Not receiving emergency alerts

I am not receiving emergency alerts on my iPhone 12 (I am getting Amber Alerts though.) My husband has an iPhone 8 & he IS receiving them. I have verified that our settings are the same. I have selected to receive emergency alerts & am also signed up for Smart 911 as well.

I did try a suggestion given to another user to toggle the alerts on & off, then turn off the phone. I did that but there was no change (another emergency alert came through around the time I did that, so there is a current alert). Any thoughts? Thanks.

iPhone 12 Pro Max

Posted on Jun 12, 2022 1:54 PM

Posted on Jun 13, 2022 11:12 AM

Thank you Katana-San. I did review that article already, but I appreciate the link. And I just tried toggling Airplane mode on and off as well.

I am not trying to discount KiltedTim; I am sure they are very knowledgeable. I did think I listed out the problem clearly, but maybe not. I’m starting to panic about this wildfire that is 6 miles away & there are 50mph gusts today, so that doesn’t help me be clear & concise. I’m sorry.

Here is the issue:

I am not receiving alerts from my county regarding the fire, but am receiving the occasional AMBER alerts, so some are coming through, just not the emergency alerts (WEA’s).

My husband IS receiving the fire alerts so I compared our settings; they are the same.

We both have iPhones (he has an 8, I have a 12) and are both on the same phone account.

I have toggled the emergency notifications off, force quit, waited then turned it back on & toggled them back on. Several times.

I called my wireless carrier, verified all the settings for emergency notifications are on.

I am not using a VPN.

I have googled multiple ways to fix this without luck and am hoping someone has some obscure fix that will work? Quite frankly, it makes no sense that it doesn’t work. And my panicking about this fire isn’t helping.

Anyway, I’m sure I’ve ticked everyone off and I’m sorry about that. I’ve never posted to one of the forums and don’t know the rules. At this point, I would delete it but I can’t do that so this post can just be buried if you all like.

Similar questions

Emergency Alerts My amber alert and emergency alert is not working on my iPhone 11 pro max, I have the alerts toggled on in the notifications, I have also tried to reset my iphone and still does not work. I am in California. Please advise

Emergency Alerts Iphone 14 pro All alerts are turned off on my phone but the emergency alert today 10/04/23 still came through. Could be very dangerous for some people that it cannot be turned off.

Why did I not receive a local emergency alert when everyone else did? Why did I not receive a local emergency alert when everyone else did when there was a tornado watch and the alert was cautioning to seek shelter & I didn’t get until over 5 hours later on my iPhone 12 Pro Max. yes amber alerts, emergency alerts & public safety alerts are set to ON and have been and I have unlimited data.

Loading page content

Page content loaded

Thank you Katana-San. I did review that article already, but I appreciate the link. And I just tried toggling Airplane mode on and off as well.

I am not trying to discount KiltedTim; I am sure they are very knowledgeable. I did think I listed out the problem clearly, but maybe not. I’m starting to panic about this wildfire that is 6 miles away & there are 50mph gusts today, so that doesn’t help me be clear & concise. I’m sorry.

Here is the issue:

I am not receiving alerts from my county regarding the fire, but am receiving the occasional AMBER alerts, so some are coming through, just not the emergency alerts (WEA’s).

My husband IS receiving the fire alerts so I compared our settings; they are the same.

We both have iPhones (he has an 8, I have a 12) and are both on the same phone account.

I have toggled the emergency notifications off, force quit, waited then turned it back on & toggled them back on. Several times.

I called my wireless carrier, verified all the settings for emergency notifications are on.

I am not using a VPN.

I have googled multiple ways to fix this without luck and am hoping someone has some obscure fix that will work? Quite frankly, it makes no sense that it doesn’t work. And my panicking about this fire isn’t helping.

Anyway, I’m sure I’ve ticked everyone off and I’m sorry about that. I’ve never posted to one of the forums and don’t know the rules. At this point, I would delete it but I can’t do that so this post can just be buried if you all like.

Hello ~ First know that * KiltedTim* is one of the most knowledgeable posters in these forums. Take a look here and see if anything helps:

A few random things you may try…toggle Airplane mode on then off and:

Good questions, thank you.

Yes, we use the same cellular carrier. Yes, I just double-checked that I have all my location services enabled. No, I am not using a VPN.

Smart911 is a service user by the county we live in. It provides user info to emergency services in case of a call to 911. It also sends out messages in conjunction with our county. I’ve been signed up with them for several years and always received alerts via my iPhone. I had a iPhone6+, always received alerts. But I have yet to receive an alert on my iPhone12, which I’ve had for over a year.

Regardless of the Smart911 app, my husband is NOT signed up and is still receiving alerts. So I don’t think Smart911 has anything to do with not receiving alerts. (To cover my bases, I did remove, then re-enter my phone through the app. I then received a text signing up for alerts. But I still haven’t received any actual alerts, so I don’t think this has to do with the Smart911 app.)

KiltedTim, I hear you and I see where you’re coming from. Can we pls disregard that service? I only mentioned it as I was just trying to show that I’m trying to cover all my bases to make the notifications work.

to be clear: I am not receiving emergency notifications in a city that is actively sending them out. My husband is. We both have iPhones with the most recent iOS. All of my settings are the same as his. There is a large, active wildfire 8 miles from me and I REALLY need to get the notifications working. And I’m just trying to see if there’s an obscure setting on the iPhone I’m missing to fix this.

I’m not an tech newbie nor an expert. I’ve done all the things I know to do/googled to fix this, which is why I’m here. (For the first time, actually.)

Are there any other suggestions that you or anyone else has that could be helpful? Would really appreciate it as not getting the notifications myself & relying on my husband to let me know when he’s at work, is not ideal.

Welp…not the result I hoped for. I was leveled up to a higher Apple supervisor (Emma) and there is no resolution. She was extremely helpful and thorough. We troubleshooted absolutely everything, including resetting my actual phone.

Emma said say she did see on her end the “chatter” that this has been an issue in some instances but that the Apple engineers are thinking it’s an issue with the carrier since the carrier sends out the alerts.

I did already speak with them (my carrier is Verizon) & confirmed everything was set up for the alerts. But Emma has suggested I call back and speak with a supervisor since this is an issue of safety & imminent danger - which is the whole point of the alerts.

For what it’s worth, I did notice that on the post in the NextDoor app (the app I previously mentioned, which allows people in local neighborhoods to connect with each other) it wasn’t just Verizon phones having this issue, but AT&T & T-Mobile as well. Which makes it seem like it’s an issue with all of the carriers? Either way, it not just me.

I’m going to call Verizon again later, try to speak with a supervisor. I’ll post an update afterwards.