Macbook is unable to communicate with Apple Watch

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Level 1

4 points

Macbook is unable to communicate with Apple Watch

I have a Macbook Pro (2015) and an Apple Watch Series 4. Until yesterday, the 'unlock the Mac with the watch' feature worked seamlessly. Yesterday, I upgraded to an iPhone 12. It paired with the watch with no difficulty, but now I can't re-enable the 'unlock the Mac' feature. I get the error message that the Mac can't communicate with the watch. I've tried unpairing and repairing, restarting all three devices, turning bluetooth and wifi on and off (all are on the same wifi network), but with no success. Same error message.

Apple Watch, watchOS 4

Posted on Oct 26, 2020 7:06 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

IFlyNavyF14

Level 1

19 points

Oct 27, 2020 3:28 PM in response to shaunmcaz

Me too on this one. Only difference is I have the new 16" Macbook Pro

FYI was able to resolve this...

Go to iCloud settings on Mac, disable keychain, waited 2 minutes. Then re-enabled keychain, restarted.

Errored the first time, worked the second time super quick.

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Answer 2

BobHarris

Level 9

55,301 points

Oct 27, 2020 6:05 PM in response to shaunmcaz

Check out this thread on fixing Apple Watch unlocking Mac

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251803595?answerId=253458029022#253458029022

Then follow with this thread

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251826134?answerId=253504359022#253504359022

I also found that it took awhile for the iCloud Keychain records to propagate and merge on all the systems. More so when you have multiple devices sharing the keychain (I have 4 Macs, the iPhone, and the Apple Watch). I followed both of the above threads, but it was not reliably working until the next day, when I tried again. And I did have to click the enable check box twice the next day, but then it stuck.

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Macbook is unable to communicate with Apple Watch

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