Auto-Reply not working with DND while Driving

[Lifeisabeach]

Hey guys, I'm having a very peculiar problem that I can't sort out. I use DND While Driving with auto-response set to anyone who messages me. It no longer sends those responses and I am beating my head trying to figure out why. It's set 100% appropriately in the Focus settings and I've had someone do numerous test texts to me while Driving Focus was absolutely on (either manually or while on my car's unit). This only started in the past few weeks.

One other thing is that my iPhone has always auto-replied with two messages: one that I can customize, quickly followed by another that I can't customize or turn off that tells the sender that they can reply with the word "urgent" to bypass the DND mode. Yet, when I texted a friend who has an iPhone also, I DIDN'T get that second response back. Just a customized auto-reply. We've compared settings and they are set identically. I cannot for the life of me figure out what the what! Of course, the bigger problem right now is that nothing gets sent. Any thoughts? I've done a small bit of googling and can't find anything so far suggesting others are having the same problem. At this point, I think my only recourse is to reinstall iOS and restore a backup.

 

[chscag]

I hate when that happens. My suggestion is rather than do a reinstall of iOS, instead wait for the next iOS 15 update which should occur sometime this month.

I personally haven't used DND at all simply because I don't do much driving nowadays. But based on what you posted, I think I had better test it to see if it's working for me.

 

[Lifeisabeach]

So I FINALLY have this working. I'm not 100% certain if it was the iOS 15.2 update or some settings I had to chase down, or a combination of the two. The whole Focus thing is really complicated now, but I'm going to post a ton of details because I suspect I won't be the last person to have a problem here.

First off, here's a screen cap of the Driving Focus settings.



You would think that "Auto-Reply", being set to "All Contacts" would mean that exactly, but the section above that for "Allowed Notifications" is actually an override for that. I thought it was natural to assume I'd get a notification from anyone in that list like usual, but they would also in turn get the auto-reply, but that's not the case at all. Now... I had in fact tried clearing that list in my previous testing, so that wasn't entirely my problem here. At least not before 15.2 anyway. I did finally find another setting that must be set also. This next one is in the Settings app, under Messages.



Take note of that first toggle. In my case, that was off. I had to toggle that "Focus" setting on. Even if you have auto-reply set for Driving Focus, if you don't have this option enabled to let Messages access your Focus status, it can't ACTUALLY auto-reply!!!! This may have been part of my problem before 15.2, I'm not certain. But it was certainly was part of the problem AFTER 15.2 until I found it. I just don't know if I overlooked it beforehand, or if this setting is new to 15.2. I think it may be new because a friend of mine who I'd been troubleshooting with, who was NOT having a problem before 15.2, suddenly has been having the same problem as me afterwards.

There's one more item. I have the option set to allow my Focus status be shared across all devices. There is also a comparable setting for Messages to access Focus on macOS that may need to be set for it to work across the board, found in the System Preferences under Security & Privacy.



Of course Apple would name the setting something different here, because why not? That took me a short bit to chase down, but thar she blows! And all is well now.

 

[IWT]

Brilliant post, LIAB. Very practical advice for those wanting to use the Focus app. The screen grabs are most helpful. Thanks for taking the time to share.

BTW, latest iOS is 15.2

Ian

 

[Lifeisabeach]

Brilliant post, LIAB. Very practical advice for those wanting to use the Focus app. The screen grabs are most helpful. Thanks for taking the time to share.

BTW, latest iOS is 15.2

Ian

Thanks. Yeah, I actually caught that and was in the process of editing my post when you replied. Apple has really made this way overcomplicated here. One other thing I've found, which the friend I was troubleshooting with confirmed, is that the "Work" focus is useless when set to automatically turn on when arriving to work. It... doesn't work, and we're not sure why. At the moment, I think it fails to turn on when another focus is active, and guess what's active when one arrives to work? Driving Focus.

 

[Cr00zng]

The DNDWD didn't work on my iPhone 8 Plus, nor does it work with my 12 Pro, despite the Focus being the same as Lisa showed.

The activate automatically while driving does nothing. If the "Focus\Driving" turned on manually, the alerts/notifications for new SMS and calls disabled, no sound or even vibration for the activities. Any messages received while it's enabled, sender of the SMS does not receive an automated response text.

Once the iPhone locked, it shows a car icon under the date and time; tapping on the car icon allows unlocking via the PIN and shows this:



To paraphrase Steve Job, ""Can anyone tell me what Driving Focus is supposed to do?.... Then why the **** doesn't it do that?""

Trying to close this screen by swiping up brings back the locked screen with the "I'm not driving"/"Cancel" on the bottom of the screen. Once the "Cancel" tapped, it disables the manual activation and alerts/notifications restored.

 

[Lifeisabeach]

The DNDWD didn't work on my iPhone 8 Plus, nor does it work with my 12 Pro, despite the Focus being the same as Lisa showed.

The activate automatically while driving does nothing. If the "Focus\Driving" turned on manually, the alerts/notifications for new SMS and calls disabled, no sound or even vibration for the activities. Any messages received while it's enabled, sender of the SMS does not receive an automated response text.

Once the iPhone locked, it shows a car icon under the date and time; tapping on the car icon allows unlocking via the PIN and shows this:

View attachment 35302

To paraphrase Steve Job, ""Can anyone tell me what Driving Focus is supposed to do?.... Then why the **** doesn't it do that?""

Trying to close this screen by swiping up brings back the locked screen with the "I'm not driving"/"Cancel" on the bottom of the screen. Once the "Cancel" tapped, it disables the manual activation and alerts/notifications restored.

Check my last post entirely, in particular the last bit about giving Messages access to Focus. I think I covered everything that needs to be considered to get it working, although there still may be fringe cases where it just isn’t going to work. Are you fully updated on iOS?

 

[Cr00zng]

Thanks Lisa... I did check your postings a number of times, including Messages access to Focus:



It's still a no go. The driving focus should be activated automatically based on the detected motion. I am yet to figure out what service iOS uses for detecting the motion?

The chances are that it is either the GPS/location, or some of the sensors. The GPS is working just fine for anything else, but for DNDWD. "Sensor Kinetics" app shows no issues with the six sensors, actually five the "Attitude Sensor" is the result of combining two/three sensors' output into one.

It is an issue, but not big enough to wipe and install iOS. I don't text, take.make phone call while driving anyway. It would be nice to have for family members, friends, etc.

The 12 Pro has iOS 15.2, a.k.a "Pedophile version"....

 

[Lifeisabeach]

Firstly, my name isn't Lisa. I'm not even a "she". If you are looking to abbreviate my username, "Life" works.

Secondly... well actually there isn't much of a secondly. I'm not sure either how Driving Focus turns on "automatically" if you aren't connected by Bluetooth to a car head unit. DND While Driving didn't come on for me in the past when connected to my Pioneer unit early on with this, but either Apple finally added 3rd party systems like these to their list of recognized car units, or it now recognizes when I'm moving at car speeds. Otherwise, if your settings are all set correctly, manually turning on Driving Focus should work just as well. But I think the feature is buggy and broken. It sure as heck isn't intuitive.