Q: no tones when receiving texts

Hi there patriciafromguilford,

Welcome to the Apple Support Communities! It sounds like you are not getting audio notifications when receiving texts and emails on your iPhone. You've come to a great place to find solutions, and I'll be more than happy to point you towards some troubleshooting steps to resolve this.

To begin with, let's check a couple of settings on your device. First, make sure that the Do Not Disturb feature is not enabled. To check, swipe up from the bottom of your screen to open Control Center. Make sure that the moon icon is not highlighted. If it is, go ahead and tap to turn off Do Not Disturb. Also, double check the ringer switch on the side of your phone to ensure it is turned on. If you see an orange line, that means the ringer is turned off.

Once we know both of those settings are in place, the next step would be to force quit the Messages and Mail apps on your iPhone, and then perform a restart. When your device is back up and running, test out notifications to see if the sound is accompanying them. Check out these articles on how to complete these steps:

Force an app to close on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch

Restart your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch

If quitting those apps and restarting doesn't resolve things, we'll want to reset the settings on your iPhone. This will not impact any of your personal data (e.g. photos, apps), but you will need to adjust some of your user settings, like wallpaper and ringtones. You'll also want to be sure that you have your Wi-Fi network names and passwords available, as this step clears out those remembered networks. To perform the reset, go to Settings > General > Reset > Reset All Settings. After your phone restarts, test out notifications for Messages and Mail again.

If you're still not getting audio notifications, it will be necessary to back up and restore your iPhone to factory settings. By setting up your phone as new, it will install a fresh copy of iOS on your device, which helps us rule out any software issues. Once you test out audio notifications and confirm they are working, you can restore from the backup you created. The following support articles will walk you through this process:

How to back up your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch

Use iTunes on your Mac or PC to restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod to factory settings

Restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch from a backup

All the best!