apple devices, I didn't open that app. It's hard to imagine that it was some sort of phishing expedition. Eventually, I'll re-enable the emergency alerts that I turned off.

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Horn alert sounds keep playing on my iPhone

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