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Siri problems Apple Watch series 4 after watchOS6 update

Steveatesh

Steveatesh

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 29, 2014
148
31
North east England
Wondering if anybody else is experiencing intermittent problems with Siri on an Apple Watch series 4 after updating to WatchOS6 and IOS 13?

The symptoms are that intermittently (about 75% of the time) when I ask Siri using the watch for something she stalls for several seconds then either tells me to “hang on a minute” or “working on it” then failing, to takes several seconds before startup no to answer but her voice is cut off after a second or two long before she has finished.

She does, from time to time, work very quickly. There is no pattern to how she is going to respond.

The failures occur on diverse questions such as the weather, a maths calculation, an enquiry for which Siri must access the web or anything else.

I have tried resetting the network on my iPhone SE iOS 13, rebooted the watch, reset the watch to factory settings and repaired with the iPhone, inside on the house WiFi and outside on 4g but the problem persists.

Before the update Siri worked perfectly on the watch, very snappy and successful with what I asked her.

My watch is the 44mm series 4, iPhone as above.

I went into my local Apple store and they had not heard of this fault but apparently I’ve covered everything they would do so their advice was to hope it’s fixed in the next release. I have seen another thread about problems with Siri shortcuts on the latest release watchOS which could be linked I suppose?

I can’t be the only one in the world with this issue surely!
 
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Steveatesh said:
I’m able to update - I contacted Apple Support and they said it’s a known issue and is currently being worked upon by the engineers. Fingers crossed it won’t take long to repair.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the heads up. Looking forward to that being fixed.
 
Same issue here. I contacted Apple support and send them a video of the problem. Got an email form Apple support saying they're looking in to it.
 
+1 here. Region and language setting is German, iPhone SE with 13.1.2 and AW4 with 6.0.1.
Failure not consistent and appearing while connected to iPhone or WiFi. Sometimes snappy and quick (25%) and sometimes slow and non-responsive.

There are cases in which Siri immediately transcribes my words on the AW after I start to speak, then the process will be completed and Siri does her job. This happens mostly after a re-start of the watch or iPhone or a re-connection with my iPhone.
In other cases, when I start speaking, my words are not transcribed on the AW display, instead it will show "hold on..." or similar, then chances are 50/50 that Siri will work properly.

Hope they will fix soon, with watchOS 5 and iOS 12 never had these problems...
 
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Same issue here in south america. I have an iphone se and before updating to ios 13 my apple watch 4 wifi cellular was working excellent using siri and now ufter the 6.0.1 siri does not respond or waiting a lot or voice cuts off
This issue is not happening when the watch is on wifi and disconnected from the phone bluetooth
Please Apple fix this issue asap
 
Robser08 said:
Same issue here in south america. I have an iphone se and before updating to ios 13 my apple watch 4 wifi cellular was working excellent using siri and now ufter the 6.0.1 siri does not respond or waiting a lot or voice cuts off
This issue is not happening when the watch is on wifi and disconnected from the phone bluetooth
Please Apple fix this issue asap
Click to expand...

Found a workaround: Siri always fails on the first attempt. The second one and any consecutive one within approximately 10 seconds will be performed good... so ask Siri for today's weather in the first attempt, wait for reply and then make your intended request to Siri ;-)
I know it's not practical... but this is what I observed and leads me to the assumption that there is an issue with waking up the bluetooth connection to the phone.
 
Same issue here with Siri and Shortcuts. Hopeful the next release (this week? ) will resolve it.
 
Updated to iPhone 13.2, has not fixed the Siri problem. I tried resetting networks but didn't work. Strangley, after installing IOS 13.2 the watch unpaired and repaired itself to my iPhone - I had high hopes when I saw it doing that but no, still not fixed :(

Fingers crossed for WatchOS6.2 update.......
Back to support if that doesn't do it.
 
Updated watch to 6.1 which has improved siri but not fixed it totally. She now answers questions in full without stopping after a second or two, but is slow to respond and drops connection frequently.
not back to where she was with 5 yet :(
 
Steveatesh said:
Updated watch to 6.1 which has improved siri but not fixed it totally. She now answers questions in full without stopping after a second or two, but is slow to respond and drops connection frequently.
not back to where she was with 5 yet :(
Click to expand...

I'm in the same boat with Steveatesh, as both of us have the combination AW4 / iPhone SE and are experiencing the same issues which are related to iPhone SE Bluetooth Connection.

From my side it is not fixed, neither has it really improved: Some Siri requests takes very Long to be processed, and now with 6.1 there is an additional issue: Siri will start replying in correct language, then after 1 second she will say in english "...lost the Connection, please try again later..." and then she will repeat her normal Reply and complete it...
 
Same issues here on my mom’s Apple Watch Series 4 on watchOS 6.1 with a paired iPhone SE. Looks like the iPhone SE is the common denominator here. She has the same “Lost the connection”. The real issue is that when that starts happening, Siri’s HomeKit requests do not work at all anymore. She just responds with “Something’s amiss. Try again later.” Making HomeKit inoperable with Siri.

I chatted with Apple Support and they recommended replacing the Apple Watch under AppleCare. I went ahead and started the process and will see, but I feel like this is software related. I encourage everyone to reach out to support so they’re aware. I’ll update here with what happens with the replacement.

For us, it seems to only be affecting Siri. Other Apple Watch functions are fine (e.g. while Siri won’t answer HomeKit requests, the Home app on the Watch functions normally and flawlessly). This has really reduced the functionality of her Watch, and watchOS 6.1 didn’t fix Siri HomeKit requests failing.
 
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I spoke too soon - today I realised that my updated watch was no longer authorising and unlocking my iMac so I decided to try re-pairing the watch from scratch, as a new watch. Siri has gone back to how she was before I updated to 6.1, so long time to connect, frequent disconnects and cut off speech. This only happens when using the iphoneSE through bluetooth, If I switch bluetooth off and force the watch to use wifi directly, Siri works perfectly.

