This happens from time to time, i think its got something to do with recieving a text while another another service is over riding the alerts service (eg. Rosie utility)
To combat thisi installed "watchdog" frfom the market, set it up to your needs and make sure no processes can "overpower" anything. (about 25-30% CPU)
This hasntkilledthe problem,but makes it less frrequent for me, perhaps somebody else has a permafix, in which case i am interested to hear