iOS 26.1 – Notifications stopped working again after 10 hours of updating

Hi Lobster, just to close this off and for anyone else following this epic ramble ☺....

1. So after restoring my iPhone using iTunes (Erase and Firmware reinstall), I reinstalled from recent backup prior to this action and setup using iPad. Result: Total Fail. Exactly the same problem with no notifications or badge icons.
2. Finally had to resign myself to the fact that I was going to have to completely erase, reinstall firmware again, but this time did not restore from backup. Result: Success!

I now have badge icons back and also actual sounds with notification banners!

So totally gutted that I have lost data from my Apps as a result of manually reinstalling them. Anything non cloud-based has obviously gone to oblivion. So in this case, regular iPhone backups were a total waste of time given that potential bugs are seemingly carried through into the overall backups. Now I see why people suggest not to restore backups in many other assorted threads with certain issues.

So I feel vindicated that this is totally Apple's fault and that I sorted the issue myself. Not ideal, and I know what I'll be doing for the next 72 hours.....

Thanks for reading and contributing ☺

Brian_Gorecki

I wanted to chime in I'm having the exact same issue with an iPhone 14. It's post the update to 26 but not immediately after. App LINE doesn't show a phone call, even in the app, no messages either, Google Voice rings but doesn't show sms messages until accessed, gmail too and others.

Not sure trying anything at this point is favorable? I've done all but scrub the phone entirely, not interested. This certainly is a system level problem.

🤷‍♂️

I have a horrible suspicion that you're gojng to have to bite the bullet and do an iPhone reset like I did BUT, without restoring from a backup. That's the only way I got my notifications back after trying multple times. Whatever the bug that's causing this, it seems it is saved within the backup.

All the best.

Hello,

I had the same issues with Microsoft Teams and WhatsApp on my iPhone 13 after installing iOS 26.3 last week.

I tried many different solutions, but none of them worked. A complete restore without a backup was not an option for me.

However, I was able to fix the problem by deleting only the app that wasn’t working. After reinstalling Microsoft Teams, notifications and incoming calls started working again.

Hoppe I can help someone with this information.

Yesterday I applied the newest update 26.4.2 and it solved the issue!!!

No other action was required. 👌

Marc007@ wrote:

As mentioned in previous post - I only wear my watch when I go out - 95% of the time it's docked with my iPhone.

This is not normal behaviour as it's only started happening since IOS 26.* The sounds of my incoming notifications are deafening by their silence - so it's not normal behaviour and again, as per my previous post - I've tried all those things on the list at the bottom of the post multiple times:

lobsterghost1 wrote:

It was a guess, but I don't know how often you wear your Apple Watch. But when you wear your Apple Watch, notifications will go to your watch, not your iPhone, unless your iPhone screen is open. That is by design and how Apple designed it to work. This link from Apple explains this part of notifications on Apple Watch --> Notifications on your Apple Watch - Apple Support

Why, when you're not wearing your Apple Watch, you're not getting notifications, I can't explain. As I mentioned, iOS 26.1 didn't change notifications on any of my devices. After EVERY iOS update, the first thing I do EVERY TIME, is to Force Restart my iPhone. Did you do this after you updated and if no, give it a try as it often fixes little things --> Force restart iPhone - Apple Support

I have tried:

Force Restart - Useless

Toggle Settings (toggle Allow Notifications off and on again) - No Difference

Background App Refresh - No Difference

Disable Focus Modes - Not Enabled

Re-add Email Account - No Difference (done multiple times)

Delete and Reinstall Apps - No Difference (done multiple times)

Use a Third-Party Email Client - Already Using

Check "Low Data Mode - Not Applicable

At this stage I'm reluctant to set up my iPhone again at this stage given the hours of grief this will cause - especially as even AI seem to agree it's a widespread bug. I will feed this back to support and wait for a while.

I forgot to mention that WhatsApp is also not providing any Notifications!

