LED flash alert not working.. Updated

The LED Flash alert has to be one of the flakiest features of iOS 5. I have to hard reset my iPhone 4S several times to get it to work, and usually within two days it's mysteriously not working again (causing several more hard resets to make it work again). I bet deaf people hate this feature. So much for "accesibility".

I've only had the impression that the flash notification suddenly is disabled and that I just need to switch it off and on again in the settings to get it back in a working state. No hard resets, no yanking the drool out of the piddlywikkly, just switch the bit down and up. It seems like a bug or a complicated and unfriendly power saving algorithm.

THE ONLY THING THAT WORKS IS TURNING ON YOUR VIDEO CAMERA FLASH TO ON, NOT AUTO. Make sure your LED Flash for Alerts is ON also. Exit all applications, set alarm, phone call, or message and the LED will work.

Note: Has to be asleep/locked

the led light only works when my phone is locked and im not using it. this feature should be able to be used at all times 😟

I had the same problem...

I have done what user - avlnch - had told. Not pressing, but sliding the on/off switch and it worked!

Thank you

Ok everyone i had this problem two and sat here reaing North Poles advice and while doing soo i accidently cam across the solution please follow the given steps,

1. open settings/general/accesibility

2. turn off it dosent matter if u slide it or click it, coustom vibes and LED flash for alerts

3. hit the home button

4. X2 click the home button to bring up the multitasking menu

5. clear all the apps even settings by hitting and holding them untill they shake and hit the red minus arrow.

6. after clearing all the apps shutdown the phone it dosent matter if u do a force shut down or normal safe shut down.

7. start the phone back up.

8. when the phone boots give it a second to chatch up then unlock and go to settings/general/accessibility

9. turn on LED flash for alerts.

10. set a one minute timer or send a text and when the phone is LOCKED the LED will flash.

11. after testing the flash u can turn back on the coustom vibrations and the LED will still flash

Hope this helps!

Things are looking much better with 5.1. Seeing the flash consistently, even with emails.

It is still far too buggy in my opinion. It should simply work if you have the feature tuned on. My iPhone 4 is running the current iOS version and still the LED alert feature is unpredictable, no matter how often or what means of "tricking" it into working I use it still stopes working.

The phone needs to be locked to work

Yes, the only thing in my opinion due to which it doesn't work is that most people do not lock their phones to test it. Mine didn't work as well before. I tried what avlnch wrote. But it didn't work till I locked my phone.

Make sure your Flash is on in camera :-)

If you've updated to iOS 5.1.1 you'll find that the led alert has been fixed and works regardless of the camera/video's flash setting. Of course it only works when your screen is off or locked. It works for all alerts including games, text/imessages, emails and phone calls.

It was as simple as sliding the toggle instead of tapping it to switch it on...STUPID...but it did the trick for me. No soft or hard resetting...just slide the toggle from off to on, instead of tapping it to on.

I don't know if this applies, but the LED Alert Flash is activated only when the phone is in sleep mode.

Yes, i do agreed and solved the problems before i read your post..

You have to locked the phone then only the flash alert works!! 🙂