Mac not unlocking after watchOS 7 update

The Keychain fix does not work for me - not matter what I do.

Looking at the system.log

Nov 13 14:49:42 jonass-5k-imac com.apple.preference.security.remoteservice[50406]: objc[50406]: Class AWDSecurityPrefAutoUnlockSetup is implemented in both /System/Library/PreferencePanes/Security.prefPane/Contents/XPCServices/com.apple.preference.security.remoteservice.xpc/Contents/MacOS/com.apple.preference.security.remoteservice (0x101927768) and /System/Library/PreferencePanes/Security.prefPane/Contents/MacOS/Security (0x1044ba770). One of the two will be used. Which one is undefined.

It seems more deeper issue with the preferences item itself or at least its configurations.

Anyone see the same error I do?

Open Console, select the system.log at the left and search for AutoUnlock to look for it.

Jonas Johansson my Auto Unlock works with both my AW4 and AW0 after using the stoska992 solution. Searching the system.log I got:

Nov 12 22:23:26 Bills-Mac-Pro com.apple.preference.security.remoteservice[1292]: objc[1292]: Class AWDSecurityPrefAutoUnlockSetup is implemented in both /System/Library/PreferencePanes/Security.prefPane/Contents/XPCServices/com.apple.preference.security.remoteservice.xpc/Contents/MacOS/com.apple.preference.security.remoteservice (0x10fcf6768) and /System/Library/PreferencePanes/Security.prefPane/Contents/MacOS/Security (0x112bf1770). One of the two will be used. Which one is undefined.

This seems to be the same as what you found.

This message is related to Auto Unlock, but doesn’t prevent it from working. It is the reason why, after applying the “Keychain fix”, enabling Auto Unlock for the first time will fail. Before applying the fix outlined by @Stoska992, please ensure that your Watch is on 7.1 (or any version of WatchOS prior to 7.0) and your iPhone is on 14.2 (or any version of iOS prior to 14.0). Also, make sure your Watch is on your wrist and unlocked, and also unlock your iPhone. If you have met all these conditions and still cannot activate Auto Unlock, then please read my post on page 34 of this thread, which outlines an extended procedure. This involves applying the Keychain Fix and then resetting the computer’s NVRAM, after which Auto Unlock may be enabled again.

I don’t know exactly what Apple have done, but they most certainly effed something up big time with the release of WatchOS 7. Auto Unlock has always been a finicky feature to get to work, and WatchOS 7 made it ever so much trickier…

I just updated to Big Sur 11.0.1, and although "unlock" was checked (and previously working), watch unlock stopped working. It appeared that the wake screen did not even look for my watch. I did the steps presented by stoska992. After doing so, and checking the "unlock" box repeatedly, it still gave the same "could not unlock" message. I then rebooted my Mac, signed-in with my password, checked the "unlock" box, put the Mac to sleep, then wake, and now it works. So, the instructions from stoska992 were exactly what I needed, but for me, I just had to add a reboot step. Thanks!

Hi,

My AW is in 7.1 and iPhone pro 11 in 14.2 (and iMac 2019 in fresh Big Sur). Among other things, I finally tried your NVRAM reset trick (after keychain reset and multiple iMac/AW/iPhone reboots) but with no success.

Sure that it is something tricky since my wit wife's iMac (2017) works great with its AW5.

I did the 12 steps Stoska992 recommended, but I also had to re-verify my icloud on my iphone, my mac's username password, and after those steps - I could finally enable the apple watch unlock in Big Sur MacOS settings.

Upgrading watch OS to 7.1 fixed it, after then resetting the paring a couple of times and it stayed working for several days. Big Sur has broken it again. Now won't even pair even if the phone and watch are on and unlocked. It just fails to connect to the watch. Apple have royally screwed this feature up.

Hi,

After upgrading to macOS Big Sur the unlock with Apple Watch stopped working, although the option was turned on in the Security & Privacy Settings.

Deleting the relevant keychain preferences as suggested by stoska992 and logging out and in of my iCloud account on the Mac worked in the end. I noticed that I also needed to confirm the AppleID settings once again on my iPhone, after having logged out of iCloud on my Mac.

Hope this helps!

Hi finally tried to log off and on from iCloud on my iMac (in conjunction with the keychain trick). It worked and I can now unlock my Mac with the AW. So far, no need to do the same on my iPhone/AW.

Thanks for the advice.

Pierre-Yves B wrote:

Hi finally tried to log off and on from iCloud on my iMac (in conjunction with the keychain trick). It worked and I can now unlock my Mac with the AW. So far, no need to do the same on my iPhone/AW.

Thanks for the advice.

This solved it! Logging out on the Mac + Keychain stuff made it work!

Thanks a lot

This seemed like the nuclear option, so I tried a lot of other, lighter-weight suggestions about this problem first. Isn't it amazing how there are so many threads about this, and so many different answers? Anyway, nothing worked. So I tried this, and it STILL didn't work. It would seem like SOMEONE FROM APPLE could pierce the veil of this particular black magic, and write up clear instructions on how to get this working again.

I tried all this stupid nonsense, and even unpaired and re-paired my watch. Now I can't install apps on my watch. So now I'm setting up my watch as new. How much time and aggravation does Apple expect people to waste trying to get advertised features working again after they break?

And now I've setup my watch as new, and I STILL CAN'T INSTALL APPS TO IT. This has gotten to be a pretty elaborate state of ridiculousness at this point. I have literally zero idea how to fix this, as apparently I'm the only person to have ever experienced it. When "it just works," it's great, but when breaks, I guess I get to happily keep both pieces!

Update: appears I have a partial repair of the lost feature: I am able to now unlock from locked screen but not able to unlock System Preference’s areas requiring password. I get the notification “System Preferences is trying to unlock Security & Privacy preferences. Approve with Apple Watch or enter your password to allow this.” My AW is not recognized to provide the double-click authorization.

FYI

Deleting the Auto Unlock/Autounlock from Keychain Access also deleted all of my Safari passwords and still didn’t fix the issue. Note: I tried all mentioned solutions to no avail and spent hours re-entering my passwords. So, this feature is dead to me and I will await the Apple fairy dust update to correct. Good luck...

Update

A few more iterations of toggling the AW Auto Unlock in System Preferences, along with systematically rebooting my AW5 & MacMini Big Sur...Voilà! Everything is working. Unfortunately , I have about 12hrs of my weekend gone from me from this inconvenience...hope your experiences are better than mine with the lates OS updates.