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Notification sound but no notifications

Zimmy68

Zimmy68

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Jul 23, 2008
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This is an odd situation that just started happening to me in the past few weeks.
I'm not sure even how to explain it properly.

Both my iPad2 and iPhone 4S (tied to the same account of course) at odd times will make a notification type chime but not the standard notification sound.

If you look at the pad or phone, nothing pops up on the lock screen or home screen.

I have no idea what it is or how to turn it off.

Anyone have an idea?

Thanks.
 
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I have had this issue on my iPhone before as well. Sometimes when I'm using my iPhone all of the sudden it will make the notification sound, but I have no messages or notifications. It's really weird! Bad bug...
 
maybe it's from a app with just sound notification turn on (notification center, lockscreen, badge, alert turn off)
 
I noticed a similar problem with email reception notification, sometimes it will come several seconds or minutes after I check email. Maybe there is a similar "lag" happening here ?
 
Iphone 3GS IOS 5

I just upgraded to IOS 5 two days ago. My iphone 3gs is not jail broken. I also just had some alert "vibes' with no alert and no messages. Thought that was odd. Then, I received a SMS message and my phone made the audible alert for the message, but the phone side switch was switched to vibrate!

So, it made the chime for the SMS message, even though it was on vibrate.
 
I had this problem a while back, turned out it was the ebay app sending a notification when I was watching something that was ending soon.
 
Grrrr, just did it again.
Seems to do it once a day at different times.
Sounds just like a confirmation tone.
I was listening to the Sirius app, it lowers that volume, plays the beep.
But, of course, zero on screen notice.
How did you know it was ebay?
I have some search notifications but I get those via email.
eBay also displays on screen when it notifies.

It also does it on the same time on my iPad.
You hear it on the phone, and less then a second later, the iPad.

It's driving me nuts not knowing what it is.
 
Zimmy68 said:
Grrrr, just did it again.
Seems to do it once a day at different times.
Sounds just like a confirmation tone.
I was listening to the Sirius app, it lowers that volume, plays the beep.
But, of course, zero on screen notice.
How did you know it was ebay?
I have some search notifications but I get those via email.
eBay also displays on screen when it notifies.

It also does it on the same time on my iPad.
You hear it on the phone, and less then a second later, the iPad.

It's driving me nuts not knowing what it is.
Click to expand...

you can check the apps list in Setting > Notifications
pay attention to apps only have "Sounds" or "Sounds, Badge"( both in NC and not in NC list), turn those apps completely off or just turn alert/banner on.
 
Ok, I'm pretty sure I figured it out if anyone cares.

I'm 99% sure the app that is causing this issue is Gmail.

Everytime I get a new email, it makes the phone and iPad beep (sounds like the Siri beep) but nothing else.
It doesn't turn on the lock screen or anything.

I just checked my notification list and noticed Gmail on there, it was set up to display notifications but oddly, never does.

I sent an email to my Gmail account and viola, a beep but no notification.

I see nowhere in the app (which is a glorified web browser I think) to set notifications.

So, if anyone uses the Gmail app, do you notice the same behavior?

Thanks.
 
If that doesn't prove to be the issue, check the apps that are notification-enabled in Settings. I had the same thing happen and it turned out to be one of the apps I didn't use - like "reminders", or something like that. There would be a sound, but nothing else.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A406 Safari/7534.48.3)

Sometimes if you ignore an SMS, it will altert you a second time, but with no visual indicator. It's under Notifications > Messages > Repeat Alert
 
I've had this happen to me also. It's not any one App as far as I can tell. My iPad and iPhone use to work perfect with notifications (given the same Apps were in play).

Then one day I turned off a few on the iPhone. A few days later when I turned them back on I began to notice they were not working correct and as the OP posted I started noticing the same thing.

I think it's either a bug or the App dev has done something where the App does not work correct with notifications. Guess I'm not sure but I have the same issues still today.

I hope it's fixed with the next update.
 
