Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Iphone alarm glitch - not ringing

Not Ringing Anymore.

This is so ridiculous; my iPhone alarm just won't ring anymore since Monday. I guess it is not going to ring anymore? :mad::mad::mad::mad:
 
November 2009 and still not working!

Add me to the list... and it's now late November 2009.
I've had 7 or 8 alarms let me down so far. I kept thinking I'd done something wrong like leaving the sound off or something, but now I know it's not me.
Just yesterday – 2 hours late for work and 2 kids very late for school!
What's going on here? Apple can't fix a simple thing like an alarm clock app?
WTF? Anyone would call this a 'fatal' app bug!

BTW: Legit iPhone 3GS, Latest OS etc, not jailbroken or anything.
 
Mine and my spouse's both!!!

Saturday the 14th of November 2009 my spouse and I both had our phones set to go off at 4am to catch a flight and neither did. We missed the flight which costed us to get on the next available flight. If it was not for both being set I would have thought one of us were crazy. It is the only time it has ever happened but now I am sure to set at least two different times to make sure.
(both 16GB 3GS running 3.1.2 not jailbroken)
 
Wow, that's unfortunate.

I've had 3 iPhones (different) 3 iPod Touches (1G,2G,3G) and it's happening on my iPhone and my iPod Touch.

I'm guessing this is a software bug. I would recommend restoring your iPhone, and then not restore it from a backup. So far, that has worked for me.
 
A solution!! For me at least...

I figured out what was wrong... and needless to say, I feel a little silly.

I had not been able to create ringtones and drag them into itunes (don't know why.... a different version of itunes possibly?) so when I jailbroke, I used SSA to go into the phone and add ringtones. Well, since then, I re-jailbroke and updated to the 3.1 software, and sometimes in the last six months or so, somethiing changed in itunes and I was able to drag ringtones in without having to use SSA.

When I restored, my phone set up my old alarms - which were set to use the old ringtones which were named differently. When those alarms would go off, the iphone couldn't find the old file, because it wasn't there anymore, it had a different name (from itunes).

Once I deleted all of my alarms and set up new ones, the problem was solved. Same thing with m ringtones, once I reset my ringtones they worked great. Same on my wife's. - I'll be cross posting this.

I hope this helps at least a few people-
 
This has happened to me twice however I have some new information to add:

This happened to me with both the 1st gen iphone, the 3G, and the 3gs

I have 2x 1st gens, 1x 3g, and 1x 3gs. I set all the alarms for the same time and some mornings they just don't go off.... :mad:
 
Mine does it about 2-3 a week; and I just had my 3gs replaced with a brand new one 3 weeks ago so it's definitely a software issue.

The only sure-fire temporary solution I've found is to reset my phone (hold down the home and lock buttons until it restarts) every night before bed.

The only reasons I don't really like doing this is because:
a) i have to reset my damn iphone every night!
b) It will reset the shuffle on the ipod.

Since doing this, I have no problems with the alarm going off after a reset. It just sucks having to do it every single time.
 
Wow, I've have 3 different iPhones (two 3G, one - current - 3GS) and have never jailbroken them, and I've had this problem every few weeks for at least two years now. It hadn't happened for months until today, so I thought it had finally been fixed. It seems just totally random. I don't know why but this is the first time I've actually thought to investigate the problem, rather than kicking and screaming.

I use my phone as my primary alarm, and I have a LOT of alarms (I was thinking this may be the cause, but with so many other people experiencing it maybe not...), they're all set for everyday, ranging from 3am up to 10pm. Altogether I have about 90 alarms, and I set them all to 'off', and just swipe 'on' the ones I'll need, the night before. I find this a more efficient way of dealing with alarms because I never really know which ones I'll need (At university I have to get up at various times throughout the week), so I have lots of preset ones and I can just choose whichever ones I want the night before.

Anyway, I used to choose close to 10 alarms some mornings (usually because it was important) and that was when it seemed to happen more frequently, so I started using less alarms, and for me it seemed to work, not completely, but at least more than previously. This morning was no exception though. I set just three alarms to go off about 2 hours after I set them, and nothing. I had a university exam to get up for and I woke up almost 6 hours late, meaning I'll have to resit that exam next year...

The only two possible causes I could think of were:
Setting too many alarms (was thinking 5-6 was the limit), but this doesn't seem to be the problem, as it's happening with you guys too.
Setting the alarms to go off really soon (as opposed to 8 hours or so ahead), but again I think that may not be the problem.

I think I'll have to start using timers, as although I use those much less often, they've never let me down like this.

Maybe it's just totally random, a glitch in the software. Even so, I can't believe it's still going on after people noticed it nearly two years ago... I really hope they can fix this as it is very important for me, I think I'm going to have to buy an alarm clock. =[
 
Guys, I think i have it! :)

The Alarm system on the Iphone seems to work with notifications.

This first happened to me a few weeks ago, and i was late for work a few times and as an excuse it doesn't sound great.. I thought of everything and then i noticed that when i unlocked the phone in the morning after a failed alarm there were other application notifications before, in or around my alarm so i went to each individual application and turned off PUSH NOTIFICATIONS.

