iPhone alarm is silent randomly

IdrisSeabright wrote:

Yes, that is definitely the issue for some people. Unfortunately, not for all.

The issue for ME was that I changed the time, and inadvertently hit the AM/PM dial and changed it to PM.

Lawrence Finch wrote:

IdrisSeabright wrote:

Yes, that is definitely the issue for some people. Unfortunately, not for all.

The issue for ME was that I changed the time, and inadvertently hit the AM/PM dial and changed it to PM.

I've done that. More than once.

I'm having the same issue... probably for about a year now. I found something that works from an earlier reply. When I switch the phone to mute, the alarm sounds loud and clear. I shouldn't have to remember to switch my phone to mute every night. Apple PLEASE FIX THIS PROBLEM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’ve noticed that a calendar notification that is issued at the same time as an alarm will cause both of them to be cancelled out (i.e., the alarm will not sound and the notification will not be displayed). I do hear a very truncated sound which can easily be missed.

I don't know if this is a known problem.

Try this work around: Set your alarm a few minutes before or after the hour, quarter hour or half hour (assuming most calendar events start on the hour, quarter hour or half hour, then most alerts will occur at these times also and this conflict will be avoided). I do not know if any other app alerts cause this problem with alarms.

I hope this helps.

Cavcat wrote:

I’ve noticed that a calendar notification that is issued at the same time as an alarm will cause both of them to be cancelled out (i.e., the alarm will not sound and the notification will not be displayed). I do hear a very truncated sound which can easily be missed.

I don't know if this is a known problem.

I've never heard it mentioned before but, it is known that setting an alarm in Bedtime at the same time as the standard alarm will result in no sound. So, this makes sense. Good detective work.

I am having this problem, too, and I don't have multiple alarms set. (I have about 30 created, but only 1 set at a time. In the past, I've often set 2 and had no problem.)

The first sign of a problem was with google maps not interrupting a phone call yesterday to tell me the directions. Then today, I was speaking on app Just Press Record and the maps app was silent, so I drove 20 miles out of the way before I noticed.

Tonight, a timer went off silently. I saw the screen saying it was going off, but no sound. I tried the alarm, and it rang a single tone at about half volume, and then continued at barely audible volume. This repeated each time.

I messed around with everything suggested, changing the ringer volume to various settings, include max and zero, to try to reset it, shut the phone down and restarted it twice, tried airplane mode, and changed the ringtones for alarm and timer several times, and deleted about half my alarm settings.

After all this, the timer is now going at about half volume, and the alarm was going about 3/4 volume. (In each case, when I select the ringtone, I hear that at full volume, and that's my comparison. (I keep setting the alarm to go off a minute later, and with the timer, 5-10 seconds later, so I hear it right after, so I have a proximate comparison.)

Now I have removed more alarms and set them to "silk" again and for the moment, both alarm and timer are suddenly working. That's after 45 minutes fiddling with all these things. No telling how long this will last. Maddening.

It's 5 minutes later. I tried them again. The alarm is back to half volume, the timer 1/4 volume. Neither would wake me. Sigh.

(I have never used bedtime or Do Not Disturb. I double-checked that they are both off, as is the box to allow the volume buttons to control alarm sound. (In hopes of resetting something, I actually activated each of those, went out of settings, returned and turned them off.)

Woodburyfamily wrote:

You don’t understand what is going on.

Gus was starting with the basics. And yes, sometimes the problem with the alarm not working properly is that people have the volume turned down. Other times it's a conflict between alerts. And, in a fair number of cases, it's not at all clear what the problem is. That's why you start at the beginning and work your way through troubleshooting.

I had the same problem. Never had this issue before before iOS 11. Now the alarm sound setting flips to 'none' on its own. Missed several important corporate meetings; very embarrassing for a director level employee to try to explain. So why does Apple think anyone would choose 'none' for an alarm sound????

Has anyone been able to successfully fix this issue? The alarm on my iPhone X continues to randomly switch to vibrate. I have no idea if my alarm is going to go off in the morning or not. Between my wife and I, we have had every iPhone model that has come out. I am not sure if this is an iPhone X issue, or an iOS 11 issue? Apple, please help!!!

damonerin wrote:

Has anyone been able to successfully fix this issue?

