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watchOS 10 : Messages notifications

cwanja said:
If anything, it seems watchOS 10.1 made the situation even worse. Now a simple watch restart does not resolve the issue.
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Seeing the same thing here, which is a real drag because Messages notifications are, to me, the most important Apple Watch feature.

Edit: to add, the Messages complication does show a count, so the Watch knows that a message came in, it just doesn't do a notification.
 
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I did actually just receive a Message notification for an iMessage on my watch, so I sent a test SMS to myself, and I did not get a watch notification. So maybe the problem only occurs with SMS?
 
xraydoc said:
Reboot phone and see if that helps.
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Tried rebooting the phone and watch, didn't help, at least not as far as I can tell... tested right after, no text notifications, but they did start working later (and stopped again).
 
Did some experimenting and discovered that (for me, at least), it's not a Watch-specific problem. After removing my Watch, Messages notifications were also not working on the iPhone itself (they'd appear on the lock screen, but no sound and/or haptic).

After some searching, I found threads in various places complaining about Messages notifications no longer working with iOS17, but most of those threads said that the problem was solved with 17.1 (I'm on 17.1, problem still exists for me). But one post caught my eye... it mentioned WiFi as a factor, indicating that when WiFi Calling was on, Messages notifications would not come in, while when on cellular, they would. Bingo!

When at home, with WiFi (and WiFi Calling) on, Messages notifications do not come in. If I disconnect from my WiFi network, they do come in. This is readily reproducible for me... went back and forth several times. It explains why Messages notifications would not come in sometimes, then mysteriously would start work, then just as mysteriously would stop again... I never put 2+2 together and recognized that I was always at home when they were not working, and always out when they were.
 
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macphoto861 said:
When at home, with WiFi (and WiFi Calling) on, Messages notifications do not come in. If I disconnect from my WiFi network, they do come in. This is readily reproducible for me... went back and forth several times. It explains why Messages notifications would not come in sometimes, then mysteriously would start work, then just as mysteriously would stop again... I never put 2+2 together and recognized that I was always at home when they were not working, and always out when they were.
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Interesting, I will have to monitor and test myself. What makes no sense is why it randomly starts working, when you have not exited WiFi (at least for me).

I did start to wonder if Apple implemented some sort of logic to know if you are logged in to a macOS device with your Apple ID and stopped pushing the same notifications across your Apple Watch, iPhone, Mac devices.
 
First time yesterday I started to experience the notification issue with my S8 running 10.1
I would be receiving SMS messages yesterday morning but I’d say about 70% would refuse to notify via the watch ⌚️.
No Taptic feedback, no ding sound, no screen notification and no little red dot.
But when I’d go into messages via my watch the new message would be sitting there.

All of a sudden latter in the afternoon it began to work correctly again on its own.
Weird :/
 
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chriswhv6 said:
First time yesterday I started to experience the notification issue with my S8 running 10.1
I would be receiving SMS messages yesterday morning but I’d say about 70% would refuse to notify via the watch ⌚️.
No Taptic feedback, no ding sound, no screen notification and no little red dot.
But when I’d go into messages via my watch the new message would be sitting there.

All of a sudden latter in the afternoon it began to work correctly again on its own.
Weird :/
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See my post a few above... I was having seemingly random bouts of not receiving messages notifications, then inexplicably they'd start working again, then not. Turns out, in my case at least, it seems to be a bug related to being on WiFi (at least my home WiFi... have not yet tried it while on a network in a coffee shop or something). And again, this particular bug is not just with Messages notifications on the Watch... if I take the Watch off, the notifications do not correctly come in on the iPhone itself either (just appear on the lock screen... no sound/haptic).

I'm still trying to figure out exactly what reproduces the bug. In my "default" configuration, WiFi on and connected, and with WiFi Calling on, I get no messages notifications. If I disconnect from my WiFi network, those notifications will come in. Re-connect to WiFi and they stop again. I can do this over and over, very repeatable.

BUT... if I turn WiFi Calling off, that seems to trigger a condition where Messages notifications will not work, regardless of whether WiFi is connected or not. So, IOW, while WiFi being disconnected usually allows Messages notifications to come through, if WiFi Calling is also turned off, the notifications stop. Furthermore, doing this seems to put the iPhone/Watch in a "bad mood" where, even if I turn WiFi Calling back on (and wait for a bit to be sure it's activated), Messages notifications still don't work, even with WiFi disconnected.

After some time has passed (maybe an hour or so?), the prior behavior (where Messages notifications would come through when WiFi Calling was on but WiFi was disconnected) is restored.
 
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@macphoto861 at least for me, WiFi calling is not the sole issue of the bug here. I thought it was, but as I was literally typing this out, I was affected by the issue and not on WiFi calling.

Hilariously, a PREVIOUS iMessage notification reminder came through and worked, but new iMessage notification did not. What a mess.
 
