Why is verifying taking hours?
Trying to update my watch and it is taking hours!
Apple Watch Series 3, watchOS 6
Question marked as
Top-ranking reply
Yes I noticed similar behaviour too. The S3 is clearly slower with that verify step. Maybe it's a slower or more cramped hard drive than in the later models. In my case it was still done in less than one hour though.
By the way it is best to follow these guidelines below very carefully too, especially if its the S3 non-cellular GPS only model, with only 8GB on board. During the first re-pair, be sure to select Set Up as New (and no apps or analytics). Otherwise you will run out of storage later. You will get the possibility to restore your backup during the second re-pairing.
If you don’t have enough space to update your Apple Watch - Apple Support
If you have the cellular S3, then hopefully that verify step was eventually completed OK? If problems continue however, it might be best to unpair and re-pair with that model too.