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Resolved watchOS 7 Beta 5 - unlock mac doesn't work

It’s currently working for me with the 7.1 beta and latest betas of MacOS and iOS.

Yeah, last time I need that claim, a new update broke it again. Hopefully fixed for good this time.

adaaf175986395652af24eff88fc4e0a.jpg
 
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My Watch unlock stopped working when I updated to macOS Big Sur 11.0.1 Beta 1. I've tried all the steps outlined on page 1 here, but it wouldn't go through and re-activate unlock with Watch.

Before it always took a few seconds when activating unlock with Watch while communicating with iCloud but now it failed immediately. Since someone mentioned iCloud authentication issues here in this thread I've tried changing my Apple ID password through System Preferences and voila: It worked. It took again a few seconds to communicate with iCloud and then activated Watch to unlock with no issues.

Must be some caching issue with storing iCloud passwords.

Just FYI.
 
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Jens_Krueger said:
My Watch unlock stopped working when I updated to macOS Big Sur 11.0.1 Beta 1. I've tried all the steps outlined on page 1 here, but it wouldn't go through and re-activate unlock with Watch.

Before it always took a few seconds when activating unlock with Watch while communicating with iCloud but now it failed immediately. Since someone mentioned iCloud authentication issues here in this thread I've tried changing my Apple ID password through System Preferences and voila: It worked. It took again a few seconds to communicate with iCloud and then activated Watch to unlock with no issues.

Must be some caching issue with storing iCloud passwords.

Just FYI.
Click to expand...

This worked for me also. Thank you!
 
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I am on 11.0.1 GM.
I repeated the steps twice, rebooting both times. Still no joy

error 16:15:40.247872-0800 sharingd Watch missing LTK and is unable to communicate with Companion to potentially sync it
default 16:15:40.248013-0800 sharingd Pairing lock session notifying delegate with error: Error Domain=SFAutoUnlockErrorDomain Code=196 "Your Mac was unable to communicate with your Apple Watch." UserInfo={SFAutoUnlockManagerErrorBody=Make sure your Apple Watch is unlocked and on wrist, and your iPhone is unlocked., NSLocalizedDescription=Your Mac was unable to communicate with your Apple Watch., SFAutoUnlockManagerErrorTitle=Your Mac was unable to communicate with your Apple Watch.}
 
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loopy123 said:
I am on 11.0.1 GM.
I repeated the steps twice, rebooting both times. Still no joy

error 16:15:40.247872-0800 sharingd Watch missing LTK and is unable to communicate with Companion to potentially sync it
default 16:15:40.248013-0800 sharingd Pairing lock session notifying delegate with error: Error Domain=SFAutoUnlockErrorDomain Code=196 "Your Mac was unable to communicate with your Apple Watch." UserInfo={SFAutoUnlockManagerErrorBody=Make sure your Apple Watch is unlocked and on wrist, and your iPhone is unlocked., NSLocalizedDescription=Your Mac was unable to communicate with your Apple Watch., SFAutoUnlockManagerErrorTitle=Your Mac was unable to communicate with your Apple Watch.}
Click to expand...
Changing my iCloud password fixed the problem...
 
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LongZheng said:
I've finally fixed it! I found a bunch of errors related to "AutoUnlock" in the Console that was hinting to me that there was some invalid state on my Mac with keys and plists not being reset properly. After clearing/resetting them, I can now successfully pair my watchOS 7 Series 3 to macOS 10.15.6.

Steps (follow at your own discretion)
  1. Open "Keychain Access"
  2. In "View", enable "Show Invisible Items"
    View attachment 954412
  3. Search for "Auto Unlock"
  4. You should see a whole bunch of application passwords for "Auto Unlock: XXXX's ..."
    View attachment 954403
  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"
    View attachment 954382
  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"
    View attachment 954386
  11. Delete both files
    (Some users have reported better success restarting macOS at this stage)
  12. Open "System Preferences" and try enabling auto unlock. You may need to enable it twice, the first attempt will fail.
Click to expand...
When I installed Big Sur I met the same problem, but the solution a little bit changed, because in previous worked for Catalina, but for for Big Sur did not. After step 11 (reboot mac) I had to sign out Apple ID and sign in back and it helped.
Thank you very much again for your solution!
 
**** - after upgrading to the newest betas unlocking Mac doesn’t work again 😤 C’mon Apple I’m not gonna change the password every single time - it’s so much frustrating
 
TeToslaw said:
**** - after upgrading to the newest betas unlocking Mac doesn’t work again 😤 C’mon Apple I’m not gonna change the password every single time - it’s so much frustrating
Click to expand...
It’s a B-e-t-a. You can send a comment reporting the bug to Apple, but not complain. That’s what betas are for.
 
Last edited:
******* said:
It’s a B-e-t-a. You can send a comment reporting the bug to Apple, but not complain. That’s what betas are for.
Click to expand...
I agree with you of course, but you’re wrong this time. Just view previous posts. It wasn’t work on stable versions at all too. It’s something wrong with iCloud account and it has nothing to do with beta profiles
 
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Not working for me either....Apple Watch 5 and Big Sur (iMac 2019 and MBP 2019) No beta profiles.
 
Running Big Sur official release version and WatchOS 7.1. The solution presented in this thread did not work until I did the following.

1. Changed my iCloud password on my Mac, then forced logout out of iCloud on all devices (watch, iphone, and ipad)
2. Followed the steps outlined in this thread in Keychain Access deleting the autounlock, AutoUnlock, and pref files in shared folder.
3. Rebooted the Mac
4. Clicked the "use apple watch to unlock" in Mac System Preferences --> Security & Privacy
 
What worked for me was to unpair my watch from my phone and then re-pair it (I restored from the backup on the phone created during the unpair). It seems to be working fine now on both a 2020 MBA and 2018 Mac mini. It is also now working with 1Password.
 
Ugh. This was working perfectly until I updated my new M1 Air to Big Sur 11.0.1. Tried some of these debugging steps and now it's broken everywhere.

On the Air, I can tick the "Use your Apple Watch..." checkbox but now no Apple Watches show up. Has anyone run into that?
 
LongZheng said:
I've finally fixed it! I found a bunch of errors related to "AutoUnlock" in the Console that was hinting to me that there was some invalid state on my Mac with keys and plists not being reset properly. After clearing/resetting them, I can now successfully pair my watchOS 7 Series 3 to macOS 10.15.6.

Steps (follow at your own discretion)
  1. Open "Keychain Access"
  2. In "View", enable "Show Invisible Items"
    View attachment 954412
  3. Search for "Auto Unlock"
  4. You should see a whole bunch of application passwords for "Auto Unlock: XXXX's ..."
    View attachment 954403
  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"
    View attachment 954382
  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"
    View attachment 954386
  11. Delete both files
    (Some users have reported better success restarting macOS at this stage)
  12. Open "System Preferences" and try enabling auto unlock. You may need to enable it twice, the first attempt will fail.
Click to expand...
This worked!! Thank you so much.
 
Thanks for doing all that leg work. But it didn't work for me. Running Big Sur on 2018 Mac Mini with series 3 watch on 7.1 and iphone 12 on ios 14.2.1. I also reset my AppleID password, as well as the watch passcode. I keep getting the error message that my computer can't communicate with my watch.
Screen Shot 2020-11-27 at 8.26.44 AM.png
 
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