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Apple Watch Series 5 and Mac Unlock

smf72

smf72

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 28, 2010
234
28
Is anyone else having issues with an Apple Watch Series 5 and Mac unlock? My series 4 works fine but even after repairing the Series 5 to my phone it does not work on my iMac Pro. Both work fine on my MacBook Pro though. Nothing but issues with the Series 5 and I have even swapped out at Apple to no avail. Also handoff is not working with series 5 either.
 
I had an issue AFTER I repaired my watch to my phone. I had to go into the security settings on the mac, disable the series 5 and then re-enable it and now it works fine again.
 
One of our S5s is having an issue. It stopped working and when you click on unlock with the watch, it states you need to be logged onto iCloud...she is...have done the items listed above except unpairing.
 
I have never found unlock to work consistently. We have two accounts on our iMac. My husband does not have an AW, but I do. It never consistently unlocks my account. Perhaps if we only had one account on the iMac, it might work better?
 
What confuses me is it works fine on Series 4 but for the life of me and frankly Apple after doing multiple treble shooting steps some of which are mentioned above nothing has worked.
 
Had same issue on S5, logged out of iCloud account On MAC, restart Mac, restart Apple Watch. Login to iCloud on Mac. Then turn it on.
 
It's weird it will work for 10-15 minutes then stop. Handoff works fine. No problem with series 4 only series 5. Tried all the steps above.
 
I know for a fact that USB-A ports interfere with unlock on a Mac mini. Using a Thunderbolt port instead solved the issue for me.
 
Stilll having this issue deleted the bluetooth plist to no avail. It will work for a few minutes then stops unlocking. However handoff between messages, news etc works fine. Seems to be only my iMac Pro and MacBook Pro. Anybody else have any suggestions? No issues with series 4 only 5.
 
Mine stops unlocking after awhile at random as well. Last time a watch restart fixed it. It will, for a millisecond, say 'unlocking with apple watch' then default to 'unlock with touch id.'
 
nickdalzell1 said:
Mine stops unlocking after awhile at random as well. Last time a watch restart fixed it. It will, for a millisecond, say 'unlocking with apple watch' then default to 'unlock with touch id.'
Click to expand...
That pretty much sums it up on both my macs. However, a watch restart does not always fix it. So aggrevating.
 
I had issues when I still had both my S4 and S5 paired with my iPhone. When I got rid of my S4 then the S5 no longer had issues. For some reason switching between the two watches didn’t always work. I would loose handoff and unlocking of my MB Pro. Now with just the S5 it has worked flawlessly.

I wanted to keep the S4 as a backup, but evidently while it should work, for me it did not.

Lisa
 
While I have both a S3 and S5, my S3 is powered off and in its box in storage at the moment so it's not a conflict I'm aware of. Possible Catalina bug?
 
nickdalzell1 said:
While I have both a S3 and S5, my S3 is powered off and in its box in storage at the moment so it's not a conflict I'm aware of. Possible Catalina bug?
Click to expand...
I am thinking it has to be catalina bug or watchOS. Has anybody else reported it?
 
I think this is a catalina bug. I'm having the same issue intermittently on my series 4 and 2019 macbook pro. It didnt start happening until I installed the latest catalina update.
 
Mine has just stopped working. I have updated to the latest Catalina 10.15.4 beta, so maybe its a bug in that. Nothing else has changed. I can't even get it to enable in settings > security.
 
bbfc said:
Mine has just stopped working. I have updated to the latest Catalina 10.15.4 beta, so maybe its a bug in that. Nothing else has changed. I can't even get it to enable in settings > security.
Click to expand...
Are you using a series 5 and beta watchOS ? I am still on 10.15.3 and watchOS 6.1.3. If you are on the beta do you mind reporting the bug
 
smf72 said:
Are you using a series 5 and beta watchOS ? I am still on 10.15.3 and watchOS 6.1.3. If you are on the beta do you mind reporting the bug
Click to expand...
I'm using the latest beta of Catalina 10.15.4 and watchOS 6.1.3.

Edit: It's working now.
 
Last edited:
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