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Level 1

89 points

iOS 10 - Alarm stopped working

I've upgraded my iPhone 6 to iOS 10.0.1 and ever since the update, my alarm clock no longer works. I can set an alarm, the alarm clock icon shows up in the upper RH of the screen, but when it's time to alert, nothing happens. The phone does not turn on, it does not create any sound. I've tried everything I could think of and the suggestions online, but no luck.

Another odd behavior is that even after an alarm has past (with no reaction in the phone) the icon in the upper RH remains. I can delete all alarms, the alarm icon still is present on the screen.

I've tried the new Bedtime feature thinking it my by part of the problem, but it also does not work. However, it does have some impact; if I turn on the bedtime feature, the alarm clock icon on the upper RH of the screen will go away and any alarm (on the alarm screen) that was armed gets turned off. It's as if the two are mutually exclusive meaning you can either use Bedtime or traditional alarms, but not both. Does anyone know if this is the case?

I really doubt I'll use the Bedtime feature, it's a little odd and not terribly useful for a hectic life that isn't too predictable for going to bed each night. However, losing total functionality of the traditional alarm clock is a huge disappointment.

I've tried restarting the phone; the only thing that does is make the alarm clock icon disappear (if it was stuck on from a prior alarm). It does not restore the actual vibrate / audible function of an alarm that is set.

I also deleted my iHome clock app thinking the alarms from that app might somehow be competing with the native iOS alarm function, even though they both worked fine in iOS 9.

iPhone 6, iOS 10, Alarm Clock

Posted on Sep 22, 2016 1:11 PM

155 replies

Jon B 74

Level 1

9 points

Sep 29, 2016 1:04 AM in response to jrich4945

I have a very similar problem but if affects ringtone and alarms, after updating my iPhone 6 to iOS 10 (still present in 10.0.2).

After resetting the phone, alarms and ringtones will work for 3 or 4 days. Then my alarm will stop working and will vibrate only. Once this has happened my phone will no longer ring either.

If I go into the sounds settings to change the ring tone none of them will play. If I go to the alarm settings and change the alarm sound none of them will play. My message tones still work, and I can hear those ones within the settings.

Restarting will make it work for a few days again....

Sep 29, 2016 12:18 PM in response to jrich4945

I just had this issue happen to me twice, and this is what apparently happened.

I had airplayed my youtube app to my tv and the audio got stuck trying to go through airplay even though i wasn't connected to it anymore. If you open up control center (where you can click wifi, airplane mode, etc..) swipe to the left make sure the audio drop down menu is set to iphone speaker. Sometimes an app you still have open might be trying to play through another source and have gotten locked up. Anyway this solved my problem. Let me know if it solves yours!

Sep 29, 2016 1:44 PM in response to jrich4945

IM having the same issue here. The lovely (sarcastic) folk st apple have giveny the choice of having a phone witj allarms and no personal photos or music or all my personal data and no alarms. Wonderful service for a brand new price of expensive kit.

Sep 29, 2016 1:54 PM in response to stevoneill

stevoneill wrote:

IM having the same issue here. The lovely (sarcastic) folk st apple have giveny the choice of having a phone witj allarms and no personal photos or music or all my personal data and no alarms. Wonderful service for a brand new price of expensive kit.

No, that's not the only choice. If your pictures and music are stored on your computer, it's a fairly trivial matter to sync them back to the phone if a restore as new is required. It's also a good idea to store them on your computer in the event your phone gets lost, stolen or run over.

Sep 29, 2016 1:56 PM in response to jrich4945

mmake sure your sound it up or try reistinstall the alarm app turning your device on and off or getting a new alarm app of the store l. Otherwise your phone needs a reset

jrich4945 Author

Level 1

89 points

Sep 30, 2016 4:10 PM in response to jrich4945

I spent an hour in a chat session with Apple last weekend and described in great detail everything I was experiencing and the findings I had. Unfortunately, in the end, the Apple representative had no solution other than to wipe the phone entirely and rebuild it from scratch.

I can say with certainty that will restore the alarms on my phone (since I already tried the complete erase). No surprise, it will work since the phone is essentially new at that point. However, the disappointment is the hours I will spend bringing each app back, one-by-one, and then restore all the iCloud data (photo, music, contacts, etc.) manually.

