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Mac unlock not working on watchOS 7

russell_314 said:
I thought I'd share a few fixes I found because I know someone else has this problem.


1. Open "Keychain Access"
2. In "View", enable "Show Invisible Items"
3. Search for "Auto Unlock"
4. You should see a whole bunch of application passwords for "Auto Unlock: XXXX's ..."
5. Select all records and delete (this will reset/disable auto unlock on other Macs if you use multiple Macs)
6. Whilst still in "Keychain Access", search for "AutoUnlock" (no space)
7. There should be 4 entries for "tlk" "tlk-nonsync" "classA" "classC"
8. Select 4 records and delete (don't worry if they re-appear, the system repairs this automatically)
9. Open "Finder" and navigate to "(User Name)/Library/Sharing/AutoUnlock"
10. There should be two files "ltk.plist" and "pairing-records.plist"
11. Delete both files
12. Open "System Preferences" and try enabling auto unlock. You may need to enable it twice, the first attempt will fail.
Click to expand...
I followed these steps and it worked for me. Then the next time I tried it it didn't work and the box was unchecked. Checked the box again and it's been fine ever since. šŸ‘šŸ»
 
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All the steps here work initially, but when I take my watch off and put it back on or restart my Mac, it stops working.

Sounds like Apple is aware of the bug.

I expect we'll get a 7.0.2 sometime soon.
 
I jumped to the second fix and it didn't change anything. Tried the first fix and that actually worked. Based on comments here it looks iffy that it will last. BTW updating to 10.15.7 didn't make a difference until I went ahead with these fixes.
 
I was having similar issues with my AW3 using watchOS 7.0.1 and macOS Big Sur Dev Beta 8. Fortunately, it's now solved in macOS Big Sur Dev Beta 9. I can finally use my AW to unlock my Mac as intended.
 
I bought my first MacBook in June. I bought my first Apple Watch a couple of weeks ago (Series 6). This was a feature I was excited for and it never worked for me. I spent the past 2 hours researching options, came across this forum post and it worked for me. I created a MacRumors account JUST so I could write this comment and say THANK YOU! Seriously, I was getting so frustrated that nothing worked and then this solved it for me!
 
Oddly enough, after many times of it not working and having to re-enable it, etc, it seems to have stuck now.

Fingers crossed it keeps sticking.
 
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I had to go thru this same process described above when I setup my new S6 Apple Watch.. and then a day later it stopped working again. But then I noticed my Apple Watch wasnā€™t connected to my home WiFi after having connected prior. It connected right away after selecting my SSID and then after a couple minutes, I was able to enable the option again on my Mac. Weird.
 
Perfect! I was unable to get it to work yesterday with no idea what to do. Saw this thread today, did all the steps and bingo. Thanks so much. Now, how to stop the watch reboots ...
 
Well, it started working today. This is the sequence of events... Don't know if it has any bearing, but...

- Did not work on my main 2018 Mbp running Catalina 10.15.7, despite going through the steps in the first post of this thread.

- Did not work on my 2013 mbp running bigsur beta.

- Today, I repeated the steps on the 2013/big sur. Interesting note is that in Step 2, there were 5 files instead of 4. Did not work the first time. Retried and it work!

- Went back to my 2018 still on 10.15.7, and as soon as i woke it from sleep, I got a notification asking I'd like set up my watch to unlock this mac. I clicked yes, and it took!

Fingers crossed that it sticks.
šŸ¤ž

thanks OP.
 
russell_314 said:
I thought I'd share a few fixes I found because I know someone else has this problem.


1. Open "Keychain Access"
2. In "View", enable "Show Invisible Items"
3. Search for "Auto Unlock"
4. You should see a whole bunch of application passwords for "Auto Unlock: XXXX's ..."
5. Select all records and delete (this will reset/disable auto unlock on other Macs if you use multiple Macs)
6. Whilst still in "Keychain Access", search for "AutoUnlock" (no space)
7. There should be 4 entries for "tlk" "tlk-nonsync" "classA" "classC"
8. Select 4 records and delete (don't worry if they re-appear, the system repairs this automatically)
9. Open "Finder" and navigate to "(User Name)/Library/Sharing/AutoUnlock"
10. There should be two files "ltk.plist" and "pairing-records.plist"
11. Delete both files
12. Open "System Preferences" and try enabling auto unlock. You may need to enable it twice, the first attempt will fail.



