"Sign in to Complete Purchase" message after updating to Apple Watch OS 6.0

OK. Here is the fix that worked for me!

1. Open your Apple Watch app on your phone and go to “My Watch”
2. Go to Settings/General & turn off Automatic App Install.
3. Now go back to “My Watch” and scroll to the bottom to see “Available Apps”.
4. Any apps you see that are trying to install are the culprits causing the notifications!
5. Delete those apps from your phone, and if necessary reinstall them with your Apple ID used currently.
6. Turn Automatic App Install back on if necessary.

You now wont receive any more of those annoying notifications!

OK. Here is the fix that worked for me!

1. Open your Apple Watch app on your phone and go to “My Watch”
2. Go to Settings/General & turn off Automatic App Install.
3. Now go back to “My Watch” and scroll to the bottom to see “Available Apps”.
4. Any apps you see that are trying to install are the culprits causing the notifications!
5. Delete those apps from your phone, and if necessary reinstall them with your Apple ID used currently.
6. Turn Automatic App Install back on if necessary.

You now wont receive any more of those annoying notifications!

OK. Here is the fix that worked for me!

1. Open your Apple Watch app on your phone and go to “My Watch”
2. Go to Settings/General & turn off Automatic App Install.
3. Now go back to “My Watch” and scroll to the bottom to see “Available Apps”.
4. Any apps you see that are trying to install are the culprits causing the notifications!
5. Delete those apps from your phone, and if necessary reinstall them with your Apple ID used currently.
6. Turn Automatic App Install back on if necessary.

You now wont receive any more of those annoying notifications!

It's your watch updating apps to the latest version after upgrading the OS. This happens when you have apps installed that weren't "purchased" using the currently logged in Apple ID. E.g. you changed your Apple ID at some stage, but installed apps linked to your initial/original Apple ID. If you enter the credentials for your old/former ID, you should be able to get through this without compromising anything.

I kept getting the “Sign in to complete purchase” message even after reinstalling the watch and after the fixer update. At some some point in the past I had ended up with two Apple IDs. The message was referring to the first one. I finally just typed in my password. I have not received the obnoxious message since I did that.

After you turn off automatic updates in the "App Store" tab did you go back and follow the steps provided above by Waterside Guy?

These are the steps from his list to complete the fix:

1. Now go back to “My Watch” and scroll to the bottom to see “Available Apps”.
2. Any apps you see that are trying to install are the culprits causing the notifications! (Most apps will say "Install" next to them so it should be easy to see which apps are trying to install)
3. Delete those apps from your phone, and if necessary reinstall them with your Apple ID used currently.
4. Turn Automatic App Install back on if necessary.

I hope this helps. I haven't had any issues with the pop-up since I did this.

I finally fixed it! Hope this helps someone else!

1. Go to My Watch
2. General
3. Apple ID
4. I had two different Apple ID’s. One for ICloud and another for ITunes.
5. I reset my password for my ICloud Apple ID and the messages stopped.

Thanks! That worked for me. I had two apps trying to update. One was Keynote. I deleted that, and almost immediately, the watch reset and updated. I don’t remember downloading Keynote. I thought it came with the system. If it had an old AppleID attached to it, I don’t know why.

If you go on you phone that is linked to the watch and sign out of your Apple ID then sign back in again it stops the annoying pop up on the watch

Hi guys,

I had it happen to me again also. I noticed that it was after an app general update.

I applied my previous solution again and found 1 app trying to install on my watch. I stopped the install, & all has been well for days now.

I expect this will occur now when any apps purchased, or free downloaded with my old Apple ID are updated.

Apple needs to write a bug fix.

Hi! This definitely put me on the right track. So thanks a lot for that!!

But I also had to do one more step on mine before it worked in my Series 4 watch. Some people may be having the same problem so I wanted to add the info just in case.

I did the settings fix outlined above. But I ALSO had to do it again in the actual App Store tab which you have to scroll down a little to see (it is in the 3rd block between “Activity” and “Breathe” on my Watch App.

Just tap the App Store tab and turn off automatic updates. Then follow the steps in post above to see which apps are trying to load.

I hope this helps!

I received the same message as my Apple Watch was trying to "Complete a purchase" with my wife's apple ID. This step by step answer helped solve my issue. Thank you Watersideguy for saving me hours of time of trying to work with Apple tech support!

1. Open your Apple Watch app on your phone and go to “My Watch”
2. Go to Settings/General & turn off Automatic App Install.
3. Now go back to “My Watch” and scroll to the bottom to see “Available Apps”.
4. Any apps you see that are trying to install are the culprits causing the notifications!
5. Delete those apps from your phone, and if necessary reinstall them with your Apple ID used currently.
6. Turn Automatic App Install back on if necessary.

Solution! Go to your iphone / click

on your name icloud / scroll down which you would see all your apple devices backs, if you have more then one of course / remove iwatch from your icloud /

now once you remove the old back up it should pop app a message on your iwatch showing your recent apple id and asking to enter the passcode/

once you do that your back on track/

you don't have to delete apps or remove accounts and you watch settings will not change . Hope these will help .

Hello ive got the same problem but luckely fixed it what i did was sign out and sign in again from my apple id and it worked. Hope this helps...

I spent some time on the phone with an Apple Rep., unpaired the watch and set it up as a new one. So far that seems to have solved the issue..... will monitor for several days.... Jon