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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.



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...
I'm attempting this now (the first one). I can't figure out how to find no.9. Where in Finder would this be on my MacBook? Thanks.
 
With Watch 7.1, unlock is finally working for me (Apple Watch 6 series). My MacBook Pro finally 'sees' the watch when I activate the setting. Haven't tried it yet with the Apple Watch 3
 
Daki said:
With Watch 7.1, unlock is finally working for me (Apple Watch 6 series). My MacBook Pro finally 'sees' the watch when I activate the setting. Haven't tried it yet with the Apple Watch 3
Click to expand...
Had not realised this was a bug until I read the Watch 7.2 release notes while updating - my watch used to open my MacBook Pro but for the last few weeks it stopped. I had tried repairing and even resetting the iPhone completely but the Mac just told me it could not talk to the watch. Gave up at that point but once I read the release note saying this was a bug fix I thought I would try enabling it again on the Mac and hurrah - it now works again :)
 
PeteInLondon said:
Had not realised this was a bug until I read the Watch 7.2 release notes while updating - my watch used to open my MacBook Pro but for the last few weeks it stopped. I had tried repairing and even resetting the iPhone completely but the Mac just told me it could not talk to the watch. Gave up at that point but once I read the release note saying this was a bug fix I thought I would try enabling it again on the Mac and hurrah - it now works again :)
Click to expand...
wilberforce said:
Under your hard drive, there should be a folder "Users"
Click to expand...
Thanks, found my way through that, turned on unlock with Apple Watch again, it wanted watch, phone unlocked, etc. rebooted, still doesn't work. Sigh. The last Tier 2 person said take it into the Genius Bar. It's not far for me, although appts. are hard to come by, but is there any hope they can do something?
 
lc96 said:
Thanks, found my way through that, turned on unlock with Apple Watch again, it wanted watch, phone unlocked, etc. rebooted, still doesn't work. Sigh. The last Tier 2 person said take it into the Genius Bar. It's not far for me, although appts. are hard to come by, but is there any hope they can do something?
Click to expand...
Do you get the "unable to communicate" error message, or it just doesn't unlock? If you can get past the "unable to communicate" error message, you are most of the way there.
Are you able to uncheck and check the "Use your apple watch to unlock..." box?
Have you tried the bluetooth debug reset (see first post)?
Have you tried unpairing and pairing?
Have you tried everything several times?
Many people, including myself, have found it took several attempts doing things in different sequences, and inexplicably would suddenly start working again. Several people have surmised it just takes time for the changes to propagate through iCloud.
I don't have high confidence the Apple Genius will help. But maybe.
 
Daki said:
With Watch 7.1, unlock is finally working for me (Apple Watch 6 series). My MacBook Pro finally 'sees' the watch when I activate the setting. Haven't tried it yet with the Apple Watch 3
Click to expand...
Which macOS are u running? Catalina or Big Sur?
 
wilberforce said:
Do you get the "unable to communicate" error message, or it just doesn't unlock? If you can get past the "unable to communicate" error message, you are most of the way there.
Are you able to uncheck and check the "Use your apple watch to unlock..." box?
Have you tried the bluetooth debug reset (see first post)?
Have you tried unpairing and pairing?
Have you tried everything several times?
Many people, including myself, have found it took several attempts doing things in different sequences, and inexplicably would suddenly start working again. Several people have surmised it just takes time for the changes to propagate through iCloud.
I don't have high confidence the Apple Genius will help. But maybe.
Click to expand...
No "unable to communicate" message. Sometimes I can briefly see the 'unlock with apple watch' message but it quickly goes away (and doesn't unlock).
I am able to uncheck and check the 'use your apple watch' box.
I went through the bluetooth debugging a couple of months ago with Apple support. With them also unpaired and paired, at least twice. Also, complete reinstall of the whole computer (with their help on the phone). MacBook was new in May.
Haven't worked up the energy to try and get in to Apple.

Thanks for offering your advice.
 
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Reactions: wilberforce
I dont even have the option to elect to "unlock with apple watch" in my preferences under Security and Privacy. How can that be? My watch is at OS 7.1 and my iMac is 10.15.7. Bluetooth is turned on, I dont see my watch under devices from the toolbar drop down.

Bob
 
reig3 said:
I dont even have the option to elect to "unlock with apple watch" in my preferences under Security and Privacy. How can that be? My watch is at OS 7.1 and my iMac is 10.15.7. Bluetooth is turned on, I dont see my watch under devices from the toolbar drop down.

Bob
Click to expand...
How old is your Mac?
 
sbmn said:
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.
Click to expand...
This has worked for me - although it hasn't been 24 hours.
 
Well, this was working fine after the watchOS update to 7.1. However, I just updated my MacBook Pro to Big Sur, and watch unlock stopped working again. Same old message that the Mac cannot communicate with the watch.

Anyone on here have this working with Big Sur?
 
schlupps said:
running on a late2015 iMac with BigSur.. watch unlock working properly so far
Click to expand...
Thanks - My watch was selected to unlock after the upgrade, but it wouldn't actually unlock. So, I unchecked the box for unlock with watch on the Mac and tried to re-enable it. Since deselecting it, I only get the cannot communicate with watch error. May try unpairing and repairing the watch to see if that helps....

EDIT - Unpairing and re-pairing the watch fixed the problem. Whew
 
Last edited:
Mine stopped again after working for several days. This time did the unpair and pair. Working, but for how long. Really, Apple??
 
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