Watch Series 3 now a Brick, cannot upgrade to WatchOS 8.7.1 now stuck un-upgradeable.

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Watch Series 3 now a Brick, cannot upgrade to WatchOS 8.7.1 now stuck un-upgradeable.

Just updated my iPhone to iOS 16.

Been trying for about 10hours to update my Apple Watch Series 3 to watchOS 8.7.1 but it will not work.

I've done all suggested troubleshooting, including rebooting both devices, ensuring wifi and bluetooth are on and working, making sure iPhone is connected to a 2.4GHz wireless home network, and I've even completely removed the watch from my Apple ID and factory reset on watch.

Nothing works. I continually get this error message over and over and over..

"Unable to verify update. The WatchOS update couldn't be verified because you are not connected to the internet."

I've even removed the MAC address and connection history directly via the router, which does show the connect device during "install".

Occasionally I'll restart the process of upgrade and it'll hang on "Preparing..." but do nothing. (I left it there for about 3hrs one of the times and zero progress.)

When I restart over again and pair the watch to the phone, the Watch app says I HAVE to upgrade the watch, which starts this cycle over again, and fail again.....

So now I have a fancy brick I can wear on my wrist that I cannot upgrade or setup.

If anyone can offer any hep above and beyond the standard troubleshooting tips, I'd be very appreciative.

The only other thing I can think of is to downgrade the iPhone back to iOS 15 - ridiculous.

Apple Watch

Posted on Sep 13, 2022 7:55 AM

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Answer 1

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Community User

Sep 13, 2022 7:58 AM in response to iisacc

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Answer 2

iisacc Author

Level 1

8 points

Sep 13, 2022 10:24 AM in response to Community User

I rolled back the iPhone 11 to iOS 15.6.1 which then allowed me to setup the Watch Series 3 again without being forced to immediately upgrade the software, which lands me back on watchOS 8.4.2

I'm currently on my 2nd attempt to upgrade the Watch to watchOS 8.7.1 - So far with the first failure being identical to previous error (..not connectedbut at least the watch is functional and I'm not locked out of it.

Brick averted...barely.

Well, the 2nd attempt at upgrading the watch to the latest watchOS gets it hanging on "Preparing..."

Summary:

Impossible to upgrade my Apple Watch series 3 to the latest final software.

(And for the record, dropping into an Apple store isn't realistic as the closest to me is about 4hrs drive one way..)

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Answer 3

iisacc Author

Level 1

8 points

Sep 13, 2022 10:47 PM in response to iisacc

After another hour or so of constant failures I was ready for bed.

So I decided to try an OTA update (Which for this Series 3 has never worked before due to storage constraints.)

But it worked, finally!

The fact I had to restore the iPhone to iOS 15 to get the watch to even setup at all is ridiculous.

I was then able to re-upgrade the iOS to 16 and have both devices finally fully updated.

13hrs in total - all just to update my Apple Watch series 3 to the final watchOS version.

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Watch Series 3 now a Brick, cannot upgrade to WatchOS 8.7.1 now stuck un-upgradeable.

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