How to fix WhatsApp notifications not working

Last Updated on June 20, 2021 by Rick Darlinton

As one of the most popular instant messaging apps, WhatsApp becomes a portion of our lives for communicating with friends, family and more.  Many people may find Android or iPhone Notifications frustrating but when it comes to WhatsApp notifications, I think many people want to keep WhatsApp notifications on their smartphones. This is simple to understand because if you turn it off, you may miss some important social messages from your friends or even business partners.  If you have the same issue of WhatsApp notification not working on Android or iPhone, you come to the right place as we will guide you several tips about how to fix WhatsApp notifications not working in this post.

Restart your device

The first solution you can try when you are not getting WhatsApp notifications is just to restart your phone. Simply rebooting your phone can work properly to fix many software bugs. For different phone devices, it may vary about how to restart the device but generally, you can just long-press the power button for a few seconds.

Check the Notification settings

No matter you use an Android or iOS phone, you are able to manage the app’s notifications easily. When you face the issue of WhatsApp notifications not working on your device, you can check the notification settings both from the apps management center and the WhatsApp application.

Enable WhatsApp notifications on apps management center

First, just make sure you do not disable the WhatsApp notifications on your Phone.

  1. Go to Settings on your phone
  2. Tap Apps and apps manager
  3. Select the WhatsApp and ensure WhatsApp notification is enabled.

Enable notifications in the WhatsApp application

Additionally, you also need to check you do not turn off notifications in the WhatsApp application. Just open WhatsApp and click on the three-dots bar at the right corner of the interface. After that, tap Settings and Notifications respectively. Now you can turn on notifications for WhatsApp messages, groups and call. Please also turn of high-priority notifications.

Update phone system

Have you not updated your phone system for a long period of time? If this is the case, we suggest you take it a try and get the latest system software for your phone.

If you use an Android phone, just go to Settings on your phone and then tap on System and system update to update the system. But note the solutions may vary based on different phone models.

For iPhone, it is also simple to get the latest iOS updates. Navigate to Settings and then select Software Update. After that, tap Install to update the iOS system and operate according to the instructions.

Get the latest WhatsApp app

One of the potential reasons why WhatsApp notifications are not showing is that you are still using an outdated Whatsapp. Simply go to the Google Play store or the App store for getting the latest WhatsApp app.

Turn off Airplane mode

Sometimes you may accidentally turn on Airplane mode on your phone. Which cause the network not to work normally. If the network is not available on your phone, you will not be able to receive WhatsApp notifications properly. Therefore, just check whether you already enabled Airplane mode and turn of off.

Check the network

As mentioned above, you are perhaps not getting WhatsApp notifications because of the network connectivity issues. This may happen when your WiFi or mobile data is not working properly on your phone.  To check whether it is a network issue, you can move to another place and let your friends send you a WhatsApp message to see whether the Notifications can work well.

Clear WhatsApp caches

The WhatsApp caches store the information that the app needs to speed up the performance such as the login information or something else. But the overloaded caches may cause the apps to perform slowly or even malfunction. When WhatsApp notifications not working issue occurs, you can try to clear WhatsApp caches. Please note clearing WhatsApp caches will not delete any information in WhatsApp such as photos, videos or documents, etc.

To clear WhatsApp caches, go to Settings on your phone and then tap Applications. Next, select WhatsApp and locate the option of storage. To clear the WhatsApp cache, tap on the Clear cache.

Reset apps preferences

Resetting apps preferences help restore default notifications for all the apps as well as re-enabling all of the disabled apps and default permissions. So you can also try to reset apps preferences for fixing WhatsApp notifications not working. When you reset the app’s preferences, this will not delete any files in WhatsApp or other apps.

  1. Go to Settings on your phone
  2. Locate the apps and then click on a three-dots bar in the upper-right corner
  3. Now tap Reset app preferences

Do not restrict background data

The background data restriction feature is helpful to save mobile data because it can prevent the apps from running in the background when they are not actively in use. Although after restricting the background data for the apps, you can still receive the notifications normally, you can try to toggle on Background data usage if WhatsApp notifications are not showing on your Android or iPhone.

  1. Go to Settings and then move to Network & internet > data usage
  2. Now tap app data usage and find the WhatsApp app
  3. Just toggle on the Background data button  

Check the Do Not Disturb settings

If you already enabled the Do Not Disturb feature, you may not get WhatsApp notifications. To change the settings, just go to Setting, select Do not Disturb, and then disable this feature.

These are some tips you can try to fix WhatsApp notifications not working on your Android or iPhone device. If the problem is not fixed, perhaps you could take your phone to the official service center and check whether the it is caused due to hardware issues.

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