You may not have a choice but to set up the phone again. But if I were you, I'd contact Apple Support. Your issue is not a universal issue with iOS 26.1. But something is causing you an issue. Do you by chance have a VPN installed on your iPhone?

It was a guess, but I don't know how often you wear your Apple Watch. But when you wear your Apple Watch, notifications will go to your watch, not your iPhone, unless your iPhone screen is open. That is by design and how Apple designed it to work. This link from Apple explains this part of notifications on Apple Watch --> Notifications on your Apple Watch - Apple Support

Why, when you're not wearing your Apple Watch, you're not getting notifications, I can't explain. As I mentioned, iOS 26.1 didn't change notifications on any of my devices. After EVERY iOS update, the first thing I do EVERY TIME, is to Force Restart my iPhone. Did you do this after you updated and if no, give it a try as it often fixes little things --> Force restart iPhone - Apple Support

haruyu wrote:

Could we please not deflect from the issue at hand? This is impacting all 3rd party apps. As a result, this is very much an Apple problem.

Currently, this is impacting everything: Outlook, Teams, Authenticator, Slack, Duo, PagerDuty

Currently, I am not able to use my phone for work at all. Fortunately, I was able to discover this issue before it hit me in PagerDuty. I have had to switch over to Android in the meantime.

I heavily regret upgrading to iOS 26.

I'm not deflecting anything. I get you're having an issue with notifications, but the vast majority of people, like me and just about everyone I know personally, who are on iOS 26.1 are having NO issues with notifications. I get notifications from over a hundred apps as I normally would on iOS 26.1. If this was an iOS 26 issue, the tech press would be reporting it and this forum would be flooded with people complaining. The tech press isn't reporting such an issue and this forum is most definitely NOT flooded with people complaining.

I can't diagnose why you're having an issue with notifications. But to blame it on the update isn't the issue. There's some setting or cellular connection issue which would stop you from receiving notifications.

Schedule an appointment at your Apple Store Genius Bar and let Apple test your phone and help you in-person.

Genius Bar Reservation and Apple Support Options - Apple

SkylarWilliam wrote:

Apple - while you may not be experiencing the issue, it is irresponsible to dismiss that the behavior is not related to an iOS upgrade. My experience is the same as most who have posted here. I no longer receive a persistent banner nor audible alert when messages come from a 3rd party app - mostly enterprise applications that manage communication to various endpoints. I have redundant endpoints and the only fails are messages to my mobile apps.

I work for a hospital in a department that manages caregiver communication. We are a technical team. I receive messages from AMS Connect, a HIPPA compliant mobile app. I am set up to receive messages from the hospital’s incident and service tracking software. Each is configured in iOS as critical and to override focus and silent settings. It has always worked up and til iOS 26 was installed. I am now on 26.2.1, teed up for the next upgrade. I have spent hours with our vendors and IS support teams to no avail.

At one point I had the unknown caller and spam filters enabled but soon realized these settings were impacting 3rd party messaging as well. Some messages simply disappeared, not showing in the Spam filter.

I cannot use my phone for work anymore. I cannot rely on messaging when on call as it is a patient safety issue. IS has been issuing iPhones as the corporate device. We must now determine plan B.

This is serious. Apple needs to dive deep into this issue. Contact American Messaging or one of the many corporate mobile app vendors and do some testing. In this context, the health and safety of patients is at risk because those who need to be alerted of an incident are not receiving these critical messages.

I'm not Apple. No one posting here is with Apple. This is a user to user only forum, which Apple neither participates nor reads for user feedback. As a user, I'm not dismissing anything. I'm just not having any issues with Notifications on any of my devices which are now updated to iOS 26.3. You also cannot assume that because you may be having an issue it is one everyone else is having. There are over 1.5 Billions users out there and if this was a widespread issue, this forum would be blown up with people complaining and the text press would be jumping all over this. Yet neither is the case. Have you updated to iOS 26.3, which was released last week?