I would love to take credit for it but someone named stoska992 posted this on the Apple support forums.

Edit: The above fix worked for half a day then stopped working. The unlock with Apple Watch box was unchecked. The fix below credit to wilberforce finally worked for me. Since some people say the above fix kept working for them I'm going to leave it.


Plug in hard wired (Non Bluetooth) keyboard and mouse.

Uncheck "Use your Apple Watch to unlock..." For me this couldn't be checked

Option-Shift-Click Bluetooth icon in menu bar

Debug

Factory reset all connected Apple devices

For me the first time I checked "Use your Apple Watch to unlock..." popped up with an error but the second time it worked.

People in other posts say Apple is working on a fix for this but in the mean time hopefully one of these works for you
Click to expand...
Russell's first method worked for me, so far. Last night after trying for most of the afternoon to fix the issue I updated the watch to watchOS 7.1 and hoped that might have fixed it but the problem persisted in the morning. I tried the first method (above) and initially it did not work but the MBP spent a lot longer looking for my watch than before. Second try did not work, almost instant response, "Could not communicate...." Restarted the MBP and second try, instant positive result. So don't forget to restart after following the above instructions.
Thanks Russell.
 
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Was working again thanks to this fix, but after a few day, it did not work anymore. Doubt it has something to do with the OS 7.0.2 update. If I do the fix again, it will work for a few days.
 
FWIW I havenā€™t had any issues since whenever my last post about this. Iā€™ve even upgraded from a S4 to S6 Apple Watch and have yet to have this issue again with the new watch. I did, at one point, have an issue with my Magic Trackpad not working, and this same resolution fixed that for me, too. Whateverā€™s causing this issue, Iā€™m guessing itā€™s not a watchOS issue. More of a macOS issue.
 
7.0.3 did not fix the problem for me, so I've given up waiting for Apple and followed the 12 step remedy described above, and it worked. Here's hoping it survives reboots.
 
I did all the keychain actions from above and still had the problem. My solution was:
Disable Handoff on MacBook, iPhone and Watch.
Reboot all devices
Enable Handoff on all devices

Now it worked!

By the way: If have an older Watch in your security prefs on your Mac and you want to remove it. Delete the watch from your iCloud account first. But that didn't removed it from my Mac. Then: Change your iCloud password on your Mac.

Now I have only my current watch in the security prefs.
 
Mac unlock works just fine for me with the current betas from Apple:
MacOS 11.0
iOS 14.2
WatchOS 7.1

Looks like Apple has fixed the problem in the next firmware releases.

Edit: That'll teach me - there was an iOS beta update yesterday and it seems to be broken now.
 
Last edited:
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russell_314 said:
I thought I'd share a few fixes I found because I know someone else has this problem.


1. Open "Keychain Access"
2. In "View", enable "Show Invisible Items"
3. Search for "Auto Unlock"
4. You should see a whole bunch of application passwords for "Auto Unlock: XXXX's ..."
5. Select all records and delete (this will reset/disable auto unlock on other Macs if you use multiple Macs)
6. Whilst still in "Keychain Access", search for "AutoUnlock" (no space)
7. There should be 4 entries for "tlk" "tlk-nonsync" "classA" "classC"
8. Select 4 records and delete (don't worry if they re-appear, the system repairs this automatically)
9. Open "Finder" and navigate to "(User Name)/Library/Sharing/AutoUnlock"
10. There should be two files "ltk.plist" and "pairing-records.plist"
11. Delete both files
12. Open "System Preferences" and try enabling auto unlock. You may need to enable it twice, the first attempt will fail.



