iPhone alarm is silent randomly

Angel-o wrote:

Apple please fix this “minor issue”

1) Apple is not reading here. If you want them to be aware that you are having a problem, you will need to contact them directly. You can start with the Contact Support link at the top right of every page of these forums.

2) This is not one issue. It's one symptom with a number of different causes. That, combined with the fact it's a relatively uncommon problem, makes if very hard to resolve quickly.

3) Buy an alarm clock.

As others have said, this does not solve the problem that was originally posted (which I have as well). This seems to be a bug. Maybe one that comes and goes with iOS versions? Yes, I have had this multiple times as well. Again, randomly. When it's happened to me, I've noticed that NO sounds appear to work (e.g. the 'click' sound it makes when locking, the keyboard sounds, etc.). Yes, the phone is NOT on silent. No, the phone is NOT connected to any headphones, speakers, bluetooth devices, etc. Yes, the sound is set on the phone to NOT be silent. The hardware silent switch is not activated. Do Not Disturb is activated (if any of that helps with debugging). Only responding to your comment because it's the first that shows up when Googling this. This appears (to me) to be related to iOS12.4.1. It never happened to me before this. I have an iPhone X if that matters. For me, restarting the phone 'fixes' the sound issue. At least for a couple of days. Same as others, the alarm IS going off (the screen shows the alarm screen with the snooze and stop buttons) but no SOUND is coming out. It's not that it's low volume. It is NO volume.

anotherzipper wrote:

This appears (to me) to be related to iOS12.4.1. It never happened to me before this.

Then it is unlikely that you have exactly the same problem that was originally posted as 12.4.1 didn't exist at that time. I would also add the OP said nothing about all sounds being silenced. In fact, if all you're experiencing failure of all sounds, I'd say you have a completely different problem. I suggest you start your own thread about all sounds being silenced. You're more likely to get insights that way.

There’s a thread in the Spotify forums about this, too. Basically, it seems that if you use any app to play music and/or videos, sometimes the play/pause button glitches to where it shows the pause button even though nothing is playing. This happens to me a lot in the Spotify app when I get out of my car. I’ve noticed that if I don’t do anything with it in that state, the alarm will be silent.

Until Apple fixes this issue, force quit all media playing apps (or all apps, just to be safe). If you really must be up at a certain time, set another alarm on a different device and hope they don’t both fail ;)

I’ve been having this same issue for at least 5 years on various iPhones and ios. I’ve yet to find a solution or seen an acknowledgment from apple support about this issue, other than copy paste replies that don’t fix the problem.

OK I think I figured it out. First turn off bluetooth in the control screen, second make sure your phone is not screen side down. When your phone is face down on your bed or floor or nightstand the radius sensor on the screen side triggers, because it “thinks you are on a phone call” and it sounds a silent alarm so it doesn’t blow your ears out. This is why you see so many people say that the first alarm works but the second one doesn’t because they’re sitting there phone down on the nightstand screen side down and then alarms wont work.

If by "radius sensor", you mean the proximity sensor, that can't be the problem. The proximity sensor only has an affect once you're already on a call. It doesn't do anything when you're not on a call. You can demonstrate this by putting your hand over the sensor when you're not on a call. Nothing happens to the screen.

RCBalon wrote:

Close all apps before you sleep. This was my fix. Zero problems with alarm since I started doing this a couple months ago.

Why would I do that? I've had zero problems with my alarm ever.

And what I'm saying is that's not a possible solution as the proximity sensor does not affect the alarm. What is more likely is that something else he did at or around the same time resolved the problem.

douglas2010 wrote:

No RCBalon had suggested the "closing all apps", I was not commenting on the sensor suggestion.

Ah, I get it. But, they still addressed it to me, despite the fact that I've never said I had the problem. Didn't make sense.

I disagree about the phone being face down. It occurs to me and my sons with the phone face up.

All three of us experienced the issue this morning. I only have one alarm set, as does one of my sons.

I find the issue has become worse with the latest iOS update

13.1.3 has been released and I am downloading it now. I backed up my phone and then used the restore iphone function which will erase and then install the latest ios. hopefully i can restore my backup and the proble will be fixed.

I thought I would share a workaround with everyone. It has so far prevented this issue (knock on wood).

When I’m heading to bed and I plug my phone in, I wait to hear the chirp indicating the phone is charging. If I don’t hear an audible chirp, I check to make sure I have unmuted the phone. If it is not muted and still won’t chirp, I then check to make sure the sound isn’t manually set all the way down.

If I check both of these and it STILL won’t chirp, I turn the phone off and then back on and start again. Every time I’ve done this, the phone will chirp when plugged in during step 1, and I’ve not had the alarm fail on me since.

I should mention that I’ve had to restart the phone to get system audio working in this way perhaps 1 out of every 20 times (this is a huge guess - it’s happened, and more than once, but I wasn’t explicitly tracking the incidents). That’s about how often the alarm would fail me. I’ll also say that it hasn’t happened since upgrading to iOS 13, but I still do it every night because I have no reason to trust Apple on this one.

I’m confident that the times I had to restart are the times when the alarm would have failed me - if you’re still having the issue, try this out. Hope it helps!

I just had it happen again as I was watching a video on Facebook. It seems the sound drivers get corrupted and this affects any app or function that uses the main speakers. A reboot is not 100% successful at resetting the issue. We need a root cause. 13.1.3 called out the resolution of an issue with sound. Apparently it wasn't THIS issue.

I have 30 alarms set and not a single one goes off any day except the weekend and I have all of them put on alarm and set to go off every day and it’s so stupid that I’m about to break my phone over it because I have to wake up early to shower but my phone never lets me