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Apple Watch No Longer Unlocking macOS as of 10.15.5

gank41

gank41

macrumors 601
Original poster
Mar 25, 2008
4,380
5,062
I'm currently running iOS 13.5 (17F75) on an iPhone 11 Pro Max and watchOS 6.2.5 on a S4 Apple Watch and have had no issues unlocking my MacBook Pro (2015 15in) with my watch up thru macOS 10.15.4, but now with 10.15.5 my Watch no longer unlocks my Mac. I can see the "Unlocking with Apple Watch" wording really quick and then it prompts for the password. I've tried turning that option off & on in Settings/Privacy, and I've tried rebooting both my iPhone and Watch. Not sure what else to try other than restoring the watch maybe? Doesn't seem like an issue with the iPhone or Watch, though, as it worked fine on 13.5 & 6.2.5 while on 10.15.4...
 
I was able to correct this by doing the following:

-Uncheck the option to unlock with AppleWatch in macOS under Settings/Privacy
-Unpair AppleWatch from the Watch App
-Setup AppleWatch again from the backup just done in previous step and wait to finish
-Check the option to unlock with AppleWatch in macOS under Settings/Privacy

It's hard to know if the issue was with my Watch or with my MacBook Pro, as the watch was unlocking my laptop just fine for the week prior to macOS 10.15.5 being released and after iOS 13.5 & watchOS 6.2.5 were released. But, everything's working now. Hopefully this can help someone else in the future...
 
Grrrrrr... I just installed Yesterday's (2020.05.01) Security Update, and now my Apple Watch has stopped working with MacBook Pro again. I've rebooted all of my iDevices and have also tried deselecting the "unlock with Apple Watch" option, then again rebooting all of my iDevices, and then selecting the "unlock with Apple Watch" option, and then rebooting all of my iDevices AGAIN.. Still no go. Not unlocking from Screensaver/Sleep and not working for Password Prompts. I DO get the prompt to approve on my Apple Watch, though! Just nothing on the watch itself. Same with trying to sign me back in, it says it "Unlocking with Apple Watch", but then nothing. Am I going to have to restore my Apple Watch each time there's a macOS update? Is anyone else having this issue?
 
Yup. Just finished setting up my Apple Watch again, and enabled the "Unlock with Apple Watch" option in Preferences/Privacy, and was able to unlock from screensaver again... I'm also pretty surprised again at how fast that restore went! From my last post to now says 39 minutes. Shave off maybe 5-10 because I didn't just come right back here to update this post. Thirty Minutes to unpair/backup & then restore again ain't bad!
 
Yesterday my watch AGAIN stopped unlocking my Mac or working when prompted to double click the side button for passwords.. I’ve never had this many issues and the only thing I can equate this to is the recent macOS updates. I’ve tried restoring my iPhone 11 Pro Max and my S4 Apple Watch. We’ll see how long this lasts.
 
So, for anyone that’s actually following along here or for anyone that comes across this in the future:

It happened again. My MacBook Pro still tries to login from the lock screen with my watch and it tries prompting my watch for system passwords. But no prompt on my watch. The reason I’m almost positive this is an issue with either watchOS 6.2.5 or macOS 10.15.5, including the security patches, is that it still worked fine when watchOS 6.2.5 was released thru to the following week(?) when macOS was updated. Lately I’ve had to reset my Bluetooth settings and repair my Magic Trackpad and Magic keyboard. I’m wondering if there’s an issue connecting to the watch, too. And then the only way to connect it is by having to repair it, which has to be done after restoring the watch.

That = Super Lame.

Is there anyone else having any issue like this? I’ve got an iPhone 11 Pro Max, Apple Watch S4, and a 2015 MBP 15in, all on current OS. I’m at a loss here myself.
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To add: I just restored my phone on 13.5.1 and watch on 6.5.2 on Friday. Everything worked thru yesterday. Stopped working today (Sunday)...
 
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I've had the same issue with the watch S5 no longer unlocking Catalina on the 7,1 Mac Pro after update to 10.15.5. I do however get the 'click side button for passwords' and that works as expected.

