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Watch app crashing immediately on iPhone X (14.0.1)

S

santidog

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 24, 2014
13
11
I spent the weekend setting up my new SE (7.0.1) and when looking at the watch this morning, saw it was connected only over Wifi. I thought that was strange and went to go and open the watch app on my phone (iPhone X 14.0.1) and it is constantly crashing on startup now. I talked to AppleCare and have done the hard reset on the phone/watch, network reset on the phone, disabling wifi/cellular/bluetooth, all settings reset and it still crashes. I can't remove the watch app since it knows I have a paired watch and keeps prompting to unpair before it deletes.

Anyone else have this issue? I have a followup call with AppleCare, so we'll see if they can shed any more light.
 
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Just in case any one else runs into this, I had to do remove my watches in iCloud, full erase and restore of backup, remove the watch app, and then reinstall it. Even after the wipe/restore the Watch app was crashing, but I was able to remove and reinstall at that point.
 
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santidog said:
Just in case any one else runs into this, I had to do remove my watches in iCloud, full erase and restore of backup, remove the watch app, and then reinstall it. Even after the wipe/restore the Watch app was crashing, but I was able to remove and reinstall at that point.
Click to expand...

I have the same problem! So did you full erase your Watch or iPhone? I remove my watch from iCloud but I can't uninstalll the Watch app.
 
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Correct, steps I did:
  • Local encrypted backup
  • Full erase on Watch
  • Full erase on iPhone
  • Restore from local backup
  • Delete Watch app
  • Reinstall Watch app
Be careful with the erase as I lost 3 apps that I have carried with my phone over upgrades for 10 years which are no longer offered in the store or compatible with the latest iOS. I had to use imazing to get them back, but I still lost some minor data. I also lost a corporate profile that was installed on my device.

Did your Watch app just stop working after it had been fine? The AppleCare advisor mentioned they hadn't seen this type of issue before, but maybe it's a bit more widespread. I happened to have another phone which I restored my backup to and the Watch app would launch and let me pair the Watch again on that phone.
 
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I also had to erease Watch and iPhone (with watchOS 7.0.1 and iOS 14.0.1), and then reinstall Watch app Lickily, only thing I lost was data from the last workout :)

Yes, I had my Watch working for like a week and suddenly It lost connection with an iPhone and Watch app crashed every time i opened it. I also contacted with Apple Support and they said that they have not encountered such a problem and the only thing they can advise is to reset the iPhone. I hope it's just the software issue and they'll fix this problem with the next update.
 
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Apple are aware of this issue. The last time i talked to them after still having the same problem on 14.1 they said to wait for the coming iOS update.
 
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Wissam’s iPhone said:
Yes me too!! I contacted apple again they will call me this Sunday for troubleshooting. Very frustrating.
Click to expand...
Well that sucks, did your watch just randomly go bad as well? Hopefully they have a better option than the nuclear steps I went through. Still random settings I find that I lost every now and then...
 
This issue is still present :( I tried upgrading my 11pro to iOS 14.3 public beta to see if that would help but the watch app still crashes. Will try factory resetting the watch. >_<
Terrible introduction to my first apple watch, less than 24 hrs after I received it the crashes started happening. I'd hate to be a non-tech user trying to deal with this. My Fitbit, while basic worked for 3 years without any issue.
 
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frenzal said:
This issue is still present :( I tried upgrading my 11pro to iOS 14.3 public beta to see if that would help but the watch app still crashes. Will try factory resetting the watch. >_<
Terrible introduction to my first apple watch, less than 24 hrs after I received it the crashes started happening. I'd hate to be a non-tech user trying to deal with this. My Fitbit, while basic worked for 3 years without any issue.
Click to expand...

Similar story for myself, I have held off on the Apple Watch purchase until this cycle, I ended up returning it for a refund until I am certain they've nailed the issue which in truth probably implies I'll forget about scratching the AW itch again. Had it been an infrequent and or minor issue I would have even put up with it however I had stuck on dim display and reboots in the first 48 hours.