To be clear, restoring from a backup will not fix this. I tried this, starting with a complete erase of the phone and then restoring a backup from iTunes; the problem simply returned when the phone completed it restore process.

As I told the Apple support rep, my huge frustration is that everything worked just fine before doing the iOS 10 update. All my other devices updated fine (iPad, iPad Mini, wife's phone, kids' phones and kid's iPod Touch...but for whatever reason this single iPhone 6 got messed up in the process.

The only explanation they could give me was that somehow my backup file (from before iOS 10 upgrade) was corrupt which is why it follows the device and always comes back, no matter what sequence I try to restore the backup.

It will be interesting to see if when I rebuild my apps and reload prior data from iCloud if it returns...more to follow.

Sep 30, 2016 8:20 PM in response to jrich4945

I had the exact same issue as you and painfully test and figure it out exactly all that you did to conclude that I just have two choices, to have a restarted phone with alarms but no pictures and music from my computer backup, or to have my phone with all the information but alarm useless. (Not to mention that this week I woke up late EVERY DAY).

I will wait for some actualizatio from iOS or try to find some app or something that could replace the alarm function.

Please let me know if you have any luck with that!

mitnarf

Level 1

4 points

Oct 2, 2016 7:34 AM in response to jrich4945

I have had the same issue and response as jrich4945. Essentially, what I have been told after multiple phone calls with Apple support over the last week is that my only remaining choice is to wipe the phone and start over without restoring from my backup. Unfortunately, this will leave me with unrestored text messages which have needed business related communications, and is therefore not an viable option for me. It appears my only real option is to live with an inoperable Apple alarm system and download a third party alarm. As noted by others, everything was fine until I upgraded and everything works fine on multiple other devices.

Oct 2, 2016 10:27 AM in response to mitnarf

mitnarf wrote:

Unfortunately, this will leave me with unrestored text messages which have needed business related communications, and is therefore not an viable option for me.

Archive your text messages to a PDF or text file using an application like PhonevView (Mac) or TouchCopy (Mac or Windows). Neither is free but, if you value your text messages, they are cheap at the price and indispensable. Having reference copies of my texts in a platform independent format is extremely important to me. I personally use PhoneView and have for years. It gets updated regularly. I can't comment on their customer service as I've never had to use it.

mitnarf

Level 1

4 points

Oct 2, 2016 12:07 PM in response to IdrisSeabright

Thanks Meg St._Claire. I'm also considering an attempt to retrieve the message from a backup with something like ibackupbot. Have you or others ever tried that? Thanks.

Oct 2, 2016 12:11 PM in response to mitnarf

No, messing with back up files sounds like a recipe for disaster to me. I just regularly archive my messages so that, in addition to my iCloud and iTunes backups, I have my PDFs.

mitnarf

Level 1

4 points

Oct 2, 2016 12:30 PM in response to IdrisSeabright

You're probably right. As I research that option more, I'm seeing mixed results. May I ask how you are archiving the messages and saving to PDF? Sorry for all the questions and appreciate your help.

Oct 2, 2016 12:33 PM in response to mitnarf

As I explained above, I use PhoneView.

Oct 2, 2016 7:17 PM in response to Jon B 74

Hi Jon,

I was also facing similar issue with my iPhone 6 (iOS 10.0.2). And I have found a solution for that.

Simply by toggling the Airplane Mode On->Off, the problem gets resolved. No need to restart the phone.

ENable the Airplane Mode and then Disable it And the Ringtones start working.

I Hope this will help you and other fellow iPhone users.

Stewbob

Level 1

4 points

Oct 3, 2016 6:06 AM in response to himanshu28

I had this problem upon updating to 10.0.2 - alarm did not ring, my phone only vibrated. No ring tones would sound as I selected different ring tones. As I looked into this further, I noticed my Airplay was still set to Apple TV, not to my iPhone 6s. So my alarm was ringing, just through Airplay and not through the phone. I switched Airplay back to iPhone 6s and my problem was resolved.

iOS 10 - Alarm stopped working