Assume that you are in a meeting or talking to someone and don’t want to get disturbed with the unending notifications. What do you do? Well, you can silence the phone using the silent profile on iPhone XS Max or reduce the volume of notifications that must do the job. Some might even go further by blocking the notifications allowing only a handful of apps to send you notifications unless you want to disable all. Anyways, what if you have silent the phone but the phone goes off anyways even when it isn’t supposed to, what’s the problem? It is although not a common problem but it is not a rare problem and I am sure about it. The reason why it happens is due to software or technical glitch causing the incoming notification to sound even though you have entered a ‘silent’ profile.

The reason might be many but the result is that it is irritating because you have put your phone in silent mode for a reason in the first place. Thus, here are a few ways you can fix the iPhone XS Max notifications that play in silent mode using all the potential ways to fix it so refer this troubleshooting method to know more.

How to fix iPhone XS Max notifications that play in silent mode?

Mentioned hereon are a few key methods that will help disable the notifications when the silent mode is activated and also curb any notifications from leaking when the mode is active.

Restart your iPhone XS Max (Soft Reboot)

You did see it coming. This is the first thing anyone would do naturally whenever they end up in a problem with their phone and notifications that play in silent mode is no exception. The idea behind this issue is that there is a firmware issue or crash that took place either when you turned on the silent mode or when that particular notification(s) buzzed on your device. There are possibly numerous ways that could have happened such as outdated firmware or bad app or firmware updates, corrupted cache data, abnormal app behavior, and whatnot. Thus, a quick soft reboot must work in your favor although take a backup of any unsaved data as it will vanish once you are done through with the said method.

  • To perform a soft reboot on your device, press Side/Power button, and long-press any volume button.
  • As soon as a slider with the command ‘Slide to Power Off’ comes active on the screen, you can let go of the buttons and slide the slider to turn off the phone.
  • Usually, you need to wait for a few seconds or a minute before restarting the phone and verify if the problem is still intact or not.

Toggle the Silent Mode again

In most cases the issue with silent mode not working as it should or say one or more notifications eventually leak through the system thereby triggering the notification sound, this could be a minor glitch and pretty much needs a toggle to fix. Long press on the volume down until it triggers the silent mode and press it again to turn it off. Repeat the said procedure a couple of times and that must fix the problem but if not, proceed to the next troubleshooting method presented below.

Manage the ringer and Alerts On

Check out the ringer and alerts on your phone as you might have mugged up the settings thereby causing the phone to sound upon receiving notifications even in the silent mode. The settings are available within the Settings app on the home screen where you need to direct to Sounds & Haptics and tap on ‘Ringer and Alerts Slider. Adjusts the volume and observe if the notification that plays in silent mode on iPhone XS Max still exists or not.

Configure the Do Not Disturb (DND) service

The DND or Do Not Disturb feature can work wonders as it puts the notifications, alerts, and sounds in silent mode for a while or for all time until the feature is disabled. Toggling it a few times should jumpstart it or else you can check out if the settings are properly laid out.

  • You can toggle DND using the Control Center which is accessible on the home screen by dragging from upper-right corner to down similar to the notification panel on Android.
  • DND is denoted with a crescent moon icon here that you can tap on enable and tab again to disable.
  • To check out the settings, you can go to Home » Settings » Do Not Disturb where you will get a few settings to verify if the problem was indeed a DND’s fault or not.

Restore all the settings

Uprooting all the data saved on your phone and deleting all settings and apps may sound cynical which is why restoring all the settings must be enough. This will give your phone a boost while retaining all the data and it could fix any temporary issue as well so what’s in a try.

  • Firstly, open the Settings app on your iPhone XS Max.
  • Scroll and tap on ‘General » Reset’ and then, click on the menu item that says ‘Restore All Settings’.
  • This will be followed by an authentication page wherein the system will ask to provide the passcode so provide it and just let the system take over.
  • The process would take a few seconds or minutes and then, you can verify if there’s any effect or not.

Perform an iOS update

Is the problem too frequent or it is something that has happened a few times and stopped or is it something that came up after an iOS update? If your answer is yes for the last part, maybe the said iOS update might have triggered the issue although you can search for reference on the internet if it’s only you or other users are facing the same issue. If yes, it might be resolved in the next update. It is also possible that although the update sparked the issue, it was just you facing it and no other. Other possible reasons could be a software crash or firmware issue and thus, a new iOS update might help. This will fix the impending issues from the previous update while resolving the notifications that play in silent mode sparked due to any XYZ reasons.

  • To update the iOS firmware, you need to launch Settings app and navigate to ‘General » Software Update’.
  • Check if there’s any update and install it if yes or wait for a while to receive an update which is almost every month when it comes to iOS devices.

Put all the apps to the latest version available

Since you already took care of the firmware part, you need to take care of the part of the app as well which parts half of what the firmware supports while the other half is the hardware part. Anyways, abnormally behaving app or apps can cause the notifications to go around the silent mode filter or there could be any glitch due to outdated apps causing the issue. Thus, updating all the apps is recommended and it works effectively in many cases so here’s how you can do it.

  • Firstly, you need to open the App Store application on your iPhone XS Max as we are discussing the matter on this iPhone but you can proceed with any iPhone possessing this problem using this entire troubleshooting guide.
  • Check out the apps section and you will find if there’s an update available for any apps or not.
  • If yes, tap on ‘Update’ against each app or click on ‘Update All’ if there’s a button available.
  • For next time, remember to set up auto-update using this canonical procedure i.e. Settings » iTunes & App Store » Updates.

The ultimate takedown

First up, notification sound going off when your iPhone XS Max is in silent mode is not a big deal if it happens once or twice or say sometimes. On the flip side, having the problem intact registering a sound when a notification is received could be a problem. Unless you can’t live with that, you need professional help. I am not saying every device encountering such an issue possesses a hardware issue but there might be a small fraction of the devices with it while a major fraction goes for software issues that you are unavailable to solve which is why a professional could fix the problem for you at a premium. Note that you can either visit a third-party service center or an authorized service center based on your preference although both have their pros and cons.