Mute SMS audio notification
It had nothing to do with the device  settings (but OS bug )

It was a macro misbehaving and reading out for any contact rather than chosen contacts (since the device is always on vibrate wanted audio alert for text messages from chosen few).I never suspected this since a similar macro for incoming calls was working fine

Edit: Shared logs with the developer who confirmed that it is an OS bug


  My code in simple terms does a look up on the number in your contacts database and then when it matches it requests the ContactsContract.PhoneLookup.DISPLAY_NAME....your device OS has some kind of weird issue where it doesn't return a sensible name.


and hence it was getting triggered universally for any contact