You should contact Apple directly for direct help. If you're in the US, you can call Apple at: 800-MY-APPLE. You can visit the Genius Bar at your closest Apple Store as well.

Marc007@ wrote:

iPhone 14 Pro Max, IOS 26.1, same issue with no notifications, badge icons.

eM Client is one App I use for mail - no longer getting notification badges unless the App is actually running. This has been since IOS 26.

I'm sure this is also happening on other Apps to. I have contacted the separate support companies for the Apps and they are clueless, saying everything settings wise for push notifications is correctly set, iPhone hard reset countless times and still the same problem.

This can't go on like this as presently we are totally oblivious to getting notified of potentially important events.

Another case of broken software where they put in unwanted features nobody really wanted and screw up the basic functionality - again. This is getting just like Microsoft.

iOS 26.1 didn't interfere with notifications on my devices and I have 4 on 26.1. By chance do any of you who are noticing an issue with notifications wear Apple Watch?

As mentioned in previous post - I only wear my watch when I go out - 95% of the time it's docked with my iPhone.

This is not normal behaviour as it's only started happening since IOS 26.* The sounds of my incoming notifications are deafening by their silence - so it's not normal behaviour and again, as per my previous post - I've tried all those things on the list at the bottom of the post multiple times:

lobsterghost1 wrote:

It was a guess, but I don't know how often you wear your Apple Watch. But when you wear your Apple Watch, notifications will go to your watch, not your iPhone, unless your iPhone screen is open. That is by design and how Apple designed it to work. This link from Apple explains this part of notifications on Apple Watch --> Notifications on your Apple Watch - Apple Support

Why, when you're not wearing your Apple Watch, you're not getting notifications, I can't explain. As I mentioned, iOS 26.1 didn't change notifications on any of my devices. After EVERY iOS update, the first thing I do EVERY TIME, is to Force Restart my iPhone. Did you do this after you updated and if no, give it a try as it often fixes little things --> Force restart iPhone - Apple Support

I have tried:

Force Restart - Useless

Toggle Settings (toggle Allow Notifications off and on again) - No Difference

Background App Refresh - No Difference

Disable Focus Modes - Not Enabled

Re-add Email Account - No Difference (done multiple times)

Delete and Reinstall Apps - No Difference (done multiple times)

Use a Third-Party Email Client - Already Using

Check "Low Data Mode - Not Applicable

At this stage I'm reluctant to set up my iPhone again at this stage given the hours of grief this will cause - especially as even AI seem to agree it's a widespread bug. I will feed this back to support and wait for a while.

I forgot to mention that WhatsApp is also not providing any Notifications!

VPN is not enabled.

I've since now reinstalled firmware via iTunes, and no change. So this is defo an Apple issue - and although it may not be universal, it certainly seems more prevalent on slightly older devices (15 and earlier).

Sent myself a WhatsApp from Desktop and sure enough - no badge

Same for eM Client (third party email client)

All since IOS 26.1 and of course, we're all buggered because we can't downgrade to IOS 18 now.

TNJen wrote:

I know this is an older thread, but I wanted to share a similar experience with notification issues. After a device failure, I recently upgraded my iPhone13 Pro to an iPhone 17 Pro that came with iOS 26.1. I restored from backup, and everything seemed to be working well. My husband upgraded his iPhone 13 Pro to an iPhone 17 Pro at the same time.

My 12-year-old uses a Libre 3 Plus continuous glucose monitor.  The primary Libre app runs on

an Android phone that stays connected to our home WiFi. To receive her high and low glucose alerts, my husband and I use the LibreLinkUp app on our iPhones. Before iOS 26, notifications (banner,

sounds, etc.) worked reliably. After upgrading our phones (running iOS 26.1), although the app was receiving cloud data and seemed to be working fine, we just stopped receiving any notifications. We did not realize these critical notifications weren't occurring until we discovered (by accident) that we had missed a critical low blood glucose alert. Fortunately, we were at home at the time, and the loud alarm on her primary Android device woke us up. Both iPhone 17 Pros remained silent. At first I assumed a setup or connection issue with the Libre apps; however, this has proven not to be the case.