SMS tone sound notification but no SMS

ok I dont really know how to explain this.

when it first happened I did not witness it. my Partner said he heard an SMS sound notification while I was away from my iPhone 4s, then I checked and it was only XMS eBuddy messages but not SMS. my partner did not believe that when I said there was no SMS, it was just XMS eBuddy messages notification. the notification tone for my SMS is (Tritone) and for XMS eBuddy is (Notify 2). I had an argument with my partner because of that.

TODAY! this thing happned again while I was surfing the internet on my iPhone 4s, SMS sound notification alerted me so I opened my SMS folder but there was no message, it was only XMS eBuddy message again.

why is it like this? I am not sure if I explained my case correctly here.

I need to know if this is got to do with notification centre and how the setting is or what?

please help! :( :confused:
 
Facebook Notifications was my issue

Just in case you haven't found the solution yet - Facebook notification center has a setting that plays a sound if the window is open in a browser. I was getting a sound every time someone posted on my posts or like a post. It was driving me crazy. I turned it off in Facebook/Setting/Notification center.
 
I solved this problem

I went into setting>notifications>Mail and then checked both my yahoo and gmail. I noticed that under my gmail account, view in lock screen was off, so i turned it on and tried to email my self, locked the screen, waited and presto. the sound notification and the message came up at the same time.

for other users, it could be a different app under notifications. just make sure that "view in lock screen" is on, or check if you have banners or alerts turned on if sound is turned on.
 
Iphone random notification chime explanation

I too had noticed that annoying chime on my Iphone 5 and as a test I sent into sound settings and changed ALL of my notifications so they were set to make a SWOOSH sound instead of any other alert notification options. I continued getting that annoying chime.

Then I realized it started right after I set up the new Gmail notifications where you can get a pop up alert at bottom right corner of computer - to let me know when new msgs have come in (similar to Outlook). I guarantee that by agreeing to that pop up notice that I also unknowingly agreed to the smart phone chime/alert. I saw another reader suggest Gmail as the issue as well and I think they are right.

As another test I am going to use my laptop to send myself an email to Gmail acct and see if I get that chime soon after. If I do, then I will disable that Gmail pop-up notification function and send myself another email and see if it ceases. I will post results of this test in ten minutes.
 
Iphone chime - test failure

Well I said I was going to test to see if Gmail notification settings affected/caused the odd chime and my test email did not provoke a chime. I will go read more of the replies to this subject and see if I missed any solutions.
 
Same Problem - driving me crazy

I first noticed this issue after upgrading to IOS7 on my iPhone5. I was awakened to this alert sound even with Do Not Disturb active. I checked all of my alert sounds and none were set with this particular alert sound. I also went through all of my notification center alert settings and assured that all were either "off" or "banner only" and sound "OFF". I even rebooted my phone. The alerts are still occurring at seemingly random times and NO alert messages are displayed. Let me know if you or anyone else finds a solution.
 
Same problem on iPhone 5S

I'm also experiencing the same problem on my iPhone 5S. It started on Feb 9th and it's crazy-making. The alert sound is the Tri-tone. I have no notifications set to this sound. If someone comes up w/ a solution, I'll be glad to hear it.
 
fdkat said:
Thank you Zimmy68! Gmail, indeed, was the source of my "mystery" sounds.
Click to expand...

It's awesome to see this thread back from the dead.

It took me months to figure out what the issue is.
Now I am used to seeing Gmail pop up on the screen when that sound is made.

It was driving me crazy.

Glad I could help.
 
I figured out why this was happening to me with the Mail app on my mac (OS X Yosemite 10.10.4). I have a couple filters setup where certain emails bypass the inbox. For some reason, I get the audible notification for these emails, but not a visible one (banner).

On a separate note, even if I turn off audible notifications for Mail, they still sound for all emails. I don't know how to fix that...
 
This just started happening tome today. I was sending test emails expecting the catchall to forward them to me. I hear the notification that the email arrive, but, there isn't anything. And, yes, I use gmail. OSX Yosemite has been a disaster since I installed it. Where are the emails going? I need to see them. What else am I missing?
 
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