Round timer complication doesn’t update

Would I be right in assuming you have more than one active face with this complication?

I first noticed this a few updates ago, and it seemed such an obvious bug that I was surprised more people weren't talking about it, or that Apple hadn't nixed it. Obviously it's more noticeable with timers of less than 60 minutes, where the seconds used to update in real time but don't any more.

A bit of further investigation and it would appear, at least on my SE, that it only manifests if you have multiple watch faces with the circular Timer complication embedded. I've noticed it most on Infograph Modular because I always have two of those in my list of active faces, but I've also seen it with other faces on occasion. Sometimes I can get the timer on one face to update while the others are frozen, but quite often none of them is updating. Uninstalling and reinstalling the complication can sometimes reset it, but only until I switch faces again at which point the whole coin-toss starts over.

I would guess this is why it's so infrequently reported. If most users have only one face, or at least have only one face with the timer complication, they won't have seen it.

The next question is, do I bother reporting this to Apple via their ridiculously opaque bug reporting system that's the technological equivalent of writing a letter to Santa and sending it up the chimney, or do I sit tight for a bit longer in the hope that it gets noticed internally?

( Edit: FWIW I have now reported this -- as feedback/problem only; alas I'm not a developer so don't get the fast track -- and linked to this thread. Fingers crossed that Santa gets the message... 😉 )

I found the replace-and-reinstall method was partially successful when using Infograph Modular in conjunction with another round timer-supporting face, but eventually the Infograph timer stopped updating.

But I can't get this to work at all with two Infograph faces; whichever face last had the complication installed gets the working timer while the other freezes. In fact if I replace the working complication with something else, the previously non-working complication starts working.

I've just been playing around with various faces and I've reached the conclusion that the reason I seemed to be seeing this more with Infograph is because those are the faces I use the most. I just tried it with two California faces and the same problem was repeatable there too.

Update: this might be key though. I just tried putting a non-Timer-complication California face between the two Timer-complication Infograph faces and now both of the Infograph complications are updating. There's a slight delay as the timers update from whatever digits they were on previously, but I think that's to be expected.

In a further experiment I then added the Timer complication to the California face and it froze while the other two either side of it carried on working.

At this point I thought I'd figured it out, and that the "rule" was that every other non-adjacent face would work while the ones in the middle didn't. So I added the Timer complication to a second California face at the end of the row for a total of four faces and... now only the first and last faces are working. The two in the middle are frozen!

Wow, this is bizarrely obscure. No bug bugs like an Apple bug bugs.

For now it looks as though the workaround for me is that, if I want the Timer on both of my Infograph faces to operate, I have to have another face (or faces) in the middle. If they're adjacent, or not at the ends of the selection of faces, one or other stops working.

Due to the way Apple provides zero feedback on non-developer bug reports, its unclear whether anyone will have read mine or followed the link to this thread if they did. If nothing happens in the next update I'll submit another report with these more specific details. It's all we can do.