Troubleshooting so far (that hasn’t worked):

+Restarted the iPhone and apps multiple times, restarted WiFi and Bluetooth on the primary device

+Deleted and reinstalled the LibreLinkUp app on the iPhone

+Checked iOS app and global notification settings for LibreLinkUp (Allow Notifications on, banners allowed, sounds enabled, Notification Summary OFF, etc.)

+Reviewed Focus/Do Not Disturb settings to make sure theywere not silencing alerts (LibreLinkUP overrides these settings anyway)

+Removed my child’s LibreLinkUp invitation and set it up again from scratch to completely rebuild the connection

+As a workaround and test for the issue, I also tried a third-party diabetes app (Gluroo) that reads data from LibreLinkUp apps on our iPhones and uses its own alarm thresholds. I do get banner alerts from that app, but I still do not get audible alerts even though sounds are enabled. App FAQs indicate known iOS notification issues. I see that someone in this thread recommends not restoring from iPhone backup (which would be a difficult and lengthy project) but the workaround app was not a part of the backup, and notifications are still not working

properly.

Needless to say, reliable app notifications are extremely important for our family. If anyone has found a configuration or workaround that restores reliable audible notifications for LibreLinkUp (or similar apps) on iOS26.1, I would really appreciate the details. Since notification issues appear to be a well-known bug impacting iOS 18x+, I ask Apple to please take this seriously and post any updates asap. Thank you.

1. Asking Apple to do or take anything seriously on this user to user only forum won't be seen by anyone at Apple. If you want to share feedback with Apple, this is where you direct it --> Feedback - iPhone - Apple
2. Apple doesn't own Libre or their App. Apple doesn't have any way to fix anything wrong with the Libre app. And you aren't the first person to have significant issues with Libre on this forum. But Libre needs to fix their app.

I wanted to chime in I'm having the exact same issue with an iPhone 14. It's post the update to 26 but not immediately after. App LINE doesn't show a phone call, even in the app, no messages either, Google Voice rings but doesn't show sms messages until accessed, gmail too and others.

Not sure trying anything at this point is favorable? I've done all but scrub the phone entirely, not interested. This certainly is a system level problem.

🤷‍♂️

Apple - while you may not be experiencing the issue, it is irresponsible to dismiss that the behavior is not related to an iOS upgrade. My experience is the same as most who have posted here. I no longer receive a persistent banner nor audible alert when messages come from a 3rd party app - mostly enterprise applications that manage communication to various endpoints. I have redundant endpoints and the only fails are messages to my mobile apps.

I work for a hospital in a department that manages caregiver communication. We are a technical team. I receive messages from AMS Connect, a HIPPA compliant mobile app. I am set up to receive messages from the hospital’s incident and service tracking software. Each is configured in iOS as critical and to override focus and silent settings. It has always worked up and til iOS 26 was installed. I am now on 26.2.1, teed up for the next upgrade. I have spent hours with our vendors and IS support teams to no avail.

At one point I had the unknown caller and spam filters enabled but soon realized these settings were impacting 3rd party messaging as well. Some messages simply disappeared, not showing in the Spam filter.

I cannot use my phone for work anymore. I cannot rely on messaging when on call as it is a patient safety issue. IS has been issuing iPhones as the corporate device. We must now determine plan B.

This is serious. Apple needs to dive deep into this issue. Contact American Messaging or one of the many corporate mobile app vendors and do some testing. In this context, the health and safety of patients is at risk because those who need to be alerted of an incident are not receiving these critical messages.

Hi,

I noticed the same issue. Restarted my phone several times and disable/Unable Notifications, still not working.

• Model: iPhone 17 Pro max (256 GB)
• iOS version: 26.1 (official release)
• Update time: 10 PM, November 4th 2025
• Issue started: around 5 PM, November 15 2025
• Free storage: 150 GB