Applications that caused this issue for me the 1st time are:

Facebook
Pets LIVE
iMOBSTERS
WORLD WAR
RACING

The day after turning the notifications off the issue went away again until this week.. I checked the push notifications in the applications and they had all said NO PUSH NOTIFICATIONS so i was stumped... so i went into the SETTINGS application and took a look inside NOTIFICATIONS and found that ll the apps that were sending push notifications were actually down to keep sending them despite the settings i had put in the individual applications!!

This is a pattern that i am certain is the root cause of my issue. The push notifications can be unpredictable and can hide one scenario is:

I load WORLD WAR, do a few missions and excuse my energy, I close the app check my alarm is set and then go to sleep. In the middle of the night the Energy re fills and when its full the game sends me a notification, this notification doesn't always remain on the screen, this means when you wake up you might only see the notifications for your alarm with no trace the other applications have been sending you notifications that are expecting acknowledgment IE: You read and remove from the screen..

I have just taken off all my notifications and will be checking over the weekend. I use this as my main alarm and I have got in a lot of trouble this week. I dont want to have to buy an alarm, i have one in my phone and when it works its great!

I will update when I find out if it helped. Fingers crossed, it would be good if a few of you would also try this, that way we have a wider test group to prove this works or doesn't work... What works for one may not always work for all... :apple:


UPDATE

After turning the notifications off the alarm has worked all week... Apple need to investigate this issue with the notifications now, hope this helps you out
 
I'm glad it seems to be working properly for you now, and thanks a lot for the post+update, but in my case I have never turned push notifications on, although it does seem like the most plausible and believable explanation I can think of. It makes sense that that should be the problem, but as I have said I never have push notifications on, even through Settings>Notifications. Unfortunately, to me at least, this still remains a mystery.
 
Judus!!!!

I get push notifications every morning (well, all through the night) and there are regularly 3-4 to tap through after my alarm goes off every morning - yet it usually always goes off.

However, there have been three very important occasions where it failed so I added an alarm to my work BlackBerry too.

I had an 8:30 meeting today so I had to get up and get to work early. My normal alarm schedule for Thursday is 7:30 (I snooze a few times) and 8:30 (better be walking out the door). Both are the charming bell tower sound.

The Blackberry is setup to go off at 8:00a every day and on Thursday it signals "Ok, seriously; get up." Today, because of the meeting, it was my "Get out the door!" alarm. (I have a weird, fluctuating schedule but it all makes sense to me, even in the morning)

For today's important meeting, I setup 7:35 as an air raid siren (get the **** up NOW!). It's only 5mins after my first alarm but it was to remind me that the first one was serious and I couldn't afford to snooze :)

Clearly, I have my bases covered.

Or so I thought.

8:00 rolls around and I wake up to the sound of my Blackberry. No iPhone. I'm supposed to be walking out the door but I'm throwing myself together. 8:35 hits, I'm pulling into the parking lot and my 7:35 alarm goes off...just to insult me??? I turn the phone off because CLEARLY the thing is dysfunctional (I did check and verify the alarm settings were right) and wait 10mins before turning it back on.

THEN at 9:30, while I'm in the meeting I was 10mins late to, my 7:30 alarm goes off! AGH!!!

My prior issues with the iPhone alarm did NOT generate odd timing later in the day so this was completely new, but as I said originally, I always have push notifications in the morning and it's pretty much one from every app that is configured to send them haha - Godfinger, Facebook, Farmville, etc.

But I think I've figured out what the problem is:

My iPhone is sentient and hates me.
 
Disaster

I can't believe this stuff. My alarm almost NEVER goes off in the morning!!!! If i set it in the afternoon or the evening to test if it works, of course it will work. But when I need to get up for an accounting test in the morning, of course it doesn't work! If Apple could please help, that would be awesome. We all pay enough to at least get a decent alarm clock.
 
Pointless apple

Hi it's happened to me today, for the first time! It annoys me that this is an ongoing problem since 2008 and apple are so useless that they can't answer this simple tech question! My problem has coincided with daylight savings time and my alarm is going off an hour late. I really need a fix asap!
 
Frawdulant said:
Hi it's happened to me today, for the first time! It annoys me that this is an ongoing problem since 2008 and apple are so useless that they can't answer this simple tech question! My problem has coincided with daylight savings time and my alarm is going off an hour late. I really need a fix asap!
Click to expand...

Are you located in Europe by chance? If so, your issue might be a little different. Over the weekend, people reported that there was some DST glitch with the alarm clock not going off/going off an hour late. AppleInsider says that this DST alarm clock glitch might be fixed in the iOS 4.2 update (November).

Back when I joined this thread in 2009, the alarm on my 3G would just sporadically not go off. Shortly after my post, I guess it kind of resolved itself, I don't know. Also, since then I've bumped up to the iPhone 4 and (fortunately) haven't seen this issue yet.
 
Still happens with iPhone 4...

I just got the iPhone 4 a couple of weeks ago and it happened to me this morning! I have 3 repeating daily alarms that were previously set for 6:30, 6:43, and 6:45. Last night I decided to sleep in, so I reset them for 7:30, 7:43, and 7:45.

