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Apple Watch showing green snake but not starting - fix for 'green snake of death'

This question was asked in these forums but never usefully answered. Just the usual 'golly, take it to Apple' — where the battery repair is $79 (about $95 with shipping and taxes). Here's a more useful answer:


The problem: Apple Watch shows a green snake ("charge me please") when on the charger but it doesn't charge or respond — except perhaps by getting very hot when sitting on the charger. People have had this happen to them after installing a new battery, or sometimes just randomly. It happened to me in June 2020 after installing a new battery bought from iFixit into my original ("series 0") Apple Watch.


The solution:

Leave the watch alone until the battery dies completely. That is, until nothing happens when you press the side button — no red snake, no green snake, just a black screen. It might take a day or two. Then start charging, and let it charge for a long time, such as the officially recommended 2.5 hours. Ta dah! Fixed!


One way to tell if this "cure" is working: When it’s NOT working, my watch and charger got really, really hot to the touch. Like REALLY hot — too hot to touch. But after I let the battery die completely and started charging, the temperature while charging was normal, not hot at all. 


Note: This solution is findable if you spend a lot of time scratching all over the internet, and ignore all the suggestions that don't actually work, but I thought it should be here in the forums too.


[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Apple Watch, watchOS 4

Posted on Jun 24, 2020 12:32 PM

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Posted on Jul 31, 2020 12:16 PM

I just bought an Apple Watch from someone she said it was purchased a few months ago & when I received it it was working fine & then it died & I can’t get it to turn on. When it’s unplugged it’s showing the red snake when I plug it in it shows the green snake I tried to hold both buttons down for 10 seconds to restart it that isn’t working either. When I put it on the charger it gets a little hot as well. Any suggestions on what might help

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jul 31, 2020 12:16 PM in response to Ken_K

I just bought an Apple Watch from someone she said it was purchased a few months ago & when I received it it was working fine & then it died & I can’t get it to turn on. When it’s unplugged it’s showing the red snake when I plug it in it shows the green snake I tried to hold both buttons down for 10 seconds to restart it that isn’t working either. When I put it on the charger it gets a little hot as well. Any suggestions on what might help

Jul 29, 2020 1:51 AM in response to Ken_K

The suggested solution (wait until the battery dies completely) hasn't worked in my case, and I'd been fiddling with that snake of death for about a month, until I figured it our today. I found two new tricks that helped me.


First, believe it or not, but it matters into which wall outlet you plug the adapter. It must be related to the different surge protectors that change the wave shape of the current. I'm not sure if charging via laptop is better - i've tried that with my two MacBooks (Pro and Air) but eventually got the watch back to life via a wall adapter.


There’s also the second and important peculiarity. After you start charging, your green snake of death may eventually turn into red one (otherwise you are fine - just keep charging). At this point many people either leave it with the red snake on the charger with no result, or try removing the watch from the charger and putting it back again to restore the green snake. It won’t help. Instead you must unplug the charger from the wall adapter (or the laptop, if that's your choice) and wait for at least 10 seconds - this resets some sort of a charging error that the charger obviously registers.


So the procedure would be as follows:

1. unplug your Apple Watch adapter from the wall outlet, go to another one (preferably on another floor or even in another building) and plug it in there

2. put your Apple Watch on the charger. You should see the green snake, at least initially

3. check the status in about half an hour, by gently pushing the side button without removing the watch from the charger. If you see the red snake of death again (and the watch becomes really hot), you should basically go back to step 1). I.e. unplug the wall adapter, move to another outlet and plug it there


Sooner or later you you’ll get the green snake stay at your Apple watch, without turning into the red one again. At this point the watch should also become less hot, meaning that some trickle charge has now begun. Now don’t touch it at all. In 2 to 12 hours, the watch should switch into its normal mode and begin normal charging (which will last much longer the first time). After it’s fully charged and operational, I’d recommend doing full reset via its menu, to decrease the chances of getting that annoying error again.


if the above has helped you, feel free to donate some of the money you’ve just saved to a good cause of your choice :)


Aug 25, 2020 1:52 AM in response to Ken_K

I had the same problem called apple support the tech said never heard of it, he proceeds to set me up for mail in for my watch series 4. Total cost without Apple care was 380$ got my new/refurbished watch and it wouldn’t start up another charging over night so I went to my iPhone 6 and tried to sync the watch and it said it was incompatible with the iPhone 6. What! Yes it will not sync cause the watch they sent me had the new OS6 on it and it was incompatible with my iPhone 6. Now before the updated OS when I bought the watch they both worked together. So I think this snake of death is software issue if you have auto updates. So I went out and got a iPhone 11 now so I’m good for a couple of years huh?

Apple Watch showing green snake but not starting - fix for 'green snake of death'

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