You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Can't Swipe Up or Down on Apple Watch

From time to time I can't swipe up or down to reveal the Notifications or the Control Center on my Series 5 Apple Watch. My wife doesn't seem to have the same issue on her Series 6 but I see where other users have reported having the problem on 6 so don't think issue is related to hardware but more likely watchOS.

While the workaround is to restart the watch, the frequency of it becoming unresponsive to these swipe gestures, I'm currently having to restart over two days when the problem happens. No, I haven't wiped the watch completely clean and started over again, can't say I've ever had an issue resolved with that step but looking to see if others have this, other workarounds and will look to report this as a bug that hopefully can be addressed in an update to WatchOS.

Apple Watch Sport

Posted on Sep 23, 2021 7:17 PM

Top-ranking reply

commanderclif_me Author

Level 1

66 points

Posted on Sep 24, 2021 8:16 AM

Thanks for the reply but as I stated in my original post, Restarting the watch is the current workaround but it requires frequency and annoying that when you go to swipe, you want it to do that function then and not have to wait for restart every time.

Secondly, aware of unpairing and resetting but avoiding that step for now as I stated in OP.

No screen protector but don't see or have had any indication that debris was a cause since a restart fixes the issue. Sure I've had where wet fingers or wet watch may not respond to touches and cleaning or drying allows the functionality to work correctly but that is not the case here in my situation or in others who have this happen intermittently and with frequency.

One thing I read was toggling off and back on the haptic setting on the watch seems to fix the issue without a restart so I'll be testing that the next time it quits working properly.

View in context

Can't Swipe Up or Down on Apple Watch

Similar questions