Storage Full Problem

https://www.myhealthyapple.com/cannot-install-update-for-apple-watch-need-to-free-up-storage-first/

I would send it in to a repair center. After several chats with apple support and the issue being escalated to the Apple Watch Engineers, I had it shipped to an Apple Repair Center. They ran diagnostics and sent me a replacement watch. I wish they mentioned what the issue with it was, but it warranted a replacement nonetheless.

The one advisor who escalated my case to the engineers emailed me after I had my watch sent to the repair center for testing. I'll leave the steps below if anyone with this issue is interested in doing this instead of or before sending it in.

1. http://appldnld.apple.com/WatchProfiles/watchOSlogging.mobileconfig
2. Open the link on your iPhone or copy and paste the link into Safari.
3. Tap Apple Watch if prompted to choose a device. Tap "Install" and enter the iPhone passcode if prompted
4. When you have read and agreed to the consent statement, tap "Install" to install the profile on the device
5. Restart the Apple Watch and iPhone
6. Reproduce the behavior 3-5 times (that's a bit excessive given the fact it took me as long as a couple weeks to reproduce)
7. Record a timestamp (down to the second if possible) each time the issue occurred.

My advisor told me to contact Apple Support again and reference the case number from my previous session, so an advisor could upload the information to the engineers. It's probably just better to have it sent out. They should give you a replacement, but I can't guarantee that.

My wife and I have had the same problem for about a month. We first noticed the watch memory was full when it failed to update. We have taken different approaches to solving the problem. We both have eliminated photos, music and podcasts and most third party apps. We have been successful at unpairing and repairing to clear up the memory but it fills up again in about a week. I finally took the "Research" App off the watch and the Phone and that seems to arrested the memory filling. My wife has unistalled the "Research" App on the watch but kept it on the phone and she still has the problem. I have not checked her diagnostic logs as described in these messages but will look.

Hi Blunkly, I've provided a link to this thread on my Feedback tickets. I find connecting the dots helps.

Feel free to ref: FB7699063 and FB7695326 on your Feedback Assistant Ticket. I've been uploading the logs generated daily by my watch. The support analyst aren't able to directly view Feedback tickets, but they are monitored by engineers, at this point they haven't asked for any additional info or provided a status on the FB tickets, but I keep posting. If they see more volume with similar issues I'm hoping it will alert someone :-)

I would encourage anyone having this issue do the same thing. include a link to this thread in their ticket or with their support case.

I suspect the issue is with iCloud, as the watch I connected to an older unused iPhone that is not signed in to iCloud has been working fine for the past week. It's memory is not filling up and its not producing logs. my iCloud is not full, it has plenty of space.

Here is an example of some the logs my other watch, connected to iCloud is producing, daily. I've copied this off to my Mac and upload them to the feedback tickets I created.

I've filed them off into folders for each day I collect them and I've noticed the logs sizes grow, with some days having MB of data.

I've been running into this problem for several weeks on all 3 of my apple watches. I have even sent one watch in for repair. Apple seems to know about the problem but doesn't have a fix. I've created feedback Assistant tickets on two my watches.

I suspect there is an iCloud issue here as pairing the watch with an old iPhone I don't use that doesn't have an Apple ID setup doesn't have the same issue.

I've noticed the watches produce tons of logs which I upload to the Feedback tickets daily. Some days they produce 6-9 mb of log data.

Like you I've attempted all of the typical troublshooting steps. the watch runs normal for a few days and then the memory fills up. .5 gig a day in some cases. No podcast, music, 25 image limit, audiobooks disabled. and I don't install apps automatically.

I've noticed on all of my iCloud connected machines a lot of processing by routined, its running on my watch too... 22:32 CPU Hours so far. I see logs on my watches referring to this process to.

Thats what I know. Good luck.

I have had this same issue for months on my S3. I got the storage is full notifications. My activity and heart rate monitoring stopped working. Restarting the watch brought the storage back, partially, but the error would show up again after a few days or sometimes after a couple weeks. Even after restoring it and setting it up as new, the storage kept dropping to zero bytes with nothing but the preloaded apps.

Apple Support ran through a lot of troubleshooting suggestions and even ran a diagnostic on my watch. It came back negative for hardware issues on that test. That's when they told me to erase it and start as new. For whatever reason, the storage dropped back to zero bytes after a couple days. I decided to ship it to a repair center so they can take a look at it, but they have a processing delay of 7 days. I probably won't hear back from them for 8-12 days.

It sounds like my issue is not as isolated as I thought. I would definitely contact Apple Support and tell them this is happening to other users. All the normal troubleshooting methods have not worked. The Apple Watch engineers were very intrigued by problem and wanted to run further diagnostics after I had already shipped my watch back. I will make an update if they discover anything with my watch, but the delay is going to take awhile.