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@macphoto861 for me the issue began when I was in my car driving so I was on the 4G network through my iPhone and my Watch does not have a cellular plan/connection.

I did notice the issue seemed more with iMessages only as the green standard SMS all were arriving through ok on the Watch.
Since that day though it’s been back to normal thankfully.
 
Just to add to the comedy here. In a group thread today, I would get notifications for some messages and not others.
 
This has been going on for YEARS for me... not necessarily the apparent WiFi trigger that I'm experiencing now, but it will work fine for weeks, months, then suddenly I'll notice I'm not getting Messages notifications. It eventually fixes itself, or a restart of the Watch and/or iPhone does the trick. That being said, I'm pretty sure up until just recently, it's been working for for quite a while, maybe even a year or so.
 
I’ve been experiencing the same issue with Message notifications just stopping - can see it on my watch, just don’t get notified (no issues with other apps).

A workaround I found was to kill the Message app after every use and notifications seem to work. Leaving it open in the background, it will just randomly stop giving me notifications.

I have had this problem on and off for a couple years (different phones and watches), not new to this years updates. And it’s only just Messages too, never had a problem with any other app.
 
cwanja said:
And now just sitting here, I got an iMessage notification. Seems extremely inconsistent.
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I did, too. Tim Cook says hi, and that he is looking at everything being discussed here and will make everything better the next time.
 
I've been seeing this too on my Series 7 watch under watchOS 10. Only really noticed it over the past two or three weeks, as notifications for all other apps seemed fine. It only seems to be an issue with Messages notifications. I've tried changing settings on the watch and on my phone, ensuring notifications are on and trying both custom settings and mirroring my phone. I'm hoping a software update will fix this.
 
Bbloke said:
I've been seeing this too on my Series 7 watch under watchOS 10. Only really noticed it over the past two or three weeks, as notifications for all other apps seemed fine. It only seems to be an issue with Messages notifications. I've tried changing settings on the watch and on my phone, ensuring notifications are on and trying both custom settings and mirroring my phone. I'm hoping a software update will fix this.
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What I did with my notifications is turn off the one that have little use on my AW U2. music, facebook, YouTube, all but one of my Astronomy Apps etc. This has improved my battery life a little. I kept the weather notifications, Flightradar 24, Patreon, QuakeFeed, Solar Monitor, and the heath apps. Another thing I found when I wore the Winter Parka was watch covered by the sleeve went to night mode which saved a little more battery time. A light blocking elastic wrist cover would do the same thing just pull back the band and the watch wakes up.
 
Just adding "me too", to raise general awareness of the problem.

Specifically, I've experienced intermittent failures to receive Messages notifications on my watch for YEARS.

I think one nuance that hasn't been mentioned enough is interaction with a laptop. All sorts of variations are possible:

1) Sometimes while I'm using my Macbook Pro I'll see a notification in the top-right corner and then the watch will vibrate almost immediately.

2) Sometimes I'll see the notification on the laptop but the watch will not vibrate and not show any.

3) Sometimes I'll be in another room, away from the sleeping laptop, away from the locked iPhone. No Messages notification on my watch. But when I check my iPhone minutes or hours later I will see that I had Messages and they didn't appear on my watch.

The whole thing seems very buggy. Don't count on receiving Messages on your watch for anything critical. Hearing a notification on the iPhone seems much more reliable.
 
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This seems to happen to me every time I update the iOs on my watch or phone. Then I spend an hour or two unpairing, repairing, rebooting, erasing network settings, restoring everything from cloud backup, etc etc, trying every suggestion from every Apple forum I can find, while loudly cursing Apple. I make it a point now to never update or upgrade right before any critical dates or times when I can’t afford to miss a message.
 
Phantom Gremlin said:
Just adding "me too", to raise general awareness of the problem.

Specifically, I've experienced intermittent failures to receive Messages notifications on my watch for YEARS.

I think one nuance that hasn't been mentioned enough is interaction with a laptop. All sorts of variations are possible:

1) Sometimes while I'm using my Macbook Pro I'll see a notification in the top-right corner and then the watch will vibrate almost immediately.

2) Sometimes I'll see the notification on the laptop but the watch will not vibrate and not show any.

3) Sometimes I'll be in another room, away from the sleeping laptop, away from the locked iPhone. No Messages notification on my watch. But when I check my iPhone minutes or hours later I will see that I had Messages and they didn't appear on my watch.

The whole thing seems very buggy. Don't count on receiving Messages on your watch for anything critical. Hearing a notification on the iPhone seems much more reliable.
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This really matches my experience. But it seems to have a lot to do with the Apple Watch App's settings on my iPhone. Except for using the Apple Watch to open my Mac Studio, or use it for a sign on someplace on Safari that is it for me.

IMG_8512.jpeg
 
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