There is no one issue. The alarms can not be audible or not go off for a number of different reasons. It is neither an iPhone X nor an iOS 11 issue. And, Apple is not here.

There are a number of things to check. Check that you didn't set a BedTime alarm in the Bedtime section of the Clock app for the same time as the regular alarm. Delete the alarms and add them back. Make sure that you don't have apps set to send you alerts at the same time as the alarm (If you set the alarm for the top or bottom of the hour, set it for a minute earlier or later). Check the volume in Control Center.

Thank you for the reply, it has been well received.

Unfortunately, I would have to disagree with you regarding it being an iPhone X or iOS 11 issue. As I mentioned before, I have had every single iPhone model since the very first edition. This issue has never happened to me with any other iPhone model, nor has it happened while using any of the previous iOS releases. I did not start experiencing this issue until having the iPhone X, running on iOS 11.

I understand that there could be a lot of factors that could cause this issue. All of the things you have mentioned have been checked, and are not the cause of my problem. I should have listed my issue in more detail, please see below:

I always have 2 alarms set to go off in the morning, just in case the first does not do the job. The alarms will be set for 5:03 am and 5:09 am. Neither of them set to go off exactly on the hour. The alarms will work fine for several days to weeks with no issues. Then, for no reason, the alarms will go off, but only on vibrate, NO SOUND! This is the same alarm that has worked for many days in a row, not a new alarm that was created incorrectly, but the same alarm that has been working just fine.

When this happens, I will then quickly create a new alarm (with sound), to go off the next minute. When the alarm goes off, again, no sound, only vibrate.

I have also noticed that when this happens, my phone will not make any sounds at all, only vibrate. If I receive a phone call, no ringer, only vibrate. Then, when I answer the call, I cannot hear the person on the other end, no sound at all. I have been told that the person on the other end can hear me, but I cannot hear them.

The only way that I have been able to temporarily fix the issue is to delete all of the existing alarms, then do a hard reset. Once the hard reset is complete, will go in and create the new alarms and the sound is back, working like it should. Again, this is only temporary, because eventually the same thing continues to happen. Unfortunately, I never know which morning it will choose to stop working correctly.

damonerin wrote:

Thank you for the reply, it has been well received.

Unfortunately, I would have to disagree with you regarding it being an iPhone X or iOS 11 issue. As I mentioned before, I have had every single iPhone model since the very first edition.

I believe IdrisSeabright said that it was not an iPhone X or iOS 11 issue based on the fact that she and I have been seeing and answering posts that describe this real issue going back several years, long before the iPhone X or iOS 11 existed. As to why you have not seen it before and you do now I don't have an answer, but many others have had this issue with older phones and older versions of iOS.

For me (!) it is also an iPhone X iOS 11.XX issue only. In 5 years iPhone 5 no issue and also my iPhone SE with the latest iOS didnt have that issue.

The whole iPhone X soundsystem crashed. Only a restart will fix it. Also connecting and disconneting to a Bluetooth Headset/Soundsystem will fix the problem for me.

I don't doubt you. But, as the problem has been affecting people for years, it should be approached as a randomly occurring software issue rather than a specific hardware or version issue. You are much more likely to find a solution if you approach it that way.

I am new to this discussion, but I'm responding to your comment because what you suggested is not what's causing my problem.

I have been experiencing these alarm issues for many years, across multiple iPhones (4s, 5, 5s, 7). I always thought I was crazy and just dealt with being late to work because my freaking alarm wouldn't wake me up.

My issue is exactly as others described. Usually my alarm would go off the first time, then I'd hit snooze (not volume or anything else), and wake up 2 hours later with no sound but the screen would show that the alarm was going off. So infuriating!

I have just 1 alarm in my entire phone and I never ever open it or change it. Even on holidays when I don't have to work, I still don't touch the alarm (although I've never been lucky enough to experience this issue on THOSE days).

To be clear, I don't even have alarms that aren't set to on or anything as I have just one alarm. I do not use bedtime either.

It's really weird that the alarm works perfectly for a good period of time, and then suddenly it stops working (always after the first snooze).

I had this issue this morning and I did not have any calendar notifications. I did get a Twitter notification on the same minute as my alarm, but not sure if it was exactly the same time or not, but there weren't any notifications at alarm time + 9 snooze minutes but was at alarm time + 14.