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Having issues with Apple watch 6 not showing incoming phone calls.

Has anyone else had problems with Apple Watch 6 not showing I coming phone calls?

I've researched all the forms and help threads, all my settings are ok. I’ve reset my watch and that fixes it for a while but it does it again after some time. I found that whe it does it now, I call out with it a few times and then it seems to work again. Weird.

Posted on Feb 9, 2021 4:40 PM

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Posted on Feb 9, 2021 5:05 PM

You didn't say if you have a cellular version or not. FWIW, I believe incoming phone calls work like notifications. Notifications go to either your Apple Watch or iPhone, but not both. If your iPhone is unlocked, you'll get notifications on your iPhone, instead of your Apple Watch. If your iPhone is locked or asleep, you'll get notifications on your Apple Watch, unless your Apple Watch is locked with your passcode. For more info, see:

Notifications on your Apple Watch - Apple Support


The first (and simplest) thing to try (which I guess you already did) if something isn’t working right is to restart your Apple Watch and its paired iPhone. If necessary (device not responding), try a forced restart. Both methods can be found here:

How to restart your Apple Watch - Apple Support

Restart your iPhone - Apple Support


If that doesn't help, the next steps would be to unpair and pair your watch again and restore from the backup just created. This deletes all temp and corrupted files and re-indexes the file system.

Unpair and erase your Apple Watch - Apple Support

Set up your Apple Watch - Apple Support

2 replies
Question marked as Best reply

Feb 9, 2021 5:05 PM in response to brewermb

You didn't say if you have a cellular version or not. FWIW, I believe incoming phone calls work like notifications. Notifications go to either your Apple Watch or iPhone, but not both. If your iPhone is unlocked, you'll get notifications on your iPhone, instead of your Apple Watch. If your iPhone is locked or asleep, you'll get notifications on your Apple Watch, unless your Apple Watch is locked with your passcode. For more info, see:

Notifications on your Apple Watch - Apple Support


The first (and simplest) thing to try (which I guess you already did) if something isn’t working right is to restart your Apple Watch and its paired iPhone. If necessary (device not responding), try a forced restart. Both methods can be found here:

How to restart your Apple Watch - Apple Support

Restart your iPhone - Apple Support


If that doesn't help, the next steps would be to unpair and pair your watch again and restore from the backup just created. This deletes all temp and corrupted files and re-indexes the file system.

Unpair and erase your Apple Watch - Apple Support

Set up your Apple Watch - Apple Support

Feb 9, 2021 5:14 PM in response to javaliga

Tks ... my watch is not cellular. When I have this issue, I make sure that’s it’s close enough to my phone, the phone is locked, and it will show missed call in notifications, but won’t vibrate or ring or even show that call is incoming. Hard reboots don’t fix, and sometimes repairing does (for a little while).

now I find I have to use it to make outgoing calls a few times and it will work again, temporarily. Never had this issue with the series 4 or 5 that I owned.

Having issues with Apple watch 6 not showing incoming phone calls.

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