EDIT: I figured it out, kind of. I went into each of the person's notifications settings and reset their individual notification.
I absolutely CANNOT figure out why 4 of my contacts (apparently in their own, separate conversation 'categories') have notifications blocked.
I have gone to Settings>Notifications>Advanced Settings. everything, as far as I can tell, is set to have notifications enabled . no matter what I do, I end up in this back and forth loop. I still have these 4 contacts (conversation categories) that have notifications blocked. I have gone to apps, notifications, edited contacts, set the sounds directly in the contacts. everything shows notifications should be enabled (except, apparently, the one place I cannot find). help! here are a couple screenshots. the top pic shows what I get when I tap on "Brett" in the bottom pic. when I tap on Brett's name, I go to messages Settings, where it shows that notifications are allowed (except pop ups because I really don't want pop-ups. no other contacts are affected).
if I tap on Notification Categories (you can see in the bottom pic under Lock Screen Notifications) I get back to Conversations (second pic)๐ญ๐ญ๐ญ๐ญ