The knock effect seems to be in other apps too taking a long time to do what I want of them (eg UBER app) or timing out and needing restarting.

I'll report it to Support later, Apple needs to get its act together .
 
Another update for people with the same problem. I had a lengthy call with support yesterday and they analysed both the watch and iPhone and found them both to be perfect. I was then asked to reinstall a fresh OS on the iPhone by restoring it as a new iPhone to see how that worked. It has not made much difference sadly, Siri is still slow and loses connection.

Support told me on this occasion that there were not many calls about this problem and because of the way bugs are triaged it might not get a high priority for a fix.

We may be stuck with to for some time I'm afraid!
 
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This is THE thread I was searching for. Yes, same issue here. And yes. iPhone SE. Using AirPods (gen1) with Apple Watch gen 4 and iPhone SE it’s a pain since I’ve installed iOS 13 and WatchOS 6. When I ask Siri to do something (speaking on the watch’s mic) music always stops, Siri try to complete the task I was asking for, but suddenly my watch goes back to “now playing” and airpods disconnect. I have to re-pair them every time. And yes, I’ve also experienced the spoken “connection lost” by Siri, in English. I’m very disappointed with apple.
 
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Thanks for the update. Can't be true! They are leaving iPhone SE users out in the rain... I've reported the issue on apple's feedback site, and furthermore one related issue with answering and making calls on AW: It is working 50% only, as sometimes BT is disconnecting and the call gets lost. Baseline: Siri not working, calls not working, Apple doing nothing? Why did they touch the BT concept from iOS12 / WatchOS5? It has been perfect in terms of Apple Watch usage.
 
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Just an update on my end. I’ve also filed feedback through the Feedback Assistant. I’d encourage others to do the same if you haven’t already.

Her express replacement Apple Watch Series 4 arrived with watchOS 5.2.1, so I have left it on that version to see if the issue is watchOS 6, iOS 13, or a combination of both. After some consistent use on watchOS 5.2.1 (with a paired iPhone SE running iOS 13.2), I can confidently say that the issue seems to be with watchOS 6. Her Siri requests are flawless on watchOS 5.2.1.

I feel like the Watch will update itself to watchOS 6 shortly, but I feel better about this being a software issue rather than a hardware incompatibility.

Hopefully Apple is working on a solution.
 
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Hi. Same issues here, iPhone SE and Apple Watch 4, I thought I was the only one. The watch worked perfectly during the first year but with the 6.0 update the siri problems began. I went to an Apple Store and also talked with the customer center and they said It was the first time reporting this problem. Under the apple care coverage my watch was changed by a new AW4 wondering a hardware issue. The new watch worked perfectly the first days running under watch os 5.2.1 but since yesterday when I updated to 6.1 the siri problems has appeared again and It is not possible to downgrade the firmware.

My main reason to buy Apple products is because they are reliable and everything works perfectly but not any more or at least with the forgotten iPhone SE.

Another issue with the watch is the following, trying to create a reminder, Siri says that she doesn’t find a list called reminders, annoying..

I am going to report this to Apple support again but I am afraid we are a drop in the ocean. Good luck
 
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Could someone try this? I have an issue related to this thread.
Please: wearing AirPods (I have gen 1) listening to Music. Apple Watch set to “now playing”. Could you please now tell the watch (speaking into the mic) “hey Siri, How’s the weather in ... -tell a city-“. In my scenario what’s happen is: Siri take some time to complete the task, meanwhile music stops. And (here’s the issue) when the answer arrives, Apple Watch’s screen goes from “now playing” to “Weather” but only for few seconds. You can’t interact because suddenly screen goes back to “now playing” again. Same scenario if you ask “hey Siri, search ....on the internet”.
Thanks for an answer. I just want to know if this is a reproducible issue

Best if you have (like me) Apple Watch 4 Nike edition only GPS, AirPods 1 gen, iPhone SE.
WatchOS 6.1
iOS 13.2
 
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Same Problem here but one peculiarity:

There were no problems on my 1 year old Watch 4/OS 6 which I broke about two weeks ago. I ordered a replacement and it shows the described bug. I didn't restore it from my backup, set it up as a new watch.

Watch 4/OS6.1(17S84) Model A2008 and iPhone SE/OS13.2.2 (17B102) Model MP822DN/A.

Are there different Models of the Watch 4?
 
What's up SE die hards? :cool: Same issue with me. AW5 6.1 and iphone SE 13.2.2.
  1. Siri says "lost connection" while starting to answer a question, then starts again and says answer correctly (while paired with SE).
  2. Majority of calls received/made on AW5 never connect (while paired with SE).
Just submitted feedback to Apple before posting this. Needs to get fixed because I am not impressed with the SE2 size. 👎
 
Wanted to bump this thread as I have completed additional testing. The 2 points of this problem in my aforementioned post seems to be entirely a bluetooth issue with the SE. As someone else mentioned, when the watch is not connected to the SE and is on WiFi or cellular, siri and phone works on AW5 perfectly.

I tried calling a number 10 times while bluetooth connected to the SE = all calls from AW5 failed. Disconnecting Bluetooth from the AW5 = all calls from AW5 successful.

As far as I am concerned, this is a safety concern now. If you think about it, being incapacitated and you can only call for help from your AW5 connected to your SE = Fail.

What about fall detection? You are unconscious after your fall and 911 is called from your AW5 connected to your SE = Fail.

A hot fix is needed immediately.
 
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My watch also works fine when connected directly to wifi and not The SE. I am not sure if that’s the SE Bluetooth or the watch Bluetooth that is the problem though!
 
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