Some Samsung Galaxy S21 users on One UI 4 (Android 12) not getting notifications for text messages, fix allegedly coming soon

One UI 4, the latest version of Samsung’s custom interface (with Android 12 as base OS) recently arrived to Galaxy S21 series of phones.

However, some Galaxy S21 users are reporting an annoying bug that causes not receiving notifications for new text messages after the update to One UI 4 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6).

According to multiple reports, after upgrading the Galaxy S21 to Android 12, some users stopped receiving notifications for incoming text messages.

No text notifications after update.

My Galaxy S21 Ultra got an update last night while I was sleeping. Today I noticed that I’m no longer receiving text notifications. My screen lights up as it always did but no actual notification appears. All other app notifications seem to be fine, just texts are doing it. I use the standard text messaging app and have checked every notification setting in-app and in the broader notification settings for the phone and nothing seems to be fixing it. Anyone else had this issue with thr new update?
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This bug reportedly causes that there is no type of sound, vibration, floating notification or icon badge when receiving an SMS. The display will simply light up for one second.

It seems that the update to One UI 4 produces erratic behavior in the Samsung Messages app. A user reports only receiving notifications while inside the app, and under certain conditions.

For example, if you are in a conversation in the Messages app, you will get notification for the first response you receive to that conversation, but not for the other responses.

Meanwhile, all notifications from other SMS outside that conversation will have notifications.

If I start a text message conversation with someone using Samsung Messages I notice there aren’t any audio notifications for subsequent texts in that same conversation.

To be clear, I do get an audio notification for the initial text that began the conversation. And, I do get audio notifications for other texts outside of the conversation.

In other words, texts that pop up on an open conversation do not have an audio notification. Meanwhile, all other texts do.

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But, outside the Samsung Messages app, you won’t get any notification about new SMS.

A report describes the apparent cause of the bug. It seems that there is something misplaced in ‘General Notifications’ and ‘New Messages’ notifications settings after updating to One UI 4.

These sections in ‘Settings’ should show the notification sound. But instead, it only shows ‘251’, which seems like a placeholder that developers forgot to retire before sending the update.

Ok so after the 12.0 update my s21 ultra 5G no longer notified me when texts came in… after a full day i figured it out. In my notification sounds it still showed my default sound as “Verizon Alert”… and i had all notifications turned on etc etc.

I was able to get it to work by setting a custom sound for each conversation but that sucked… when i clicked on the General Notifications text not the button to turn it on or off… it showed my notification sound as “251” im assuming the update added or rearranged some files and that 251 was a placeholder… once i changed General Notifications and New Messages back to my default tone from this phantom 251… it works again
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So, the fix to the bug would be to replace the ‘251’ with a system notification tone.

One user reports having contacted Samsung about the problem. They would have confirmed that the solution will arrive in a next update. However, Samsung has not communicated anything related.

In the coming days, if there is any new development in this regard, we will update this article. You can also check the bugs/issues tracker dedicated to One UI 4 and the Samsung Galaxy S21 series.

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