iPhone alarm is silent randomly

grahamfromweston wrote:

I have resolved this issue for me at least by following these steps:

1. Go to Settings/Sounds
2. Ringer and Alerts was set to zero volume, Change with Buttons disabled
3. Not sure how this happened but it meant that no sound would come out on any Alerts or Alarms. And setting the volume to maximum would have no affect
4. Set the volume to the level you want - you can leave Change with Buttons as disabled (which is useful because the volume of Alarms can remain quite loud even if your volume is down low the night before).

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

Calendar reminders were causing this problem for me. My iPhone 7 started doing the same thing around Dec. 2017. The alarm screen would display as if the alarm was sounding (with the option to stop or snooze) but it would be completely silent. This seemed random and I definitely know your frustration. I finally figured out what’s going on with mine. I usually set calendar reminders 2 hours before appointments. I also set my alarm to wake up about 2 hours before I have to be somewhere. If I have my alarm set for 3am and a calendar appointment at 5am with a reminder set for 2 hours before the appointment my alarm will sound for a fraction of a second (literally) then my calendar reminder will ding and the notification will pop up, silencing the alarm. The alarm screen will stay up but there’s no sound whatsoever from that point forward. I now try to be careful about not having calendar reminders set to go off at the same time as my alarm. That seems to have fixed the problem for me. This has to be a bug in the newer software versions of clock or iOS because it was never an issue before about a year ago and my habits with alarms and reminders hasn’t changed. It happened a few minutes ago while I was awake so the problem hasn’t been resolved with software updates. Hope that helps you.

HOW TO FIX IT: finally got mine to work after months of struggling with these issues. Go to settings>accessibility>voice control>attention aware and make sure that the attention aware feature is OFF. This has finally made my alarm consistently work, I hope it will help some of you.

Hey I’ve had the same problem and I believe I have figured out why this happens. If you have multiple alarms set and you snooze the first alarm past the time the second alarm should go off, both alarms get canceled out. I have also missed important meetings and deadlines because of the lack of sound so I feel your pain. Test this out and see if it works for you, I’ve been much better off since I don’t set more than one alarm anymore.

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.

Hel_z wrote:

Hi there, I’ve had this same problem on my iPhone XS for a while and finally found the solution. Go to your setting — Face ID and passcodes — turn off Attention Aware Features. I had this on before and according to the Apple Store staff, your camera may be scanning for a face when the alarm goes off and therefore automatically turn the sound off. I’ve had no problems since then (a week ago) with the alarm, fingers crossed it will stay this way. Hope this helps.

How do you know that the person you're replying to, who posted two years ago, has a FaceID capable device?

It's highly likely that there are multiple reasons for people having problems with their alarms. Yours may be a solution for some people but, I suspect not all.

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 ;)

1) ALL - anyone on the Iphone 11 pro - go to FACE ID and passcode - turn OFF ATTENTION AWARE FEATURES - this casues HLAF the problem. Look in to what that is, amuse yourself that dev put it THERE, then turn it OFF. W T F!

2) There is a serious issue here beyond that, as the alarms are all different lengths in my phone - toggle between them when you test, and that may help you. Some are "long" some ring once. Try the long ones, which ALSO may change, but for now, try this.

cierrakayyy wrote:

My alarm clock has done the same thing to me and I think i know why....many of you say you set multiple alarms. Do you snooze the first one? I usually set 4 or 5 alarms and eventually, after snoozing them many time, the 9 minutes intervals will eventually pair up for two or more alarms...when this happens, the alarms will “cancel out” leaving the notification on the screen and not the sound. Also happens if you get a call at the very same moment the alarm is about to go off, I’ve witnessed these myself. Try spacing your alarms out or not snoozing..or only setting one alarm. Hope this helps!

Great suggestions!

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 think I figured out the issue. The problem is that the bedtime function also has a wake up alarm. And that alarm seems to override the regular alarm. So if it’s set as silent there, it will override any other alarm that comes on before it or while it’s active. To verify, create an alarm for any time then enable it. Then, enable the bedtime function and set the wake up time to be the same time as the alarm time.

It's not just the bedtime feature, it's the regular alarm as well. If you edit the alarm and then go to the ringtone or sound set for it, then okay the sound over and over until you can adjust the volume as loud as you want, it eliminates the issue... Until the next software update that often happens whole we sleep. Then the whole problem starts again. So frustrating. This volume should NEVER have to be worried about!!!!!!!!

Okay thanks. I did use the link at the top right of this page (visible once I had scrolled up to the top). I contacted Apple through Chat. They had someone call me. He said that since I have had this problem through 3 different Apple phones, he thinks there may have been an old bug that got transported from backup to restore each time I upgraded phones. He suggested I set my iCloud settings to backup everything that is worth saving, and once I know the iCloud has a complete backup of everything I need on my phone, I should then do a reset to original factory settings. And he said he will send me an email explaining how to do all of this. I told him I will probably try this solution in the near future when I have more time (but I guess I cannot complain until I have tried it, since he seemed to think it would fix the problem for me).

I think I know what the issue most people are encountering is... Basically if the screen fades to black after an alarm goes off pushing the 'home' button to wake the screen makes the alarm go completely silent while it waits for the user to select 'Snooze' or 'Stop'. It stays silent indefinitely. This is a massive design flaw in my opninion and has NOTHING to do with volume settings but nobody seems to have put their finger on the issue. I've woken up late countless times before I worked this out and it has been the same across many versions of iOS.

If this issue doesn't get resolved soon I really hope people would resist the urge to flood similar threads with suggestions of checking your volume and settings. I think it's safe to say most people would be smart enough to do this and it seems to have created an air of doubt around anybody who has experienced the issue MANY TIMES OVER MANY YEARS! I guess if you are a super chirpy morning person this will never happen but if you sleep heavy it's VERY EASY to do this by accident thinking you have hit snooze. Apologies for the tone but I find this issue and most of the threads addressing it very infuriating.

JS656, When you go into the main "Settings", scroll down until you find "Sounds and Haptics" and select that menu, then look for "RINGER AND ALERTS", and see if your volume scroller is set for maximum sound, or set for mute. That sound level is separate from your main sound levels. And if you don't want the volume buttons to alter your Alert Volume settings, then make sure the "Change with Buttons" is turned off.