IOS 14 Apple Finally Fixed Text Alerts

When I say turn the phone off, I don’t mean just press the button so the screen goes off, I mean actually turn the phone off. It’s probably worth trying a forced restart. You don’t lose any data or settings or anything by doing that and if only takes about one minute to do.

From Google for an iPhone 11 you do it like this.

Force restart iPhone X, iPhone XS, iPhone XR, iPhone 11, or iPhone 12. Press and quickly release the volume up button , press and quickly release the volume down button, then press and hold the side button. When the Apple logo appears, release the button.

Regarding unpairing and repairing your hearing aids, I don’t think that it would help at all but anyway it’s nothing to be frightened of doing.

Yep. I did a full honest to goodness turn off the phone completely and restart.

Oh, I know I should be brave about the pairing. I once had trouble re-pairing one of them and it was kind of a pain in the butt. I will try it soon though. Especially since this doesn’t seem to be a problem others have.

Thanks for your help.

Well good luck and do let us know how you get on!

I think it’s good to do the pairing when you are well away from other Bluetooth or WiFi transmitters because that gives the hearing aids and the phone the best chance of pairing successfully quickly. So not sitting next to your WiFi router for example!

Best

David

Something that I just noticed. If you change the Sound in Settings, Messages (the same setting also appears under Settings, Sounds), say from Note (the Default) to Aurora or whatever, you should hear your new sound choice played to your HA’s if everything is hooked up and working properly. If you want to continue fiddling with settings, this should be a convenient way of testing whether the hookup to your HA’s is working without having to have someone text you to test the sound settings for your HA’s.

If you set something else like an alarm or timer, you could also check if the alert goes to your HA’s. The timer in the iPhone Clock app works quite nicely for me. I set it on a 3-second countdown. That’s presumably Media Audio in the Audio Routing accessibility settings. Did you try putting that on “Always Hearing Devices,” too?

If the Audio Routing setting “Always Hearing Devices” did the trick, you could always create a SHORTCUT app to automate the process of turning on “Always Hearing Devices” vs. “Automatic” or “Never Hearing Devices” when you’re not wearing your hearing aids. I’ll have to refresh myself on how to create such a Shortcut, if possible, and post it in the Apple Shortcut thread that I created here awhile back: https://forum.hearingtracker.com/t/apple-shortcuts-in-ios-14-are-a-very-powerful-ifttt-like-feature-that-could-be-used-to-control-hearing-aids/55861?u=jim_lewis (member archive). If I can do it, I’ll update this thread here with a link to that post with an Audio Routing Apple Shortcut.

I’m sorry you have the problem too, except, well…I guess I’m glad it’s not “just me.”

Thanks much for chiming in. I reported the text alert issue to Verizon, my carrier, and they say “it’s a hearing aid issue.”

I still have AppleCare on my phone for a few months. Later today I will call Apple. It does sound like an Apple thing. I also just realized that I’ve lost hearing the “clicks” when I press the keyboard. Plus, in case anyone is wondering, I’ve had my partner Steve confirm that the text alerts are not “dinging” on my phone at all. (I’d assumed they were and I just wasn’t hearing them.) So it’s not “just” a hearing aid issue.

Losing the sound on text alerts has been an issue for Apple for a while now. I go into Settings, Sounds and Haptics, and play the sound to get it back, but it eventually disappears again.

I don’t direct any iPhone sound to my aids, but suspect that when the text alerts disappear they would stop going to the aids as well.

Interesting that the following web page appears to be iOS 13 vintage. But it’s an extensive rundown of all the things that one might do if one is not getting sound for text alerts. NOTE: the advice does not involve hearing aids but merely getting the sound with a text on the iPhone itself. So it would be interesting to hear from Noreen and anyone else if that is also a problem in this instance, no text alert sound even on the phone, let alone through HA’s.

The article suggests that if all else fails, go to an Apple Store and have the iPhone examined and if under Apple Care you might get a replacement phone with the problem fixed. The nuclear option of do-it-yourself is to factory reset the phone! Note that related to the suggestion of getting a new iPhone, the site is a phone reseller and a dealer in used smartphones so perhaps they have something of a vested interest in advising you that if all else fails and text sound alerts are very important to you, then trade in your iPhone and get a new one! Perhaps the advice is a bit out-of-date and we are now elsewhere on the iOS merry-go-round but at least it’s a comprehensive review of possible settings to check as of iOS 13 or so. iPhone Texts Have No Sound - A Guide To Fixing This Problem (buybackboss.com)5

Is public humiliation character building?

AppleCare figured it out. It all started when a few days ago I needed to take my phone out of the case. That when, I think, I inadvertently pulled that “silence” button forward. It’s the top of 3 buttons on the left side. All the “fancy” settings are all fine. All is well again.

Noreen! You’re too hard on yourself. That sort of stuff happens to us all. Years ago while driving through Napa Wine Country on the last day of a vacation, I had a smartphone in my pocket that somehow came on and the jostling of the car movement down the road caused it to repeatedly dial a university lab back in Texas. Whatever my wife and I were chatting about in the car probably got recorded on the lab answering machine. The machine then hung up upon reaching the time limit for a message. The phone got jostled again and made the same call, recording more phone conversation back at this guy’s lab. The whole process repeated itself at least half a dozen times. The head of the lab and I were not the best of friends. I dreaded returning to work Monday morning and seeing the guy again, wondering what sort of nutso guy that he might think I was repeatedly calling his lab phone on a weekend afternoon. The guy just thought it was a cute story, had a good chuckle. and thanked me for an explanation of the mysterious phone calls.

It would be great if they built a reminder into iOS such as you get when you turn on Do Not Disturb, i.e., you get a silent text and the OS reminds you that you’re not going to be hearing sound because you’ve left the Silent Mode button ON. Maybe even at icon as for Do Not Disturb up at the top of the screen… I do see that checking that Silent Mode switch is the first recommended step in the article I posted on “debugging” no text alerts: IOS 14 Apple Finally Fixed Text Alerts - #49 by jim_lewis. “Check the mute switch isn’t turned on.” It’s weird that when you test a sound in Settings that the iPhone does not flash a warning at that point that although you hear the sound now (as you did), the sound chosen will not sound in actual use because the phone is in Silent Mode, etc., …

Glad it’s working for you. If I may ask, are you getting any texts from Android users?

Yes, I’ve been getting texts (and audible text alerts) from one Android user since I unsilenced that side button.