Facebook Pixel

Do Not Disturb Mode Bug – Not Receiving Messages Notifications

The fantastic feature, Do Not Disturb was introduced in iOS 12, and has been helping folks manage their communications since. But, a bug has crept in that has recently affected the communication with my wife; and like that needed more affecting in the first place…

do not disturb mode bug

*Not actual representation – I’m not as old, wife more beautiful.. and I don’t ignore her.. intentionally.. read on…

Do Not Disturb – But Even The Wife?

My attention was brought to this issue with a simple query, “Why the hell are you ignoring my texts!?”. Like many women, my wife does not appreciate being ignored, and my defence did little to placate her. Me, being a husband, wrote it off as a one time thing, and figured it would magically correct itself. How do you think that worked out? 

Doctors are the worst patients, techs are the worst at fixing their own tech problems… so I may have taken a week or two… three.. four(?) to figure this out. It was clear it wasn’t a one time thing, and no matter what settings I had turned on, her text messages and even FaceTime calls where being ignored all together. Unless I looked at the screen I had no way of seeing if she was trying to get ahold of me… this resulted in many a forgotten grocery items or pick ups of things. 

The root of the issue seemed to be Do Not Disturb Mode. I use it to prevent client calls from disturbing me at all hours. As much as I love you guys, I’m not going to answer my phone at 11PM while trying to catch the latest Picard episode! 

Do not disturb picard

Anyone calling me during Picard, runs the risk of pissing me off…

Emergency Bypass – Or There Could Be An Emergency

All joking aside, if I’m not getting messages and such from my wife, I could be missing more then groceries.. what if I didn’t get indication of a real emergency? Once I realized that, I figured it a good idea to get into troubleshooting mode and figure it out. Do Not Disturb Mode is supposed to make it easy to allow calls from certain people or entire contact lists, but this simply didn’t want to work in my case. 

Do not disturb

The options under Do Not Disturb allow you to STILL receive calls from everyone, no one, or favourites.. which should have worked in my case. You can also select a contact group that you have set up in your Contacts app. I did notice I didn’t have her text contact as a favourite, so I set that up to be disappointed; still no joy. 

Checking in the contact details, the Hide Alerts option was not toggled at all, so there simply wasn’t any reason her messages and such should not be coming through! Then I saw Emergency Bypass.

Do Not Disturb

I figured it’s worth a try, and would you believe I started being able to receive her messages even though Do Not Disturb was turned on!

This should not be. If Apple places filters in Do Not Disturb, then they should work as is easiest to interpret. When I see that setting, it tells me that if I toggle “Favourites”, that means even though I have Do Not Disturb turned on, I should still receive alerts from those contacts. Now, there has been call for a more customizable DND interface, and I’m on board, this panel needs some work!

For now, if you are experiencing a similar issue, simple go into the contact you NEED to be contacted from, and toggle the Emergency Bypass button. If you need assistance, contact us!

Follow me
Ryszard (Rick) Gold, From Calgary, Alberta, Canada has over 20 years of experience working with Apple products in a technical capacity. Passionate about technology in general, his natural troubleshooting abilities, curiosity and appreciation of good design lead him into working exclusively with Apple Computer products.
Ryszard Gold
Follow me

Facebook Comments