Unlock your Mac with Apple Watch stopped working

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Level 1

48 points

Unlock your Mac with Apple Watch stopped working

Since a couple of days the option to unlock my Mac no longer works for both myself and my wife. We both have an Apple Watch series 5 and a MacBook Pro (2017 and 2018). The option gets disabled once in a while, which is at least once a day. I have tried suggestions from the communities on my MacBook, that tell me to remove passwords from KeyChain and files from my disk. This helps temporarily, but the problem returns. I am leaving my wife's system alone for now, hoping that Apple will resolve this. Reading the many comments in other threads we are not the only ones with the issue.

Who can help?

Mac Pro

Posted on Oct 30, 2020 5:13 AM

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Answer 1

Oct 30, 2020 5:15 AM in response to jmvdkolk

Have you tried signing out of your Apple ID, then signing back in, then turning it back on?

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Answer 2

Oct 30, 2020 6:09 AM in response to jmvdkolk

My work MBP has Centrify password management, and after a password change it no longer unlocks with my Apple Watch. Signing out/in with your Apple ID fixes that reliably, which is why I suggest it.

Like many things in life, the choice is yours. You can try to solve a problem or you can ignore it and hope it goes away. Or maybe a Chromebook, Pixel and Google watch would make you less fed up. Maybe those devices never need to be restarted and always work flawlessly together no matter what a user does.

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Answer 3

jmvdkolk Author

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Oct 30, 2020 5:48 AM in response to neuroanatomist

I have not, and it should not be necessary. I am fed up right now with Apple's quality, forcing me to do all kinds of weird repair actions to keep the system working. This week I have had to completely reset my Apple Watch and my iPhone to solve another Apple defect (my Apple Watch battery was drained within 12 hours).

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Answer 4

jmvdkolk Author

Level 1

48 points

Oct 30, 2020 8:11 AM in response to neuroanatomist

I'm not sure about you. But I have spent a lot of money on Apple devices because they are supposed to work BETTER than Chromebook, Pixel and Google Watch. Providing an answer like "just log out and back in" is a Microsoft and Google quality answer. Moving to Chromebook, Pixel and Google Watch would only make things worse. I want Apple to get their act together and finally start delivering quality software again. iOS 13 was full of nasty defects, and now iOS 14 is the same quality. Having to spend significant time on un-pairing and restoring from backup, and now on logging out of iCloud, is perhaps a short term workaround, but not a solution.

So, thank you for the workaround. But I would still like a solution.

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Answer 5

jmvdkolk Author

Level 1

48 points

Oct 30, 2020 8:17 AM in response to jmvdkolk

So, I just started logging out of iCloud on my MacBook. Now this wishes to erase my Apple Pay cards. I think I will call Apple support instead. Having to go through the Apple Pay process for all of my cards is worse than the time spent on Apple support. I just spent significant time getting all my cards back into my iPhone.

So, thank you again for the suggestion neuroanatomist, but logging out of iCloud is not currently an option.

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Answer 6

jmvdkolk Author

Level 1

48 points

Oct 30, 2020 9:42 AM in response to neuroanatomist

@neuroanatomist: you are absolutely right. I should not be venting my frustration with Apple on people like you who are trying to help. I really do appreciate the help, and should not have vented here.

On the up-side: my wife's MacBook seems to have auto-healed. Let's see how mine behaves tomorrow. Right now it works.

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Answer 7

Oct 30, 2020 8:24 AM in response to jmvdkolk

"We" are users like you, only Apple can provide the solutions you're looking for. Good luck.

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Unlock your Mac with Apple Watch stopped working

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