I'd love to be a fly on the wall at the release meeting as surely Apples knows from internal testing and QA whether a product is fragile but then I assume they have to follow a train leaves the station approach to sync with hardware production, strong sales periods such as holidays etc. I just don't understand how this works with the current series / WatchOS7 either most purchasers don't do much with their Apple Watch at all, or, several of us are chancing across an obscure failure mode.
 
santidog said:
I spent the weekend setting up my new SE (7.0.1) and when looking at the watch this morning, saw it was connected only over Wifi. I thought that was strange and went to go and open the watch app on my phone (iPhone X 14.0.1) and it is constantly crashing on startup now. I talked to AppleCare and have done the hard reset on the phone/watch, network reset on the phone, disabling wifi/cellular/bluetooth, all settings reset and it still crashes. I can't remove the watch app since it knows I have a paired watch and keeps prompting to unpair before it deletes.

Anyone else have this issue? I have a followup call with AppleCare, so we'll see if they can shed any more light.
Click to expand...
I have exactly the same problem on an XS phone and a brand new 6 watch. 3 hours with Apple Care got me no where - not happy!
 
does "switching" the keyboard access in the phones accessibility feature change anything with this issue?
  • in Settings -> Accessibility -> Keyboards, tap Full Keyboard Access.
had a sort of similar issue with the activity app, and doing this switch (like 'off' and 'on' again) did fix it for my phone somehow =/
maybe worth a try ☺️
 
frenzal said:
This issue is still present :( I tried upgrading my 11pro to iOS 14.3 public beta to see if that would help but the watch app still crashes. Will try factory resetting the watch. >_<
Terrible introduction to my first apple watch, less than 24 hrs after I received it the crashes started happening. I'd hate to be a non-tech user trying to deal with this. My Fitbit, while basic worked for 3 years without any issue.
Click to expand...
I eventually got to speak to an Apple Guru via the telephone (very nice chap too!)
I ended up deleting the Watch App via the phone and also iCloud with the Phone connected to my iMac I was then able to reload the App. Funny to note as soon as the Watch and Phone were paired the watch did an Update to 7.1 after which it continued setup and, touchwood seems to be working fine.
 
Just spent all day on this issue so thought I would contribute. Have an iPhone XS and just got the SE watch. Was working for a few days then wouldn't connect once I upgraded my iOS to 14.2. The watch app would crash immediately. Tried a million things with apple IT over the phone, none of which worked. It would not allow me to delete the watch app because a watch was already paired (even though I had unpaired it and reset the watch). What I ended up doing was a) backing up my iPhone to my Mac through a lightning cable, then with the phone still connected, b) reseting my iPhone through the Mac, c) setting up the iPhone by restoring the backed up file, d) deleting the apple watch app on my phone. Then I went to app store to redownload the watch app. Without doing a complete reset and restore, it would not allow me to delete the watch app no matter what I tried. Hope this helps someone. Good luck
 
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jxw151 said:
What I ended up doing was a) backing up my iPhone to my Mac through a lightning cable, then with the phone still connected, b) reseting my iPhone through the Mac, c) setting up the iPhone by restoring the backed up file, d) deleting the apple watch app on my phone. Then I went to app store to redownload the watch app. Without doing a complete reset and restore, it would not allow me to delete the watch app no matter what I tried. Hope this helps someone. Good luck
Click to expand...

That's good to know. I'm having the same issue; been talking to support for 2 hours, and have another appointment tomorrow. The guy thinks that if I make a backup and I restore the same backup, it will contain the same error; I'll tell him I've read of people who did this and worked.

There are reports of this happening for months, really disappointing that Apple hasn't treated seriously a matter like this. This is my first Apple Watch and my experience has been ruined. A friend of mine is going to buy one, and I'll tell her to think twice about it.
 
Polmac said:
That's good to know. I'm having the same issue; been talking to support for 2 hours, and have another appointment tomorrow. The guy thinks that if I make a backup and I restore the same backup, it will contain the same error; I'll tell him I've read of people who did this and worked.