However, running 10.15.5 on my MacBook Pro that unlocks fine using the same Apple watch.

Very odd.
 
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Like OP my watch worked fine until the recent software update. Now I am experiencing the same issues.
 
I've had constant issues using Apple Watch unlock for my macs. I gave up and disabled it since the feature never worked reliably.
 
I'm happy to report that the feature started working again for me last night. I didn't change any settings, so it must have somehow fixed itself. Hopefully it stays this way. For the record, I'm using a Series 4 and a 2017 MacBook 12".
 
Whelp. My watch started working for Password Prompts again, too. No clue why as I haven’t changed anything. I’ve restarted all my devices, but my watch still wasn’t working yesterday. It is this morning.

I’m at a loss here.
 
I'm having the same issue (among other issues since my MBP updated last week). Running Catalina 10.15.5 and watch OS 6.2.6 on my AW4.
 
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I wish I could be of more help than “it just started working again” after a few days. Which doesn’t seem logical at all. But here we are.
 
Since a while I have the same issue (On Mojave) Restarting both watch 5 and iPhone seemed to fix it but then
after few days doesn't work again. and today not even restarting both devices didn't fix it
FRUSTRATION!
All devices have the latest updates...maybe this is why 😖

Update: I thought that maybe is a corrupt pref
Deleted few in Preferences and ByHost checking the time I was doing it and related to the pairing.
Shut down(someone suggested not to restart but to shut down) the computer and it works, for now!
Saved the new working prefs in a separate folder..in case I need them in future for the same issue
 
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Whelp... Everything's been working fine for me up until this morning. Now my Apple watch has stopped working again to unlock my Mac and for System Password Prompts. Boooooooooooo
 
Strange that it comes and goes like that. Mine is still working very well. I hope I don't jinx it with this post.
 
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I'm having the same issue with my Apple Watch on only ONE of my three Macs. It is intermittent but mostly does not work. It works beautifully on the other ones.
 
I have the same issue with my MacBook Pro late 2013, my iPhone XS and my Apple Watch series 4. Now I can not communicate my Mac with my apple Watch again...
 
I've had sporadic problems over the past year or two with this, what always fixes it for me is uninstalling the Paragon NTFS driver. I have no idea why that'd be a problem or how it could be related but it's solved it on 2 separate computers for me. Once the watch has connected, I can reinstall the NTFS driver and the unlocking will continue to work.
 
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I recently restored my iPhone 11 Pro Max & my S4 Apple Watch from iCloud backups and now I’m also unable to enable the “Use your Apple Watch to unlock apps and your Mac” option in Security & Privacy getting an Error, ”Your Mac was unable to communicate with your Apple Watch. Make sure your Apple Watch is unlocked, on your wrist, and powered on”.

And yeah, it is. Still a no go after restarting and even pairing my iPhone with my 2015MBP15in in Bluetooth settings. Everything is up to date.’

But I’m waiting on a new S6 Apple Watch to be delivered at some point. I’ll update again after I try enabling that one.
 
chrfr said:
I've had sporadic problems over the past year or two with this, what always fixes it for me is uninstalling the Paragon NTFS driver. I have no idea why that'd be a problem or how it could be related but it's solved it on 2 separate computers for me. Once the watch has connected, I can reinstall the NTFS driver and the unlocking will continue to work.
Click to expand...

I just tried disabling Paragon (Both their NTFS and exFat Apps) and am still getting the Error.

Did you just choose Disable? Or did you choose the Uninstall option? Does that remove the app all together? Or are you still able to just select an “Install“ option in preferences? It’d be great if this entire problem was from that..
 
gank41 said:
I just tried disabling Paragon (Both their NTFS and exFat Apps) and am still getting the Error.

Did you just choose Disable? Or did you choose the Uninstall option? Does that remove the app all together? Or are you still able to just select an “Install“ option in preferences? It’d be great if this entire problem was from that..
Click to expand...
I had to uninstall, not just disable.
 
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