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iPhone 13 Users Experiencing 'Unable to Communicate with Apple Watch' Bug With Mask Unlocking

I think there is more to this issue than just the Face ID unlock. I save one time passwords in 1Password on my watch for quick access and they won’t sync either due to a watch communication issue. Also the battery on my watch is draining super fast.
 
I am also having an issue where the time on the watch basically stops, and doesn't update until I look at my watch. Very strange, and only started today after pairing with 13 Pro Max.
 
mattdeezy said:
I think there is more to this issue than just the Face ID unlock. I save one time passwords in 1Password on my watch for quick access and they won’t sync either due to a watch communication issue. Also the battery on my watch is draining super fast.
Click to expand...
Cancel that. Had to toggle off then on the Apple Watch setting in 1password and it fixed it.
 
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Burger Thing said:
While I have sympathy with your condition, you on the other hand don't seem to hold your sarcasm back when you post here on the forum. Many times, I have to admit, I find your posts entertaining myself.

But I didn't intent to be inpolite. So I apologise if I have offended you.

I just believe under the present and very unfortunate circumstances it would be the most practical thing, if Apple would offer both current Apple technologies of unlocking phones: TouchID and FaceID. And we all would be happy. Well, most of us apart from the sour grapes.
Click to expand...
And the time may come when they add touchid. But it’s hardly a panacea.
 
I ended up just doing a reset and restoring from icloud as what others have said. It works, process took about 20-25 minutes and it works -- really didn't want to start the weekday with constantly doing pin unlocks that is time consuming.
 
zephiK said:
I ended up just doing a reset and restoring from icloud as what others have said. It works, process took about 20-25 minutes and it works -- really didn't want to start the weekday with constantly doing pin unlocks that is time consuming.
Click to expand...

Yeah. Only thing is that many people won’t read these forums, or won’t have enough iCloud storage to carry out a backup. Hopefully we will see an emergency patch pushed out next week to address this.
 
This is not the only issue I'm experiencing. I first discovered the problem when I realized I wasn't getting message noticiI'm not receiving ANY external notifications on my Series 5 watch at all from my iPhone 13 Pro Max either. I've tried all the typical fixes--turn WiFi/BlueTooth on and off, resting network settings, rebooting both devices, up to unpairing and re-pairing the watch and phone. There was an iOS 15 update available on the phone, which I installed, but it didn't fix this.

My watch is still unlocking my iMac and MacBook Air M1, so the issue is pretty with the phone and that it goes beyond the Face ID issue.
 
rgetter said:
This is not the only issue I'm experiencing. I first discovered the problem when I realized I wasn't getting message noticiI'm not receiving ANY external notifications on my Series 5 watch at all from my iPhone 13 Pro Max either. I've tried all the typical fixes--turn WiFi/BlueTooth on and off, resting network settings, rebooting both devices, up to unpairing and re-pairing the watch and phone. There was an iOS 15 update available on the phone, which I installed, but it didn't fix this.

My watch is still unlocking my iMac and MacBook Air M1, so the issue is pretty with the phone and that it goes beyond the Face ID issue.
Click to expand...
This seem to be a "work around"/fix but it would require a lot of time. So far I have test this on 5 phones with this method and all 5 are working. 2 of the 5 phones have 2 apple watch paired originally from before the iphone 13 transfer and using this method it still work.

1. back up iphone to icloud
2. erase everything except the cell plan
3. retore manually with the icloud backup
4. turn the feature on again from setting ->face id and passcodes -> unlock with apple watch
 
Does anybody know if this workaround will work if I choose “set up as new” after doing a “restore iPhone“ in Finder? I just set up my new iPhone 13PM as new on Friday - no “restore from backup” or anything. Starting from scratch. I updated to the latest version of iOS 15 yesterday (OTA), but as I haven’t had much time to install all my apps etc yet, I won’t have much to lose by doing a restore from my MacBook Air, and starting all over again. Will it still fix this issue, or is “restore from iCloud backup” required?
 
I've gotten the Macs fixed, so the watch will unlock those, but no luck with the iPhone with mask. It simply won't communicate with the watch no matter how many times I killed the Keychain items. Strangely, turning on Apple Watch unlocking with iPhone works fine, so they're communicating. It simply won't work with masks.
 
