Apple Watch wont unlock Mac but it will unlock Mac apps?

[jedimasterkyle]

Apologies if this has been asked before but in the on-going saga with "Unlock with Apple Watch", I'm getting a new behavior...

Whenever I go to unlock my Mac with my Apple Watch, it will either look like it's going to work, fail, and then ask for my password OR it will say "The wireless connection between your Apple Watch and Mac is not strong enough etc..." which is BS considering my Apple Watch is 1ft away from my Mac Mini.

Anyways, the really strange part about this is that while I can't unlock my Mac Mini with my Apple Watch, I have no problem unlocking Mac apps with my Apple Watch such as 1Password and Apple ID login prompts via Safari.

I've done all of the usual troubleshooting steps as well...

• Toggled Unlock with Apple Watch on Mac, restarted Mac, turned feature back on
• Restarted Mac and Apple Watch over a dozen times
• Verified that my Mac and Apple Watch are on the same wifi network
• Verified that Bluetooth is enabled on both devices

I just dont know why it wont work with the OS but it works just fine with applications but I'm hoping someone else has some ideas. I've scoured the Apple Support forums and got nowhere over there. Same with Reddit. It appears to be kind of hit and miss for some people where some have zero issues ever and others (like me) have issues with it nearly every day.

 

[RedRaven571]

Sine 14.2 update, my M1 MBP will unlock with watch but a lag with spinning wheel, when used to be instantaneous, I'll have to try some trouble-shooting and check back.

 

[jedimasterkyle]

I have an update to this and I THINK I might have fixed the issue...🤦‍♂️.

1. Open Settings on Mac
2. Network -> Wifi -> Click on three dots on "Known Network" -> Network Settings
3. Within "Wifi 6E Mode", change setting to "Off". By default, it's set to Automatic.
4. Double and triple check that your Apple Watch is set to unlock your Mac
5. Lock your Mac and/or start your screen saver and see what happens.

I can confirm that after changing the Wifi 6E mode to Off, I can unlock my M2 Mac Mini with my Apple Watch EVERY SINGLE TIME now.

I've emailed, chat and spoke on the phone with no less than 5 apple reps about this and none of them even suggested this but me, who is going on 4 hours of sleep decided to mess around and see what happens.

If this works for you, awesome. If not, then I'm afraid I'm out of answers.

 

[jedimasterkyle]

Well my solution from Friday lasted all of 5 minutes...🤦‍♂️

I'm at the point now where I have to delete all of the auto unlock entries from keychain and the auto unlock folder as instructed here. But even after I do that, my Mac Mini STILL wont unlock with my Apple Watch, even though there is no logical sense as to why it wont work. At this point, it's a MacOS bug. Plain and simple and Apple wont fix it anytime soon.

 

[jedimasterkyle]

Well for whatever reason, Mac unlock for Apple Watch was working great for the past week or so until this morning and now I'm getting this. I'm so very done with fighting My Mac and Apple Watch 🤦‍♂️

 

[osplo]

Is there a remote possibility of a hardware failure on your Watch? I know that apps are unlocked OK but maybe the type of connection required for macOS unlock is different. Just saying...

Having said that sometimes my Watch does not always unlock my Studio (same message as first post). But it does it 8-9 times out of 10. No biggie for me.

 

[jedimasterkyle]

Is there a remote possibility of a hardware failure on your Watch? I know that apps are unlocked OK but maybe the type of connection required for macOS unlock is different. Just saying...

Having said that sometimes my Watch does not always unlock my Studio (same message as first post). But it does it 8-9 times out of 10. No biggie for me.

I have a series 9. I'm not ruling out it being a hardware issue with my watch BUT the chances of it being a hardware issue is (IMO) very, very small.

I've been finding that when my watch doesn't communicate with my Mac, I have to do 3 things with the hope that it will work...

1. Unpair/repair my watch with my iPhone
2. Clear out the Auto Unlock entries from keychain
3. Delete the Auto Unlock .plist files

I have to do those steps every time. #2 and 3 aren't terrible to do. Unpairing and repairing my Apple Watch with my iPhone though, every single time, is absolutely ridiculous. At this point, I'm 99% convinced its a continuity/MacOS bug that Apple wont spend anytime fixing because it's not a critical system.