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spencecb

Suspended
Original poster
Nov 20, 2003
1,187
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Hi!

I'm running watchOS 8.0 on a Series 4, and running macOS 11.6 on an iMac and MacBook Pro, and unlocking my Macs with my Watch has completely stopped working.

I have tried toggling off and then back on the setting on my Macs, which did nothing. I have restarted all devices. No clue what else to try.

Is this something others are having problems with?
 
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One other thing you might try is unpairing your AW from your iPhone and re-pairing it. I believe I had to do that once to fix a similar issue.
 
One other thing you might try is unpairing your AW from your iPhone and re-pairing it. I believe I had to do that once to fix a similar issue.
Just tried this, and now my iMac is stuck "turning on" unlock with Watch. I think this is just a software bug that I am going to have to wait for them to fix.
 
Mine works just fine, S5 running 8.0, MacOS 12 beta.
You are using a newer version of macOS. So it is possible Apple has already fixed this issue in macOS 12 beta. And this happened after watchOS 8 and macOS 11.6 came out.
 
Just tried this, and now my iMac is stuck "turning on" unlock with Watch. I think this is just a software bug that I am going to have to wait for them to fix.
I take this back...it took forever to turn on, but now is working again!
 
Might want to give this a try, to "reset" things.

 
I found this somewhere once, and it has worked for me.


  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 "~/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.

It seems not to work at first, and then a few hours later it will be fine. Maybe it has to sync with iCloud. I don’t know.
 
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I found this somewhere once, and it has worked for me.


  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 "~/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.

It seems not to work at first, and then a few hours later it will be fine. Maybe it has to sync with iCloud. I don’t know.
Thanks for posting this. Didn't do a thing for me. This bug is really bumming me out as I'm lazy. LOL
 
Mine had been screwed up on my AW SE ever since iOS 15. Always current on both softwares.

Looks like my fix was it is now no longer a 6-digit code like I used to have on my watch and now limited to 4 digits? Anyway, with that change, it works again like it used to so I can unlock my watch with my iPhone.
 
If I remember correctly I believe this is a known issue and they said a fix was coming. Apologies if I am misremembering.
 
I found this somewhere once, and it has worked for me.


  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 "~/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.

It seems not to work at first, and then a few hours later it will be fine. Maybe it has to sync with iCloud. I don’t know.
This solved my issue. I know this is somewhat an older post... I'm running Monterey 12.1, watchOS 8.3, and iPhone iOS 15.2.1. This solved my issue on my mac and also got handoff working again between my mac and the watch. Thank you for your feedback.
 
I haven't tried the above, but my watch won't even connect to my Mac anymore. I reinstalled macOS last week because of another issue, and since then when I tried to enable the option to have my watch unlock my Mac, it just sits there and says "turning on" until it eventually times out and says that it is unable to connect to my watch. Any idea on this?
 
I haven't tried the above, but my watch won't even connect to my Mac anymore. I reinstalled macOS last week because of another issue, and since then when I tried to enable the option to have my watch unlock my Mac, it just sits there and says "turning on" until it eventually times out and says that it is unable to connect to my watch. Any idea on this?
Literally as soon as I posted this, it started working.
 
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