iPhone not getting text notifications

You’re right, turning off Bluetooth and my husbands phone made absolutely no change. I’m very grateful that someone in the community told me about the crescent moon next to my husbands text message and enabling it. I hope you find a solution soon, this was extremely frus

I’ve been dancing around this issue since I purchased my 8+ back in September. Nothing seems to work for long and it’s a huge problem as I rely on security alerts from alarm systems @ my home/business.

This is driving me nuts!!! I thought my iPhone 6 was just getting old and tired - it had multiple issues. So I purchased an iPhone 8 Plus less than 2 weeks ago. The same issue!!! I either get a banner notification and then it disappears after a matter of time (phone not in use) or I don’t get notified at all. I took this phone to the Apple store today they did a total reset. Back to factory restore. I lost all my texts and other things. Yep, I still have this issue. What is the deal???? Fed up.

mine has been off. I’ve done all of the usual fixes and in general, they work some of the time. The best fix so far is to turn off Bluetooth when not using BT. After turning it back on (for car pairing) it’s ok for a while, sometimes days, sometimes hours.

i think it’s a known bug that goes WAY back to ios10, maybe further. The bug gets ported forward with each revision. It’s clearly not operator error.

I got a nice fix from - I can't remember but step in here, like be2be2 or 2be2be? - anyway that was the watch fix that worked! - but there are several things to check

1) be sure do not disturb is NOT turned on, either on the watch or phone

2) check your message alerts status by going to everyone in your messages, click their name, then click the tiny i in the circle, top right and be sure you do not have HIDE ALERTS turned on for anybody.

3) and THIS is the big fix that works for me - hahahah - I LOVE my watch but that hits the bluetooth problem and here is the fix - two things - go to Watch > General > Do Not Disturb > Mirror iPhone should be off

then on the watch itself turn OFF the ringer.

4) If you are wearing bluetooth headphones and the watch is not the problem:
go to Settings > General > Accessibility > Call Audio Routing > Speaker - if you have it set to bluetooth headset or automatic you may not hear the call.

5) nothing working out of these - try this:

Settings> General> Accessibility > LED Flash for Alerts - turn this on (makes the phone light up like a disco ball)

Let this post know what works or not so others will know too

I personally really dislike the apple store people. They will use a total reset for anything they don't know and because apple calls them 'geniuses' they don't ever want to say they don't know.

Try these:

go to settings > Notifications > Messages > and set the banner to Persistent - you probably have it on Temporary

Allow Notificatios should be ON

Sounds - should be something LOUD

Show on Lock screen ON

Show as Banners ON

also be aware that if you listen to music and have the volume low, check Settings > Sounds - and make sure Change with Buttons in OFF - you can turn your ringer ALL the way UP and still have your music set low. If you have it ON, then turning down the music turns down the ringer of the phone too

Thanks for the help. All the suggestions and settings I currently have set on my phone or have tried. It’s one of those things that is just totally annoying. I can’t believe how long people have been dealing with this and there is no specific fix. The only thing that has helped - a little- is I have turned off in messages show in history. But it’s not a true fix and hasn’t permanently helped.

Thanks again.

I spent about three hours experimenting and writing down what I tried and what worked... yes, I am a rocket scientist..... here’s what I conclude....

1) ipads, running ios11, do not exhibit the problem

HERE IS HOW YOU LOSE AUDIO NOTIFICATIONS OF TEXTS....

Make sure that you are not near any BT devices that are ON

Make sure BT is OFF on the phone and that ALL BT devices are disconnected

in settings, go to SOUNDS and test the text tone. It’s working, right?

Now turn BT on, and connect with a device (I use my car)

Try the SOUNDS/TEXT TONE again, no sound, right?

And... btw, note that the alert sounds aren’t even transmitted to the BT device.

now, reverse it all

find your device in the BT device list, disconnect, turn BT off.

go to SOUNDS and test as before.... sounds are back, right?

so.... it’s a BT problem

1). Connecting the iPhone to a BT device knocks out audio alert tones AND

2). Tones are not transmitted to the BT device

just as an aside, before I discovered this, I had incredible problems with my brand new Subaru Impreza refusing to recognize my phone, even though, the phone showed connected and the Subaru showed connected. Music played fine through BT, yet car said phone wasn’t there. Subaru replaced radio twiDe. I now know it’s the phone. Oh, one more thing.... texts are not transmitted to the car system when this happens. *****.

Philip says:

1). Connecting the iPhone to a BT device knocks out audio alert tones AND

2). Tones are not transmitted to the BT device

but I have AirPods and I get both ring and text tones through the AirPods which are turned on and working - what screwed it for me was my apple watch - which I LOVE and will not turn off - but since I turned off the ring on the watch, I am not having the problems with bluetooth

If you search this forum, you’ll see that on occasion, AirPods will behave exactly the same way as other BT devices, that is, they will drop part of the connection, still receive, but no notifications. The solution is to drop the watch from the BT device list. Clearly, it’s the same BT issue.

the better question is why isn’t apple doing anything?

I sympathize. I’ve tried everything. Today I did another experiment because I thought I was only having the problem in my car. I turned on my BT devices one by one... it’s an APPLE problem.... when the iPhone connects to a BT device, it does not pass along the sound notifications. And YES, in each BT selection, notifications turned on.

My iPhone was connected to BLUE TOOTH and I ALWAYS had audio alert tones. So it's not right that after the UPDATE all of a sudden there are NO audio alert tones. Mine has nothing to do with the BlueTooth being connected.

My iPhone does the same thing. It USED to get text messages displayed AND a tone notification all the time. But since the last update, now I don't get an audio OR visual notification. Both are checked where they're supposed to be checked. But the MAIN thing is it USED TO WORK just fine! Now it doesn't.

Sometimes these forum solutions don't apply to me, or just don't work. This thread has been very helpful and this solution worked for me. This issue started when I updated to 11.2.6. I had not seen it in version 10 or in earlier versions of 11. Thank you again for this info and the solution!

I have been struggling with this problem for months, thinking it was due to turning on/off Bluetooth. I checked the volume, notifications, Do Not Disturb, etc.

I finally found another forum that said there's a button for "Hide Alerts" from specific people or conversations! This is different than the general Do Not Disturb button.

If you are not getting the beep notifications from certain people only, open the text message and click the "i" next to their name at the top. Make sure that "Hide Alerts" is turned off (slid to the left and all white). Check this for each contact that you are not receiving notifications for. After doing this, I started getting the beep again.