All 3 alarms went off an hour early at 6:30, 6:43, and 6:45! I've tried setting alarms today to see if they go off an hour early or at all, and they don't go off at all. So, it seems that my phone just got stuck remembering the old times even though I edited the alarms to have a new time.

How can such a simple phone use be such an ongoing issue?!
 
Problems only with recurrent alarms?

I've made some tests:
1. setting an alarm recurring all working days (using a near time to decrease waiting time) and the alarm fails.
2. edit previous alarm taking out the recurrent days, using another near time, and the alarm works.
3. edit the same alarm to set again the recurrent days and fails again.

My iOS is 4.1, also, I have a couple of development profiles in my iPhone, some of those will expire soon and some notifications are showed randomly. It might be related with those notifications, what I think is strange is the fact I edit the same alarm and only fails when the recurrent days were present. Only test with full week.

I'm not with the idea of activating the alarm daily... and since it start failing, I can only think in the near to expiration profiles as the other. Next thing to do will be to delete those profiles and test again.
 
KC2 said:
Are you located in Europe by chance? If so, your issue might be a little different. Over the weekend, people reported that there was some DST glitch with the alarm clock not going off/going off an hour late. AppleInsider says that this DST alarm clock glitch might be fixed in the iOS 4.2 update (November).

Back when I joined this thread in 2009, the alarm on my 3G would just sporadically not go off. Shortly after my post, I guess it kind of resolved itself, I don't know. Also, since then I've bumped up to the iPhone 4 and (fortunately) haven't seen this issue yet.
Click to expand...

I am in Europe I've noticed it's quite widespread the effect. I'm absolutely appalled that apple care so little about it's customers. They have known of this bug for weeks and because it's not America there has been no update to fix the problem. Even if they couldn't release the update then they could have warned Europe there was a potential problem rather than just let thousands of people find out the hard way and potentially face discipline at work. Bunch of wa***rs obviously running it. Well it'll be an htc next for me. A phone without these constant bugs.
 
Same problem

V 4.1 iPhone 4

I'm near London, England.

The problem started when the clocks went back an hour at the weekend. Like many others, it seems to ignore alarms with repeats. When I set it to got off adhoc, it seems to work. I'm gonna try manually setting the time on the phone to see if that helps. I wonder whether the Internet clock caused the issue when it set the time back an hour.
 
DMCMAH said:
V 4.1 iPhone 4

I'm near London, England.

The problem started when the clocks went back an hour at the weekend. Like many others, it seems to ignore alarms with repeats. When I set it to got off adhoc, it seems to work. I'm gonna try manually setting the time on the phone to see if that helps. I wonder whether the Internet clock caused the issue when it set the time back an hour.
Click to expand...

V 4.1 iPhone 3GS

I'm in Stockholm, Sweden.

Same for me: first time it happened to me was after the clock was automatically set back one hour last weekend. Never had any issues with this before. I had a few alarms for 1.5 years set to weekdays that has worked flawlessly until this monday.

I did test the same alarm with new time, didnt work. Reset phone, didnt work. Reset "weekdays" to daily: seem to work. But I dont trust it anymore. Very annoying.
 
Daylight Saving

Hi, just realised that the problem only started once the clocks went back an hour and the phones alarm still thinks it's an hour forward.

My alarm was repeated for 6:15 each weekday, but yesterday amazed when I went off at 7:15. Set the repeated alarm for 5:15 and it went off at 6:15 as desired.
 
If you iPhone Alarm is still not working

Guys & Gals

My girlfriend has had a problem with her iPhone 4 since Sunday when the clocks went back, I have had no problem with mine. She has tried all the delete this and that and reboots, they did not work in her case.

So! here is how I solved the problem.
First I went to Settings | General | Date & Time, here I switched off the "Set Automatically" This did not help however, I mention it because it may have had a difference on the final outcome.

Next! I changed the time manually, by setting the time 2 hours difference and resetting to the correct time, I don't know if this made the difference because of the last thing I did.

Finally! I reset the "Time Zone" Mine was on "London:England" and hers was "Europe/London".

The Alarms on her iPhone are now working.

So give these a go, I hope something here works for you.

One final note: I would not change back to any other phone in the world, iPhone Rocks.

kev
iMac G5, Mackbook Pro, iPhone and lots of other apple stuff, too much to mention.:)
 
Clock change affects alarms

Ive seen the same thing in Australia - except our clocks went the other way to the Northern Hemisphere. So my alarm thats set to go off at 7am goes off at 6am! The alarm must be working on Standard Time and not Summertime. I just changed the alarm to 8am so it rings at the right time, but its an annoying bug!
 
Thankyou thankyou Riverkash! Changing timezone to London,England fixed it. It must have been the mention of Europe. (don't tell UKIP, they'd love another thing to blame Europe for).
 
my alarm has not been going off for the past 4 days. i tried to do it right now, making it go off 2 minutes later, and it isn't going off.. no push notifications or anything else anyone said before.. it just doesn't work.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back