Mac not unlocking after watchOS 7 update

This is a MUST! If you've gone into the keychain and deleted everything, just as above, go into the Watch app, Turn off Unlock with Iphone, and then turn off wrist detection, the click the checkbox on the mac again, an error message pops up saying "please turn on wrist detection, turn it back on the iphone watch app, (add your passcode too) then tick the box again and voila! Worked like a charm, 2016 Mac Apple watch 7.0.1, thank you very much!

... so I did these steps in addition to rebooting my machine, watch, phone as well as pulling the juice on my router ... (I posted in this posting around page 2 or page 3).

it worked on my iPhone X (14.0.1) and watch S3 (7.0.1) and Catalina 10.5.7. HEAY!!

worked fine for several weeks. HEAY!!

I then updated my watch to from S3 to S6 (7.0.1) ... unpaired my S3 (sold it for $180 ... not bad), re-paired my S6. My Catalina had UNLOCK boxes for both my S3 and S6. I tried cleaning up my S3 ear-marks within Catalina (followed the steps).

I couldn't get arid of the S3 checkmark box on Catalina. irritating but not a show stopped.

then suddenly, one morning, it was gone as well as I'm not able to select the general CHECK box. kept receiving "UNABLE TO COMMUNICATE ..."

hum ... so ... I'll just reconfigure my S6 for unlock right?

nope ... I followed these steps ALL DAY ... I couldn't get Catalina to COMMUNICATE with the watch ... I tried everything probably 20-25 times. reboots ... everything ...

finally I gave up and went to bed.

woke up the next morning.

first attempt failed ... 2nd attempt worked.

WHAT'S GOING ON APPLE?

is this a back-end services with back-end data that's getting hosed?

I reviewed the console LOG and saw some errors concerning failed attempts to communicate. But I did nothing this morning to address the UNLOCK feature. I DID NOTHING TO FIX THIS ... IT JUST FIXED ITSELF????

I'm in IT ... this is non-sensical

FYI: I seen console logs of my OLD WATCH NAME ... not sure why they are *glued* to Catalina

The fix didn't work for me until I followed @kingsmanG's suggestion to also go into the Watch app and turn off unlock with iPhone and wrist detection before ticking the box in system prefs. Needed a restart but now it works. Very grateful!

Thank you Stoska992. I restored iWatch 5 to backed up image of my iWatch 2. I had to delete the files as stated on all my machines and twice as well. Rebooted all devices and logged in on iCloud and apps store and enabled on all machines. It accepted it. Thank you for the valuable information in the keychain section. Kudos to You.

Same with me 🙁. I did notice that my Apple Watch wasn’t connected to my Home Wifi (I just upgraded my iPhone 7 Plus to iOS 14.0.1 & then upgraded my Watch to 7.0.2). After I Restarted my Apple Watch, my Home Wifi shows up & it’s now connected to it. I also see my Watch is connected to my iPhone (in the Control Center, it shows a Green iPhone Icon in the upper left corner). I’m now doing to try to Restart my Mac – maybe that’s it…

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I was having such an issue getting my watch to unlock my Mac after a restore. Tried logging off iCloud, logging back in, deleted my iCloud device, restored my watch 4 times... NOTHING WORKED... BUT... your solution is what I needed and now my watch is working to unlock my Mac again.

THANKS!!!!

Is your Watch connected to the Same Wifi as your iPhone? After I upgraded my iPhone to iOS 14.0.1 & then my Watch to 7.0.2, and then trying to do this & Failing, I noticed that my Watch wasn’t connected to any Wifi – in fact it showed NO Wifis! It worked after I Re-Started my Watch, then Re-Started my Mac & then going to System Preference & checking that Box 2x, it worked! (boy, iOS 14 & Watch OS 7 are a big mess! – most hassle I’ve had with ANY iOS update & I had an iPhone 4G)

Very frustrating, i have done all the steps as suggested.

when I disable the wrist detection the Mac detect it and ask to enable it. But after that it still gives me Your Mac was unable to communicate with your Apple Watch...

and the BT icon on the Mac shows it is communicating to something

OK, your procedure did not fix mine, but it did change it. It used to take 2-3 minutes to return the message about being unable to communicate with my watch. Now it comes back almost immediately. So, thanks for that at least. However, it still isn't working.

I've even unpaired and rebooted multiple times. tried all sorts of things with a senior advisor. Apple either doesn't have a clue or the right engineer hasn't been contacted yet. I even go to the trouble of making sure my iMac is on the same 2.4 channel of my router, iPhone on that one also since the apple watch i'm sure only operates on the 2.4 ghz band.

Any other ideas?

The only other thing that helped me about a year ago...I had both ethernet plugged into my iMac and using Wifi. I unplugged my ethernet, restarted, and then tried the setting again (checking the box).

My 2 cents.

I had to add one extra step to stoska992's recipe to get my working. I had to go to the Login Options in System Preferences, unlock the panel, click on my username and then close system preferences. This apparently nudged something with my user account.

Note: I'm running the latest public beta of Big Sur.

Finally. After following the steps and then shutting down my AW and iPX, restart the MB12. Try the first time fail. Disable wrist detection and try again, it asked to enable wrist detection. After enabling wrist detection and then try again. Voila!

Thanks guys!

I had posted above that it worked, but the next day it didn't. I tried the procedure again and it didn't work. I called Apple again and THIS is what DID work.

Try the above procedure again, but FIRST, UNCHECK Keychain Access under your iCloud account. Then do the procedure above, eliminating all the Auto Unlock, AutoUnlock, and the autounlock in Sharing. Sleep your computer and then wake it, and your Apple Watch should work. Now REBOOT your computer, and try it again, to sleep and wake. NOW go to your iCloud account to turn on Keychain Access under iCloud, but in may case it was automatically turned on with reboot. Please let me know if this works.

Good info, but still not working for me. In fact, now the "unable to communicate to Watch" comes up immediately rather than after spinning for 30-40 secs.

Since it worked for a few people, there must be more than 1 root cause. I will probably open a ticket.

I followed the directions exactly and it did not work. However, I then restarted the computer, iPhone and watch, followed the steps again-it failed the 1st time, but on the second try it worked!

Thanks!