I would love to take credit for it but someone named stoska992 posted this on the Apple support forums.

Edit: The above fix worked for half a day then stopped working. The unlock with Apple Watch box was unchecked. The fix below credit to wilberforce finally worked for me. Since some people say the above fix kept working for them I'm going to leave it.


Plug in hard wired (Non Bluetooth) keyboard and mouse.

Uncheck "Use your Apple Watch to unlock..." For me this couldn't be checked

Option-Shift-Click Bluetooth icon in menu bar

Debug

Factory reset all connected Apple devices

For me the first time I checked "Use your Apple Watch to unlock..." popped up with an error but the second time it worked.

People in other posts say Apple is working on a fix for this but in the mean time hopefully one of these works for you
Click to expand...
This didn't work for me. But This is what I did.

  • Boot Mac into safe mode (hold down shift whilst turning on).
  • Turn Apple watch airplane mode on.
  • Turn BT off on Mac (if using a BT keyboard and mouse make sure you have a wired one!)
  • Turn airplane mode off
  • Turn BT back on on the Mac
  • Open system preferences and attempt to tick unlock with Apple watch (I needed to do this twice).
  • Reboot in normal mode.
Working now. I'll let you know if it stops.
 
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Apple fanboy said:
This didn't work for me. But This is what I did.

  • Boot Mac into safe mode (hold down shift whilst turning on).
  • Turn Apple watch airplane mode on.
  • Turn BT off on Mac (if using a BT keyboard and mouse make sure you have a wired one!)
  • Turn airplane mode off
  • Turn BT back on on the Mac
  • Open system preferences and attempt to tick unlock with Apple watch (I needed to do this twice).
  • Reboot in normal mode.
Working now. I'll let you know if it stops.
Click to expand...
Today's update to 7.1 on the watch seems to address this. Mine has finally been unlocking my MacBook. Fingers crossed that it sticks.
 
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russell_314 said:
I thought I'd share a few fixes I found because I know someone else has this problem.


1. Open "Keychain Access"
2. In "View", enable "Show Invisible Items"
3. Search for "Auto Unlock"
4. You should see a whole bunch of application passwords for "Auto Unlock: XXXX's ..."
5. Select all records and delete (this will reset/disable auto unlock on other Macs if you use multiple Macs)
6. Whilst still in "Keychain Access", search for "AutoUnlock" (no space)
7. There should be 4 entries for "tlk" "tlk-nonsync" "classA" "classC"
8. Select 4 records and delete (don't worry if they re-appear, the system repairs this automatically)
9. Open "Finder" and navigate to "(User Name)/Library/Sharing/AutoUnlock"
10. There should be two files "ltk.plist" and "pairing-records.plist"
11. Delete both files
12. Open "System Preferences" and try enabling auto unlock. You may need to enable it twice, the first attempt will fail.



I would love to take credit for it but someone named stoska992 posted this on the Apple support forums.

Edit: The above fix worked for half a day then stopped working. The unlock with Apple Watch box was unchecked. The fix below credit to wilberforce finally worked for me. Since some people say the above fix kept working for them I'm going to leave it.


Plug in hard wired (Non Bluetooth) keyboard and mouse.

Uncheck "Use your Apple Watch to unlock..." For me this couldn't be checked

Option-Shift-Click Bluetooth icon in menu bar

Debug

Factory reset all connected Apple devices

For me the first time I checked "Use your Apple Watch to unlock..." popped up with an error but the second time it worked.

People in other posts say Apple is working on a fix for this but in the mean time hopefully one of these works for you
Click to expand...
Thanks a lot!! I tried first with the Bluetooth debug..easier but didn't work
Then went to the Keychain and followed everything
It works ā˜ŗļø so far and hope till I don't change something again, at least 3 or 4 more years...
 
lc96 said:
Today's update to 7.1 on the watch seems to address this. Mine has finally been unlocking my MacBook. Fingers crossed that it sticks.
Click to expand...
I have it installed but havenā€™t had a chance to test it much yet. I hope it works
 
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