WatchOS 9 Focus / Notification issues?

[warrior30]

Hi,

Not sure if this is user error, but I upgraded to WatchOS 9 last night (never been on the betas) after upgrading to iOS 16. For some reason my haptic feedback on my watch doesn't alert me whenever I'm in a specific Focus group on the iPhone (I've got the setting for the Watch to mirror my iPhone Focus). The haptic alert comes up on my phone rather than my watch. As soon as I switch off my Focus the haptic alerts come through to my Watch as normal again.

I've checked through my Focus settings and can't for the life of me see where there's a setting to stop the haptic feedback coming to my Watch instead of my phone. Just to be clear, the actual notifications are getting to my watch (I can see it in the notification centre when I swipe down on my watch), its just the haptic feedback alert that seems to revert to the iphone whenever I set a Focus up.

Anyone else have this issue or is user error on my part?

Thanks.

 

[michielvdd]

Same issue here!

 

[warrior30]

Glad to know I'm not the only one! Still not working for me. I'm unable to set any Focus on my Watch as it disables the haptic feedback notifications for me for whatever reason.

 

[michielvdd]

I did some more 'debugging'. For me the problem only occurs when I have the new "Silence notification from" option ticked. For Focus modes that work with the older "Allow notifications from", everything works fine.

 

[michielvdd]

Okay, now I switched the Focus mode back to "Silence notifications from" and everything works fine!

Steps I've taken to fix the issue (not sure if everything is necessary):

• Go to the settings of the Focus mode with the issue and switch in the app settings the checkbox from "Silence notifications from" to "Allow notifications from".
• Add an app to the allow list where you can manually send notifications to (I did this with the Hey email app, so I can just send an email to myself).
• Send an email to yourself to see if you receive the notification correctly on the Apple Watch.
• Set everything back to the original state, with the option "Silence notifications from" ticked.
• Everything works now for me.

 

[warrior30]

Thank you so much! I did exactly as you said, first time around it didn't work. I did it again and it worked as you said it did!

I'm SO glad someone else had the same issue and managed a workaround, I don't think I would have tried that.

I don't think your method is a 'scientific' way of doing it as it took me a couple of attempts. I'm thinking your way 'jolts' something into action which enables the notifications to go through the Watch correctly. I'm not sure what it is but it works! This surely is a bug.

And yes, as you said I had to do the same thing on all my Focus groups I set up (there was only 5), its a pain but its working now. Hope it stays like that and doesn't revert every time I upgrade.

Thank you, thats a major bug bear sorted.

 

[michielvdd]

Glad it helped! 👍

 

[jimtpowers]

I'm having the exact opposite problem. I upgraded my phone and watch as well. Before the upgrade, when in sleep focus, NO notifications came through to my watch so I could sleep. Now, EVERYTHING is coming through to my watch which is making it hard to sleep. Last night, I finally just took it off so I could sleep. Before bed last night, I went into sleep focus and added ALL apps to silence notifications from and notifications are still coming through. Any ideas here?

 

[cwosigns]

My issue is that I have my “No Work” focus set on my phone (watch set to mirror phone), and work notifications still show up whe I swipe down on my watch to see my notifications.