Screen stays dark when alarm goes off in the morning

... and just after writing this, the alarm went off again after having pressed snooze and the screen did not light.

While this problem is annoying, at least there is a workaround. I don't think I want to go to the effort of a complete restore as they suggested to me at the Apple store.

It's a new world full of resets and restores and updates. Not looking forward to my autonomous car crashing!

SO I am experiencing same issue with my iPhone 6s Plus. I did a restore then tried reinstalling my iCloud backup and now I have lost my call logs and text messages. Looked around on the forum and found that a lot of people are having same issue With there iCloud backups. Just a heads up if your on a 6s I would do a manual backup with iTunes before a restore. I'm running 9.1

Hello everyone,

After several days of analysis, it seems to have found the solution to the morning not the display lights when the alarm sounds.

I sense that if the phone is locked after the date of the start of the "Do not disturb" automatically programmed the phone with the first day alarm lights correctly.

I have two days watching this casuistry and it seems that I have given to the problem of many, observe and comment.

A greeting

MY GOD I'm SO GLAD that this thread is here.

When this issue (exactly as other have described it so I won't bother repeating it) started happening on my iPhone 5 after updating to iOS 9 I searched desperately for a thread on these forums with other people describing it or something similar and at the time there was absolutely nothing.

Now that it's really become an embedded bug in several iterations of iOS 9 I see that it's effecting everybody.

Out of about 14 days worth of daily alarms I'd say that it lights up maybe once or twice.

I'm going to do a bug report to Apple and I strongly suggest everybody else do the same if they haven't. I'm really hoping that they can get this fixed because it's literally the only thing that has been problematic for me with iOS 9 and the two consecutive updates that followed it.

Subscribing to this thread for ongoing updates.

I have now noticed three issues with the alarm:

1). The alarm sounds and the screen lights up for a few seconds, then goes black while the alarm is still sounding (like others have reported).

2). The alarm sounds and the screen does not light up at all.

(I cannot figure out any rhyme or reason as to which one of the above will occur. Sometimes the alarm sounds and the screen lights up normally).

3). When the alarm sounds and the screen is black, if I press the home button with a finger that is NOT a Touch ID finger (to try to get the screen to light up but not shut off the alarm), the alarm SHUTS OFF. This has happened to me twice, causing me to shut off the alarm when I did not want to shut it off. Thankfully, I always set another iPhone alarm and a regular old clock radio alarm as backups.

I'm not sure what happens if I press the home button with a Touch ID finger.

Pressing the volume button will snooze but not illuminate the screen for me. Pressing the side on/off button does work though (snooze and illuminate). I am resorting to this for now. Hopefully in my sleepy haze I can remember which button to push.

DId a little experiment and found the issue (Or better BUG)

it is all fault of "do not disturb"

i have it set on when i go to sleep, tonight I disabled it and surely this morning the screen lit up as it used to do before OS 9.

so the trick is to turn off DO NOT DISTURB just one minute before the alarm goes off. It is a workaround but it works for me

Same for me - until this morning. :-/

Today, alarm went off, screen was dark - and swiping the dark screen did not cancel the alarm (like it did previously). Had to press the Home button, then swipe the screen to cancel it.

This is the first time I've had an issue with the alarm since 9.2

Let's hope it was a fluke. Curious to hear if any others see any intermittent issues.

Potentially I have found a solution.

The bug relates to Apple Music, and the inability to Sync your Music via iTunes.

Set your alarm ringtones to built-in tones (NOT MUSIC), it seems to crash when it uses music which isn't available.

Its so far worked for me

Android user here who's testing an iPhone out. My 6s didn't light up the screen when the alarm went off yesterday morning. This morning the screen did light on for about 3 seconds with the alarm but I didn't hit it in time so it kept ringing but the screen turned off. Is that normal for iphones? For the screen to turn off after a few seconds while the alarm keeps playing? Is this issue "fixed" for me with 9.2.1?

I believe that users who are experiencing that the screen is still "off" on an iPhone 6 or 6s with Firmware 9.2.1 are (no offense) sleeping through their alarm cycle.

I think the issue here is that the screen does indeed "light up" properly, for each alarm but then it goes dark based on the user's preferred screen timeout preference. (Or perhaps alarm cycles have their own baked-in timeout, maybe a minute or so?)

I haven't had any issue with the alarm not lighting up since I updated to 9.2 and since upgrading to an iPhone 6s.

As a test, try, before going to bed, putting your screen auto-lock settings to "never", try to get up the second your hear your alarm and watch it for a good 2-3 minutes to see what the results are.

Sorry FrankieViturello, that is not the case

I was awake before my alarm and within 3 seconds of it ringing, the screen went off. It makes no sense. This is def not just people sleeping through their alarms. My timeout is at a minute.

Same here, I have only a few seconds to get to the phone before the screen goes blank. Hitting the home button puts the alarm into snooze (which isn't what I want). I have an iPhone 6 (9.2.1). The problem has existed from my iPhone 5 to the present day.

This problem just started. It has happened 5 times now. I have a iPhone 6 Plus and running version 9.3.3. I tried deleting all my pre set alarms and set up a new alarm setting and this morning, it happened again. I read the previous information in the forum and the suggestion was to update the phone to the new iOS. Does anyone have a suggestions if you already have the new iOS?

I haven't updated to 9.3.3 on my phone, I'm still running 9.3.2 and my alarm stays lit up in the morning. I'll add this to the list of reasons why I'm apprehensive to update to the latest public firmware on my phone and watch.