Same here, at this point is mostly radio silence from Apple. When we call they say they are still looking into the problem.

I would recommend opening a feedback ticket and uploading any logs or details for their engineers. Given their recent security loops holes I suspect they are baffled by this one.

Good luck

Thanks TJNiessen for contributing to this thread, the activity will help keep it visible for others and Apple. For context, none of our watches (3) have the Research app installed, when we reset them they generally fill up over 1-2 days, or within hours if the Apple extended logging profiles mentioned in this thread are installed.

Is everyone who's experiencing these issues running anti-virus? I am and they've returned nothing. Has anyone had any odd behavior from their other iCloud/Apple ID connected devices? Since the watch that IS NOT linked to my Apple ID isn't filling up I wonder if the iCloud data has become corrupted. I've noticed for example processes related to iCloud sync on my desktop devices spinning up frequently. I'm wondering if other have the same experience.

Quick update here... updated to 6.2.8 and experiencing the same issue, faster tho.

Watch reports memory full within 1-2 hours of completing update. Previously this would take days, later 3-4 hours.. now its faster.

I updated my feedback ticket with screenshots of the About screen, Usage screen, and Diag log screen. The watch is producing similar logs as it has over the course of this problem, a few less, but similar titles.

I was spending hours capturing, logging, and uploading this content since may with no response through the feedback ticket. No idea if it's going any where. Apple continues to point to updates as a resolution.

I suspect this has more to do with data in my iCloud account not syncing correctly, as the watch was fine with left unlinked to an Apple ID.

Thats it for now. Encourage everyone to update their OS, lots of security holes filled this round, and if you have time consider uploading logs from your devices through an Apple Feedback Assistant ticket.

This thread is getting more and more views, up to ~250 as of this writing... maybe a more wide spread issue.

At one point one of my series 2 watches would not boot, sent it one for them to service. It was out of warranty.

They sent it back stating they weren't able to recreate the problem. oddly they didn't even install the latest firmware that was available at the time.

The watch came back, I paired it and after a few days the issue came back.

Im curious if your issue returns even with a new watch. If this is an issue with iCloud I suspect it will affect any device linked to that account.

I've noticed a lot of activity on my apple devices with the "routined" process. The watch produces logs for this process regularly when the issue appears. I see this process running a lot on my other devices as well.

I thought 6.2.6 would resolve given it points to a memory issue, but that hasn't been the case on the watches I've updated, all were updated, re-paired to iPhones and within a few days started to report full memory again.

I Have the same problem, I had an opened ticket with apple engineer for one months they says there is a bug and to wait the new update, after the last update nothing really changed and I am in the same situation right now always storage full with almost no app/data/music/photos. my apple watch is series 3 and in my opinion the flash unit for the storage is compromised at HW level.

August 2020 Update - Since ~April/May of 2020 I've been unable to fully leverage my Apple devices, my Apple Watch remains inoperable following the lates iOS update 6.2.8. Following the update my watch's memory filled immediately and it would no longer remain connected to my iPhone, requiring a reboot of the watch to re-establish its already paired connection.

I checked the watch today after leaving it on its charger since 6.2.8 was released. The memory is still full, the phone is producing logs that appear to suggest a problem, but Apple is unresponsive to feedback updates and their support desk still points to a "future update" to resolve this known issue. The views for this thread keep going up.

It appears apple is stumped by this one and I'm evaluating my options.

At this point I continue to believe this issue is with iCloud. Something about our Apple ID is corrupted, any apps that use the iCloud are unstable and it seems to effect iCloud family members as their devices taken on similar behavior.

Apple won't acknowledge the security feedback ticket and their support desk again thinks iCloud is impervious so they have no troubleshooting steps that avoid complete data loss.

I'll continue to update this thread. If anyone has resolved their issue please post the resolution. Or provide the latest status of your issue.

Stay safe.

Quick update, It appears my reminders data never upgraded correctly when I jumped to Catalina. My install of Catalina wasn't a smooth process.

After posting my previous update I reviewed my watch, still reporting its storage full. I've cleared reminders data from iCloud and the watch is now showing via the Reminders app that it has no current data.

As I've noted in previous post, I've set all settings to custom for Music, Mail, Messages, Photos (25), audiobooks, podcast and I've deleted my contact data and reminder data from iCloud.

The watch still reports full and its connecting to my phone is unstable, it will not stay or reconnect to the phone requiring a reboot of the watch and phone to resolve.

I'm going to stop by an Apple store at this point and see if a in person review of this issue will help.

I think there is iCloud storage on an Apple Watch like on iPad/iPhone see if your iCloud storage is full.

Regards,

Cappie