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Can't stop AMBER Alert from continually going off!

K

Kevin L.

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 17, 2008
72
0
I thought I was dreaming last night when my phone went off in the middle of the night and it was an AMBER alert. I silenced it and went back to sleep, only to be woken up two more times! It's continued to go off all day and won't stop... about once every couple hours. HOW DO I STOP IT?
There is no click/swipe action available when the alerts pop-up on my lock screen, and when I pull down notification center to view them, I can't click/swipe either. I now know I can turn-off all AMBER alerts in Settings, but I'd like to keep them active... just have them only go off once per "situation", and hopefully respect my silent hour settings as well. Is that too much to ask of Apple & ATT?
 
Settings > Notifications > amber alerts off/on:cool:

Edit - I guess you can keep the phone on silent if you want to keep the alerts on but do not want the loud alert noise too.
 
nonocei said:
Settings > Notifications > amber alerts off/on:cool:

Edit - I guess you can keep the phone on silent if you want to keep the alerts on but do not want the loud alert noise too.
Click to expand...

Thanks, good to know. It went off for the first time last night and I thought it had to do with the Waze app that I started using recently. I didn't know it was installed as part of the OS.
 
I had this happen way back in March or April on T-Mobile. Got about 6 amber alerts in ten minutes and about 20 all that day, all for the same alert. It's stayed off since.
 
Jalopybox said:
What a thing to be annoyed by. Might save a persons life. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

So how is it Ok to be at work one night and receive at least 6 amber alerts in less than ten minutes? It's not Ok. They need to add more options to these such as silent alerts.

----------

By the way, these are just as bad as getting a blizzard warning on the phone at 4AM 24 hrs in advance. The National Weather Service apologized for that goof.
 
Is it affecting android phones too?

Only reason I'm asking - I've been getting amber alerts down here in Atlanta on my droid phone for well over a year - never had an issue with it. But people on iPhones say it does give them duplicate alerts quite often.

Edit:I'm on Verizon.
 
thekingofnerds said:
Is it affecting android phones too?

Only reason I'm asking - I've been getting amber alerts down here in Atlanta on my droid phone for well over a year - never had an issue with it. But people on iPhones say it does give them duplicate alerts quite often.
Click to expand...

Only had it happen on my iPhone. Never got an amber alert on my Nexus 4.
 
I got one the other day on my HTC one. It was so loud and obnoxious, when I went to go see what my phone was doing and I saw the words "EMERGENCY" I though tthere was a tidal wave heading for my city or something
 
thekingofnerds said:
Is it affecting android phones too?

Only reason I'm asking - I've been getting amber alerts down here in Atlanta on my droid phone for well over a year - never had an issue with it. But people on iPhones say it does give them duplicate alerts quite often.

Edit:I'm on Verizon.
Click to expand...

I can confirm that. Last time I used it, there was a flood warning and the alert kept popping up every 20-25 minutes. And my particular area wasn't flooding, just rain. I've since switched them off and will stick to Weather Channel alerts.
 
No alerts for me in the second largest metro area in Iowa.

4 iPhones in the family, all on latest OS with the sliders visible, turned on, and on AT&T.

Tornado sirens sound, Amber alerts get broadcast on TV and weather radio for our area, and through it all the iphones in our family don't make a sound.

So far I'm unimpressed. I thought it would be a great feature, but evidently AT&T doesn't seem to actually send any broadcasts through - at least not around here.
 
madsci954 said:
I know the emergency weather alerts still go through with DnD on, so I would guess Amber alerts do as well.
Click to expand...

Amber alerts will still go through even though you have DnD on. This happened to me a few weeks ago in the middle of the night. I have since turned Amber alerts off. However, I have kept the emergency alerts still on.
 
To clarify some confusion:

Amber alerts will only go off once per situation, unless information is being updated. If you are in the LA area, you probably recently got a handful of them. Why? Because they were updating vehicle make/model/plates information as they got more. It might be the same abduction case, but as new, pertinent information becomes available it gets pushed as a "new" Amber alert. That is how it is supposed to work anyway.