I SOVLED IT ! it seems to be a glitch because the iOS 15 installed on the iPhone was not as new. so what I did was erased my iPhone 12 Pro Max and doing "quick start" new iPhone install from my iPhone 13 Pro; then make sure my iOS 15 is the latest version; then "erase all but data plan" on my iPhone 13 Pro since I use eSIM; then use "quick start" to install and transfer all my settings and data and apps back to iPhone 13 Pro from the 12 Pro Max; it immediately solved my apple watch unlock iPhone 13 pro issue. I no longer see "unable to communicate with apple watch" message anymore.
 
Alkmaarder said:
SOLVED

I have contacted AppleCare Support today ... Basically there are two options:

1. Wait until next update which will solve the issue. And use code / no mask in meanwhile.

2. Workaround:
- Make a NEW Back-up for the iPhone13 (Pro).
- Erase phone and keep Cell-Plan (e-SIM) data.
- Restore from backup iPhone13 NOT from original backup (iPhone11/12 etc).
- Go to 'settings' > 'Face ID & Passcode' V 'Unlock with Apple Watch' ... now the toggle switch and connection should work!

Please let me know if it works or not!

Edit: Worked fine after lengthly backup-restore process.. (Kept Dataplan settings e-SIM , but had to rebuild the rest)
Do not need to set op as new phone. Just erase and make sure to load the newest backup from moments ago.

Alkmaarder
iPhone 13 Pro Max,
iOS 15.0 (19A346) < This new iOS from update , NOT the iOS 15.0 out of the box!

Apple Watch 5, 44mm (no LTE),
WatchOS 8.0 (19R346)

Apple Watch 6, 44mm (no LTE),
WatchOS 8.0 (19R346)

View attachment 1846948
Click to expand...
Edited. No need to set up as new first before restore backup.
 
Alkmaarder said:
SOLVED

I have contacted AppleCare Support today ... Basically there are two options:

1. Wait until next update which will solve the issue. And use code / no mask in meanwhile.

2. Workaround:
- Make a NEW Back-up for the iPhone13 (Pro).
- Erase phone and keep Cell-Plan (e-SIM) data.
- Restore from backup iPhone13 NOT from original backup (iPhone11/12 etc).
- Go to 'settings' > 'Face ID & Passcode' V 'Unlock with Apple Watch' ... now the toggle switch and connection should work!

Please let me know if it works or not!

Edit: Worked fine after lengthly backup-restore process.. (Kept Dataplan settings e-SIM , but had to rebuild the rest)
Do not need to set op as new phone. Just erase and make sure to load the newest backup from moments ago.

Alkmaarder
iPhone 13 Pro Max,
iOS 15.0 (19A346) < This new iOS from update , NOT the iOS 15.0 out of the box!

Apple Watch 5, 44mm (no LTE),
WatchOS 8.0 (19R346)

Apple Watch 6, 44mm (no LTE),
WatchOS 8.0 (19R346)

View attachment 1846948
Click to expand...


thanks for the info, can you explain how do you "Erase phone and keep Cell-Plan (e-SIM) data."?
 
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Alkmaarder said:
‘Settings’ > ‘General’ V ‘Transfer or Reset iPhone’ > ‘Erase All Content and Settings’ … leave options as is … ‘Continue’ … ‘Keep existing Data-plan’
Click to expand...
i'm at work right now, will try when i get home. just ran through this steps and got to "Erase All Content and Settings" and hit "Continue", then it prompted me to enter my passcode for the phone, don't want to do that just it afraid it'll actually kick off the reset. is the "keep existing data-plan" option after the passcode prompt?
 
kevjen888 said:
i'm at work right now, will try when i get home. just ran through this steps and got to "Erase All Content and Settings" and hit "Continue", then it prompted me to enter my passcode for the phone, don't want to do that just it afraid it'll actually kick off the reset. is the "keep existing data-plan" option after the passcode prompt?
Click to expand...
Yes after.
 
Yeah I'm going to wait for the patch as I just finally killed all the zombie tabs and spent WAY too much time getting the iPhone 13 to show back up in iCloud Tabs. That was a mess and don't want to have to go through any of that again.
 
Abazigal said:
Yeah. Only thing is that many people won’t read these forums, or won’t have enough iCloud storage to carry out a backup. Hopefully we will see an emergency patch pushed out next week to address this.
Click to expand...
I agree with you completely, I had to turn off sync for some apps to backup to iCloud.

It was nice that Apple removed the 64GB starting minimum capacity, but Apple should bump up the base iCloud storage from 5GB to 10 or 15GB? I'll probably end up paying for the iCloud upgrade as it's only $1.
 
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