There are reports of this happening for months, really disappointing that Apple hasn't treated seriously a matter like this. This is my first Apple Watch and my experience has been ruined. A friend of mine is going to buy one, and I'll tell her to think twice about it.
Click to expand...
So I didn't mention in my original posts, but one step I did try was restoring my backup to an old iPhone 6s and the watch app would launch just fine with that restore, while it still failed on my iPhone X.
 
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santidog said:
So I didn't mention in my original posts, but one step I did try was restoring my backup to an old iPhone 6s and the watch app would launch just fine with that restore, while it still failed on my iPhone X.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the info!

It has been a couple of crazy days. I restored my phone from backup to fix this, and after restoring it was stuck while booting up. Apple logo appeared and desappeared indefinitely. Then I was told to erase the phone to start from scratch, and same thing happened with the base software: Apple logo flashing and the phone wouldn't turn up. I updated my Mac in case it had something to do, as I was restoring it from the Mac, tried the process again and same thing happened.

Today I called support again, and they asked me to try to restore the phone one more time. For some reason, what yesterday failed worked today. I'm guessing they updated something in the image that was being loaded to the phone containing the base software. I was told by support to try to restore my backup, and the Apple Watch app had the same problem than before, but now it let me delete it. I guess you've got to be quick to do it while your phone is processing all the new data.

So I reinstalled the app and then it worked!

I'm really disappointed with Apple QA. I've had two serious problems in a row, which doesn't speak well of their software testing process. But I'm glad everything is solved (definitely, I hope).
 
I just purchased the new Apple Watch Series 6 and received it on Saturday (11.21.2020) - like many of the stories on these threads about the Watch app crashing, my watch worked great for a few days - then suddenly unpair itself from my phone (iPhone XS) on 11.23.2020, then when I went to open the Watch app, the app opens for a split second to a black screen and then crashes. This prevents me from re-pairing the watch to my phone.


I chatted with Apple Support over live chat this morning for over an hour and went through backing up my iPhone, updating the phone to 14.2, restarting the phone, restarting the phone, and making sure all the apps were closed, and still the issue persists. The support agent said they exhausted all their options and suggested I reach out to the Watch app support team directly from the App store. I asked if I should do a restore from my iCloud backup (as I saw on many threads there that that would fix the issue). I did that and it still did not resolve the app crashing. After reading all the threads on here I believe there's not a good solution in the works - Apple has no mention of this issue and the support I received did not resolve it.


It's frustrating because it seems this has been going on for months. The 14.2 bug fixes explicitly mention that it will fix the watch app crashing, but it has not.


I feel defeated and cheated - I already returned the watch.
 
I agree and I would have returned my watch as well. For anyone else, I wouldn't waste time chatting with the support agents, they have their script to go off of and I don't believe any of the steps they provide work for this issue. Call up AppleCare if you have a new watch and get your case escalated. I restored from a local encrypted backup only and didn't try iCloud as I don't have that enabled, so may be one difference to try.
 
December 10 and I have the same problem with no solution the person that helped me reset both the phone and the watch and now I can pair my new stainless steel gold series 6 Apple Watch with the gold Milanese loop because the app is crashing is funny to find people with the same issue since September that’s 4 months ago... I was told to just wait for an upgrade that they are working on it what joke this is going on for months wait till when.... now my watch seats at my night stand with no use since I can’t pair it with my phone at all, I feel cheated after seeing that this is on for so long, having a $900.00 toy to seat there for how long and I can’t use it now. It is a good thing I found this information and register to informed everyone about my experience and that the problem still not solved in December. I will be returning the watch today 🤦🏻‍♀
 
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I am in the same boat as everyone else, upgraded to apple watch 5 series from 1 and several days after my apple watch unpaired and apple watch app keeps crashing. I restored my iphone using my mac and reset clean the apple watch, still no good. About to return the new watch back to store! So frustrating! 4months and no resolution?? #applefail
 
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