The same goes for weather alerts by the way. Weather alert warnings always give an estimate by time, down t the minute. If/when that estimate is updated it is treated as a new alert. Those complaining that you are getting flood alerts while there is no flooding in your area really don't know how a flood works. It doesn't even need to be raining in YOUR area for a flood to come through. Weather alerts exist so that you can prepare yourself IF the need arises. The fact that there is a risk of flood does not mean there will be one. The fact that there is a risk of tornado does not mean one will touch down. Etc....

Not trying to trivialize the annoyance of an Amber/Weather alert waking you up while you sleep. And I am the first to say that the alert sound is something out of a horror movie. Just trying to explain why you likely got what you assumed was the same alert over and over again.
 
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/. has an article on their site about this very thing, especially since the latest Amber Alert dealt with that idiot of a man who kidnapped the 16 year old and 2 - 4 year old siblings after killing their parent. It went off here in California at 10:54 Monday night, with an update around 9pm Tuesday.

Though it was rather cool in a chorus-type way to hear everyone's iPhone go off in a choppy, echo-ey way at the airport in Las Vegas yesterday, as it went off there just as I was getting my bags. It was like it echoed through a canyon. annoying tone, but showed how sonically tuned the airport was.

BL.
 
dotme said:
No alerts for me in the second largest metro area in Iowa.

4 iPhones in the family, all on latest OS with the sliders visible, turned on, and on AT&T.

Tornado sirens sound, Amber alerts get broadcast on TV and weather radio for our area, and through it all the iphones in our family don't make a sound.

So far I'm unimpressed. I thought it would be a great feature, but evidently AT&T doesn't seem to actually send any broadcasts through - at least not around here.
Click to expand...

We lived in Iowa prior to Boston for four years and never received one either, though I know maybe only the last year or so was it even available. I would assume that this has something to do with local authorities and how they push the alerts through. I have the same phone I did then and we get alerts here in Boston. I wouldn't expect this to be an AT&T thing, though I could be wrong here.
 
Kevin L. said:
I thought I was dreaming last night when my phone went off in the middle of the night and it was an AMBER alert. I silenced it and went back to sleep, only to be woken up two more times! It's continued to go off all day and won't stop... about once every couple hours. HOW DO I STOP IT?
There is no click/swipe action available when the alerts pop-up on my lock screen, and when I pull down notification center to view them, I can't click/swipe either. I now know I can turn-off all AMBER alerts in Settings, but I'd like to keep them active... just have them only go off once per "situation", and hopefully respect my silent hour settings as well. Is that too much to ask of Apple & ATT?
Click to expand...

Son, you need to move out of that area ASAP!
 
lordofthereef said:
Amber alerts will only go off once per situation, unless information is being updated.
Click to expand...

Glad to hear other people had the issue with continually repeating alerts. In all, I probably had 20 alerts pushed to my phone throughout the 24 hrs following the first one... and I never saw any difference in the info they were pushing. I can understand one or two when info is updated, but why did they keep coming with identical info? Sounds like a problem with the server that sends them out to me. Again, I'm fine with getting AMBER alerts and trying to help, but I'm worried that if the system is flawed (like too many repeated alerts) then people are just going to disable them and the whole system will be pointless.
 
I've only ever gotten 1 flash flood warning. Went off in the middle of the night, about 30 mins before the storm hit, and only went off once. So mine has been working well, I suppose. AT&T 5
 
Kevin L. said:
Glad to hear other people had the issue with continually repeating alerts. In all, I probably had 20 alerts pushed to my phone throughout the 24 hrs following the first one... and I never saw any difference in the info they were pushing. I can understand one or two when info is updated, but why did they keep coming with identical info? Sounds like a problem with the server that sends them out to me. Again, I'm fine with getting AMBER alerts and trying to help, but I'm worried that if the system is flawed (like too many repeated alerts) then people are just going to disable them and the whole system will be pointless.
Click to expand...

I think this would be a safe assumption.

When they update amber alerts I know you should see texts that literally says "UPDATE: [insert new info here]". It's not the case with weather. Weather just updates the date/time at the end.
 
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