Watch app crashing immediately on iPhone X (14.0.1)

[eurotrashjg]

Just got a new 6SE for X mas. All was fine until a few minutes ago. I installed a sleep tracking app called SleepWatch on the watch, the watch prompted me to install the phone side of the app, and even after the installation and set up, it wouldn’t fire up the app/connect my watch to my phone .. my wife, who also got a new watch, and installed these apps last night, suggested I look in the Watch app on my phone to be sure the watch side app was there..and BOOM. The Watch app on my 11 Pro wouldn’t open.. crash after crash.
I googled, and here I am. Wtf?
Now my watch’s AppleTV Remote app won’t work as it uses the phones WiFi to communicate with the Apple TV’s.. implying that they aren’t talking now.

Anyone else see a parallel with my story?
Do I just return the watch?

 

[Runs For Fun]

Just got a new 6SE for X mas. All was fine until a few minutes ago. I installed a sleep tracking app called SleepWatch on the watch, the watch prompted me to install the phone side of the app, and even after the installation and set up, it wouldn’t fire up the app/connect my watch to my phone .. my wife, who also got a new watch, and installed these apps last night, suggested I look in the Watch app on my phone to be sure the watch side app was there..and BOOM. The Watch app on my 11 Pro wouldn’t open.. crash after crash.
I googled, and here I am. Wtf.

Anyone else see a parallel with my story?
Do I just return the watch?

I had something similar happen. I had to delete my watch from iCloud. This should break the pairing on the phone and allow you to delete the Watch app. Then I reset my watch, reinstalled the watch app on my phone and re-pair the watch.

 

[eurotrashjg]

Well, I backed up and restored the phone so I clould delete/reinstall the app. Wiped the watch and started from scratch. It’s working now.

The watch app is super twitchy and when I build a face, the app randomly jumps back to the main face page, dumping my face customization work each time.

Surprised and annoyed at the instability here. Been an apple user for over a decade and this is totally out of character.

 

[trgray14]

I contacted Apple Support and wanted to share what worked for us (that did not involve a complete restore of the iPhone):

1. Reset All Settings on the iPhone (Settings --> General --> Reset All Settings). You do not lose media or things like game data, but things like cards in Wallet, Passcode, and FaceID will be reset.
2. Reset All Settings on the Watch (Settings --> General --> Erase All Content and Settings).
3. You should now be able to delete the Watch app from your phone. Delete the app completely - do not just remove it from the Home Screen - you want all the settings and data gone for the app.
4. Go to the App Store and download the Watch app again.
5. You should now have a working Watch app that you can use to re-pair with and manage your Apple Watch.
6. You'll need to re-enter settings on your iPhone such as FaceID and Passcode.

I hope this helps other fix this issue.

 

[crh77831]

I've been fighting this issue for weeks... Even deleting all data on phone and restoring from backup didn't fix it for me. But I found a site with a good fix, so I joined this forum just to pass it along. I am not taking credit for coming up with this fix. I found it on reddit.
I've copied the link below but in case it doesn't transfer correctly, I'll copy and paste the content also.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AppleWatch/comments/kzvqk0

I really hope this help more of you that are fighting the Apple stupidity!!
The key is to unpair the watch, but it is tricky to execute it fast enough with the crashing app. Follow these instructions and expect that it will take more than one attempt:

Posted by u/idratherbgardening
14 days ago

Fixing the Apple Watch app from crashing on ios14 without deleting/restoring your phone​

To fix my wife's crashing app, I did the steps here from "rach_01" and managed to get my Watch app running again without a full delete and restore of my phone.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251835902?page=14

1. On the watch go to settings > general > reset > Erase All Content and Settings
2. Go to your Bluetooth settings on your phone and if you see your Apple Watch, click on the 'i' and click "Forget this device"
3. Go to "appleid.apple.com", scroll down to devices and you should see your apple watch. Click your apple watch and select "Remove from account". (Go to Settings -> Apple ID)
4. Next you will need to turn off "Find my iPhone", which should turn off activation lock on the watch. On your phone go to settings > click your name > Find My > Find My iPhone > toggle this off
5. Next step (not sure if necessary) is to go go settings > general > iPhone storage > scroll to the Watch app and "Remove all backups". I saw someone do this somewhere else, saying that there might be corrupt files in the backups, so removing them might be a good idea. If you do have a backup and want to try without this step, it might still work, just wanted to mention this.
6. These next steps have to be done kind of quickly. What I did next was do a Hard reset of my phone (quickly press volume up > quickly press volume down > press and hold side button until Apple logo appears and then release side button). (Note on the iPhone X a simple power down and back on worked) Once the phone turns back on, you should have enough time to be able to get into the app and then unpair the watch, but you have to do this super quickly before the app kicks you out. Make sure your app is on the first screen once you unlock your phone, because you don't have much time from when the phone turns on from the hard reset to when the app will fail.
7. Next, go into the app, and once loaded, quickly press "All Watches" in top left screen > Click the 'i' next to your watch > then click "Unpair Apple Watch". Because you turned off Find my iPhone in the previous step, this should have turned off the activation lock, so you shouldn't have to type in your Apple ID password.
8. After you click "Unpair Apple Watch", you should see a screen where it shows it is unpairing your watch. Once I got to this point, the app didn't kick me out and I was successfully able to unpair my watch.
9. After the unpair is completed, go back to your apps and you should have the ability to completely delete the Watch app. First remove the app from your home screen and then completely delete the app from the app library.
10. After you have deleted the app, you can go back to the app store and download it again and you will be able to get into the app and start over with your watch.

7/8 have to be done QUICKLY or the app will crash in the middle the unpairing. We had to repeat 6/7/8 about 3 times to get it to work.
We also tried skipping step 1 to keep the watch intact and tried to do a manually pairing of the intact watch. Unfortunately this did not work. Using the manual pair option in the re-installed Watch App did not find the watch.
Maybe somehow the watch could be restored from a backup after it's repaired and the new Watch app is installed but we did not investigate this.
A big thanks to "Rach_01" over on the apple boards.
FIX THIS BUG APPLE!!