Series 5 watch restarting

RESOLVED: I updated to 7.2, the issue continued to occur. My eureka moment was to erase (again for the millionth time) but while on 7.2 - worked like a charm. Haven’t had the issue since. Try erasing and setting up as new one more time!

I’ve now factory reset twice and rebuilt watch as new device ignoring previous backups. I also removed numerous notification alerts and stopped having activity monitor and the Nike app on my active watch face. I not had a reboot for 1 week. So I think 7.2 has issues with number of notifications it can handle and certain apps. This might all be memory release not functioning under certain circumstances and processor queue handles becoming tied to zombie processes. All this should be fixable with an OS update once Apple acknowledge the problem. I no longer believe this is an actual hardware issue, so sending the watch for “repair” to Apple will not successfully resolve the issue.

Hey JeepChic14,

Thanks for trying those steps.

Next we'd recommend force restarting your Apple Watch to see if that helps with it being stuck on the Apple logo: How to restart your Apple Watch

"Force restart your Apple Watch

Don’t force restart your Apple Watch if you're updating watchOS. After you see the Apple logo and progress wheel on your Apple Watch, leave your Apple Watch alone until the update finishes.

You should force restart your device as a last resort and only if it's not responding. To force restart your Apple Watch, press and hold both the side button and Digital Crown for at least 10 seconds, then release both buttons when you see the Apple logo."

We'd also suggest unpairing your Apple Watch from your iPhone and then pairing them again: Unpair and erase your Apple Watch

Thanks!

Fingers crossed, but we had 2 that were doing it. Updated the phone (one 11 and one XS) to 14.3 and the watch to 7.2 and have not had a reboot in over a week.

Thankfully I did not have to pay the $450 to have Apple "fix it".

I also talked to two Apple support folks who assured me they would own the issue. Never did hear back from them.

Yes I’ve had the issue with my old AW5 and with the new one Apple eventually replaced it with ( which suggests not hardware) but since updating to watch 7.2 and phone 14.3 ( with no 3rd party apps) I’ve done 1.5 to 2 hr workouts untethered from phone 5 times with no reboots. So at the moment actually working like it’s meant to!

I factory reset and rebuilt it as a new watch as well. Turned off third party notifications as well and it seems to have fixed the issue so far. Will start turning on notifications one app at a time to test.

I assure you it wasn’t them, watchOS 7.1 which I downloaded the other day seemed to have the fix within it. I was trying to wait a full week before posting here to see if I had any issues, but it’s been four days now and the issue seems to be resolved with the latest update. Hopefully, everything is good with everyone else’s watch as well after the update.

I set up my watch and phone as new devices and that fixed it for me. Seemed like there was something corrupted between my watch and phone. Not sure if restoring my phone from a backup instead of setting up as a new device would have fixed it or not.

So I worked with a senior tech rep from Apple and we ran an experiment after I sent my watch in and they were not able to recreate the issue. I erased my phone and watch and started fresh with both to test if it was a hardware or os specific problem. Tried it out for about 5 days and didn’t have any issues so it seemed like it was being caused by my phone or combo of watch and phone. I was going to revert back to my backup of my phone but I forgot to turn off auto backup so my backup was replaced. Unfortunate but not the end of the world but I wasn’t able to confirm if the boot loop could have been fixed by erasing my phone and restoring from backup. Would anyone be willing to try erasing and restoring from backup on both their phone and watch to see if that helps fix the issue for you?

Early days but after a long saga, Apple eventually replacing AW5 and the new watch having the same problem of restarting after an hour or hour and a half workout and then showing only reserve power, I updated to OS7.2 and doing pretty much the same session twice since it's not crashed and has run comfortably all day with around 50% left at the end of it. But early days. Noted someone else said they needed to erase it too . . .

I heard back from Apple, and they said hardware failure, which would be very strange since we had a Series 5 & 6 have the same problem at the same time.

On a more positive note- I installed 7.2 Beta 2 nights ago, and have not had one "reboot" since. Might be worth a try for those of you still having the issue. Fingers crossed they have solved whatever it is.

I can definitely confirm this is an OS issue. I felt like I was reading my own comment, as I have gone through each step you have:

• Wiped software on both watch and phone (did not restore backups).
• I purchased a brand new iPhone 12 mini and set up as new.
• Sent watch to repair facility twice and had it sent back with no repair "could not reproduce" as their only explanation.
• A senior advisor sent me a brand new watch out of the box due to insane amount of time I've spent with support.

The issue... still... happens. Constant apple logo rebooting. The only thing I've been able to isolate is that the issue occurs only when the watch is inactive. When active, say using the Nike Run Club, the issues does not occur. I'm anxious for a new update, as I truly believe after reading these comments that this is a known OS issue among the user base, not acknowledged by Apple.

Yep mine has started again as well. I called apple support. They ran diagnostics and sent to the engineers. He did say there is an open investigation on OS 7.0 for the reboot issue. Totally nuts and apple should have fixed by now.

I spoke too soon - Picked up the watch today and it started rebooting. Interesting note, I put it back on the charger for 15 minus, and when I took it back off no more reboots and has been solid all day.

watch is out of warranty. Got a quote from Apple today to "repair" the watch - $450 Canadian. Watch is 14 months old and cost 529.