"Connecting your Apple Watch. This may take a moment" stuck.

I ended up having to reboot my entire watch. Clear it and then connect to an older phone that was running OS 12- resyncing my watch with that phone. Updating the apple watch through that phone and THEN removing the sync with the old phone- resyncing to my current iphone 11.....that worked. I hate apple

It seems I have experienced all of these related issues with my brand new Apple Watch series 4. I have reset/restarted my watch and phone several times, tried various networks, and made sure to keep my phone and watch plugged into a charger. I also noticed that each time I reset the watch and iPhone, it would switch between software updates 5.3.4 and 6.1.1......After my first call with Apple, the “advisor” told me it was a server related issue. I called back the next day to see if the issue was fixed, and the other “advisor” has no idea what server issue I was referring to. I set up an appt at the Apple store based upon the comments in this feed. For sh*** and giggles I decided to try one more time(my 15-20th try) about hour before my appt. Of course, for no reason at all, it decided to download the update. Unbelievable... I don’t even know who to blame.

Im having the same issue, spent 8 hours and im stuck connecting to apple watch. trued to reset my phone 11 and apple watch series 1 and im having the same problem at all. need help please cant use my watch

I tried connecting with typing in the code that iwatch was showing when you press the “i” instead of scening the iwatch screen then it worked for me. Have to connect to a strong wifi on 2.5g connection not the 5G.

I’m still having the same problem my watch software and phone software is all up to date but I cannot get it off the connecting this may take a while screen so the watch is basically useless.! I have spent over 12 hours trying now

I am having the same issue. My Apple Watch Series 3 will not connect to my iPhone 8 Plus Red Product. The watch gets stuck on the "Connecting your Apple Watch. This may take a moment" message, times out, and I have to start over.

I have reset both devices, tried setting it up as a new watch and with a backup, and even restored my phone to factory mode. I'm not sure what to do at this point. Very frustrating and I hope it gets fixed soon as I need my watch for nursing school, meditation, and to count my steps!!!!!

Hello everyone,

My Apple Watch has been out of commission For about a week. I have scoured the web, YouTube, and talked to a few associates at the Apple store with no fix. I have also tried every method in this chat I came across a combination that worked me and trust me from what everyone was saying my issue was just as bad as everyone else’s worst case. I deleted my watch app reset my watch and phone reinstalled the app and took my phone connection off the 5G option I have on my home WiFi. I honestly think it was the 5G option that did the job. For whatever dumb reason Apple didn’t want to download on the 5G option and it’s sad Apple couldn’t figure that out. All in all good luck and I hope this works.

Hi Less!

I have done all the above however I am still having the same issue nothing is happening. Just stuck on screen that says 'Connecting your Apple Watch this may take a moment''

any suggestions?

I just spent a couple of hours with Apple Support. The problem seemed to be with my iCloud account. When I logged off of iCloud on my phone and logged back in everything seemed to work.

We tried a bunch of stuff before that (reset watch to factory settings, reset network settings on the phone, restart phone, etc) but I think the iCloud thing is what worked.

Good luck!!

You should all try this!

Reset the Apple Watch.

Try logging off your iCloud account on your phone and logging back in.

But that what worked for me was deleting your old Apple Watch backups.

-> Settings

-> General

-> iPhone storage

-> Scroll down to (on my phone)

-> If there is any kind of Apple watch backups, delete those

-> Then restart your Apple watch and phone and try normal pairing

An update: I had a phone software update my phone didn't tell me about until I restarted my phone like Janzasd said to do. I also had a software update on my watch that I wasn't able to update because I factory reset it and it requires to be set up before connecting to wifi, which is needed to pair the watch. I just updated my iPhone and I'm updating the watch right now. Everything is loading smoothly now and the watch stopped getting stuck on the connection screen.

I think I'm in a similar boat. I'm trying to update the watch to watchOS 6.2.1, but estimated time is about 1 day!!!! I feel this is because the wifi is not set on the watch (since I factory reset it). Skipping the update to continue pairing is getting stuck on the "Connecting your Apple Watch". Not sure if I should continue with the update that is now estimating as 22 hours :(

I had the same issue. My updates were fairly quick compared to other times I've updated which took quite a bit longer. I say try to update both and if one of them doesn't have an update, restart the phone like I did.

Im pretty sure that the reason why updating is so slow compared to other times is that Apple Watch prefers bluetooth over wifi, which means that the watch will use internet connection trough bluetooth by using your iphone internet and thats way slower that just straigh wifi from router to watch. And after you have paired your phone to the watch succesfully it will prefer wifi over bluetooth. I'm not 100% sure about this, but it makes sense :D

Having the same infuriating issue... for an iPhone 11 for my mom, trying to setup a series 3 watch and it’s not working. The update initially said it was going to take over a day. We went to bed with that running, tried to finish the setup today and now it’s stuck. It says to update, I click update, then it tells me software is up to date on 5.2.6 I think. Sometimes it’ll ask me if I want to skip the update but no matter what I do it never gets passed connecting to Apple watch this may take a moment. Not sure what else to do?? Phone is up to date. New Apple account, phone and watch.