Mac not unlocking after watchOS 7 update

finally WORKED

tnx

I have just one opt in # 7 - "classC"

7. There should be 4 entries for "tlk" "tlk-nonsync" "classA" "classC"

but after deleted keys and files receive error with keychain and turn oFF in iCloud settings

Then reboot macbook and watch and activate keychain in Settings-iCloud on macbook - and its can work now!

Hi tim3g,

I also struggled a lot. The thing that worked for me was that I started with the procedure immediately after I needed to authenticate in General, in Security & Privacy, after I checked the "Use your Apple Watch ....". Before that i was deleting regularly the blue icon AutoUnlock Keys that reapear in Keychain Access and the file that shows in the Finder.

After several combinations of the actions i managed to turn it on, and i am happy as a radio now :)

Best regards,

Kesma

I guess I did restart everything (Mac, iPhone, Watch) after doing the procedure and before trying to enable again. I also unplugged all accessories, except keyboard and trackpad, from my computer.

So to be clear, I deleted the files in Sharing, AutoUnlock folder, and in the keychain, then reset the Bluetooth devices then restarted everything and then enabled the watch unlock twice to make things work.

Wait for Big Sur. While I've had this problem with Catalina (macOS 10.15.7 specifically) on my Mac Pro (late 2013), unlocking my Mac has never been a problem with my Mac mini running various betas of Big Sur (macOS 11.0) regardless of the WatchOS version.

I copied and pasted it into the search field and entered. It didn’t find anything so I just went back to system preferences and checked allow Apple Watch to unlock, I had to do that twice but now it’s working again

Apple also just released macOS 10.15.7 Supplemental Update (19H15) so that makes it a trio with iOS 14.2 & WatchOS 7.1 earlier. My AW4 is unlocking my Macs and the huge battery drain in my AW4 created by WatchOS 7.0 are normal again.

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!

And in case my old answer was not seen, make sure your watch and Mac are using the same iCloud account and are both logged in properly. (Basically, make sure you phone is logged in to the same account and that watch should come along. )

It's not clear that anyone understands what the problem is. It seems likely the problem is caused by bad keys being synchronized from one device to another in iCloud Keychain. I suspect the problem can be worse when you have more i-Devices and Macs using iCloud Keychain. Sometimes unpairing Watch will fix, sometimes not. Usually stoska992's keychain process works. (If you search on MacRumors forum, you'll find an earlier post that provides this solution -- it contains a lot of discussion on steps when the keychain process doesn't work.) There seems to be some "strange magic" going on behind the scenes with iCloud Keychain.

If the solution worked for you in the past, then you might have some bad info in your keychain on one of your devices. You can try to clear this out by taking these steps... CAUTION: you may need to re-enter wifi passwords, website passwords, etc on your devices. You could loose those passwords if you aren't careful.

1. Make sure all Mac's and iDevices are turned on and connected to WiFi. Preferably the same wifi.
2. Turn off "Unlock this Mac with Apple Watch" on every Mac you have.
3. Turn off iCloud Keychain on each iDevice (but not Macs). When it asks if you want to keep the the data, say no. This will remove as much data from the keychain as possible.
4. If have more than one Mac, pick one to be your master keychain. This should probably be one you can unlock with Apple Watch. On all others, turn OFF iCloud Keychain, so that only one Mac has iCloud Keychain enabled.
5. Wait a little while -- 5-15 min or so should be ok. This is to give iCloud time to catch up.
6. Turn off all iDevices and Apple Watch.
7. On each Mac that is NOT the master, open Keychain Access and follow stoska992's process steps 1-11, even if it cannot unlock with Apple Watch. Then shutdown these Macs.
8. On the master Mac, with iCloud Keychain enabled, open Keychain Access and follow stoska992's process steps 1-11. Then restart the master Mac.
9. Wait about 5 min to be safe, then check Keychain Access and the directories in stoska992's process to make sure unwanted files and keys have not reappeared. (don't delete the 4 entries for "tlk" "tlk-nonsync" "classA" "classC") *** NOTE: If other items reappeared, turn OFF iCloud Keychain on the master Mac. This *should* remove all Keychain data from iCloud, leaving you with just what's on the master Mac. Then return to #8 above, and then turn iCloud Keychain back on.
10. Turn on iPhone and Apple Watch. Enable iCloud Keychain. Wait a few minutes (5-10).
11. On the master Mac, enable Unlock with Apple Watch. Test that this works. It should.
12. Turn on other Mac's and iDevices and re-enable iCloud Keychain.

All *should* be working at this point.

The original process described in this discussion didn't produce results for me. I actually gave up for over a month and just went without trying to fix it. It wasn't until I tried Turning off Handoff all those weeks later that it worked for me. I'm not sure the original process had much to do with it.

Thanks for clarifying. I've run the gambit on these problems when they've cropped up several times. I suspect these problems are the result of some kind of corruption in syncronizing keychain entries which hold the crypto-keys that make unlocking, handoff, universal clipboard, etc possible.

When I have a problem with any of this, the first step i take is to turn off/on Handoff on the Mac and iPhone. Often this works. I hadn't thought of turnning it off on Watch too... This might be disable by the setting on iPhone. I'll kept this in my pocket for future...

Then I try turn off/back on Unlock in Mac System Preferences. Sometimes with Restart in between. If this doesn't work, I try the "Keychain surgery". That has worked twice for me on different Macs. I've only Unpaired my watch once related to these problems, because it seems like too much trouble. :)

All these steps are changing the keys in Keychain in the background, but in different orders and to different extents.

Hello all,

I have an Apple Watch (OS 7), an iMac (2013) and MacBook Pro (2021). The iMac cannot be unblocked with the apple watch, but the MacBook Pro can be unlocked as expected.

I followed the steps mentioned for deleting the "AutoUnlock" files, reseting the Bluethooth module but same issue between my iMac and Apple Watch.

Console log is like the following, not much info to debug from user side:

Mar 19 19:37:38 daniel-imac com.apple.preference.security.remoteservice[640] <Error>: objc[640]: 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 (0x10a805768) and /System/Library/PreferencePanes/Security.prefPane/Contents/MacOS/Security (0x10d5f4180). One of the two will be used. Which one is undefined.

@MD_Gene

I've found WiFi up and running on the Mac to be my limiting factor. For example, if I just woke up my Mac, the WiFi may not have re-established a connection fast enough (check System Preferences -> Network -> WiFi interface -> Advanced -> WiFi (tab) -> Preferred networks. Make sure your home WiFi is at the top of the list, as the Mac will go through that list in order checking to see if it can join each WiFi network listed in order.

I also found that when I have my Mac connected via Ethernet, the Apple Watch unlock is much more reliable, as the WiFi is not busy trying to do other Mac related networking tasks.

Sometimes if I get the password request, I just hit the escape key, and let it go back to screen saver mode, wait a few seconds, then press a keyboard key again, and often the Mac will unlock this time.

Once in a dozen or so unlocks, it will want to verify I do know my password or that my finger print does unlock the Mac, but the rest of the time, it seems to work.

The fact that you can unlock 30% of the time means you are properly configured, it is now just a matter of making sure all the wireless bits are paying attention.

My iWatch wouldn't unlock my computer. I turned off Bluetooth on my phone for 30 seconds, then tried, as suggested by someone on this site. It still didn't work. I had tried just about everything else except repairing which is a bit of a pain as we all know!! I decided to give the Unlock with Watch a final go and it worked!! So 30 seconds wasn't long enough. Maybe a minute instead worked for me.

What finally helped me...log out of my phone en MacBook and than log back in.