Now playing on Apple Watch not working after update

After iOS 10 (Apple Watch) with iOS 17 (iPhone) Now Playing only shows me what is playing, but I can't control volume, pause or play. I use apps other than apple music and can no longer use my watch for these! Help!!

I believe I'm experiencing the same problem.

When Now Playing launches, it shows me a list of available devices and the current content on each device. (For example, it shows me the Music app, an audiobook app on my iPhone, and my Apple TV 4k).

According to the Apple support page, I'm supposed to be able to tap on the specific device I want and that should open the controls (volume, play/pause, forward/back). However, when I tap nothing happens.

In other words, in Now Playing, I can't move from the list of available devices to the actual playback controls.

To illustrate, I'm using the photos from the Apple Support page. These are not screenshots from my actual watch.

My watch will display this Now Playing screen:

But no matter how much I tap on it, my watch will not display the playback controls. I cannot get to this screen:

Use Now Playing on Apple Watch - Apple Support

Yes. This is exactly what is happening for me and is extremely annoying. I sometimes drive long distances and I would use the watch to control various music or audio apps without having to look at the phone. Now I have to take my eyes off the road to operate the phone. I think it's incredibly dangerous.

I used to be able to pause what I was listening to using Now Playing, but that no longer works. All NP does now is show what podcast I’m listening to. I know what I’m listening to, thank you very much!?!? The point is that I don’t have to have my phone to pause. Fix this please!!!!

Same here - since 9.4 this is broken. Apple, this is a huge miss, fix ASAP plz.

It's not working for me and I have Apple Watch version 10.1.1 and the latest iOS version 17.1.2

Yes, I've been dealing with this (and even more so the failure of the "Return to App" setting) for a while now. First Overcast stopped staying open, but now nothing wants to stay open during audio playback — every time I look at my wrist expecting to see an audio app or the Now Playing screen I find that my watch has returned to the clock face instead.

I have tried it all — using different apps, toggling settings, restarting the watch and phone, and even resetting and repairing my watch as if it were new (may well have been my reddit posts about this that people are referencing here - my first post about it was 6 months ago, when watchOS 9.0 was released).

My best non-programmer guess is that there is a memory management issue somewhere, so that after some time the app in use is forced to close? Whatever the issue, it's become a dozens-of-times-a-day annoyance. Not great!

Update- I deleted the watch app and reinstalled, then powered off the watch twice. Everything began to function properly after that! Also, subsequent updates seem to have made operations more seamless! I do think that the “now playing” screen is still less user friendly (smaller controls), and less responsive, but at least it works now!

Help! Once again I can't control my watch when I'm listening to music or a book. Apple had seemed to fix it with updates in December, but it's started doing it again. This is very annoying. I'm on update 10.3. I keep looking for a new update to fix it yet again.

Same thing is happening to mine!!! SOS

I was having this same problem, ie. could see on my watch what was playing from my phone but couldn’t click on the watch to control volume or play/pause in any way as before. All is saw was this but clicking did nothing:

This is a new Apple Watch for me as of a few weeks ago, but I still had my old watch also paired. I did two things: unpaired the old watch and then restarted both my watch and phone… not sure which of these is responsible but now it works, and I can click to get to the controls as before:

(Apple Watch 9/iPhone 11 Pro, updated 10.2/10.17)

Since I updated my iPhone 14 to iOS 17.4, I can no longer control the audio playback from my Apple Watch Series 2 with the Now Playing app.

The Now Playing app should let you control audio playback on Apple Watch, iPhone, and other devices.

Since March 7th, 2024, the Now Playing app on my Apple Watch Series 2 displays an endless spinning wheel demonstrating it cannot connect with my iPhone 14.

Failed Troubleshooting Attempts 🙅

• Switching off the Apple Watch Series 2 and the iPhone 14 did not solve the problem
• ...

Some Online Bug Reports 🐛

• Now playing on Apple Watch not working after update - discussions.apple.com
• Now playing Apple Watch 3 series not working after watchos 5 update. What to do? - discussions.apple.com
• Now playing on Apple Watch not working after update - discussions.apple.com
• "Now Playing" App Not Working on Apple Watch - discussions.apple.com
• “Now playing” not working - reddit.com
• My Apple Watch running watchOS 6.3 no longer displays my iPhone in the 'Now Playing' - twitter.com
• iOS 17.4: Now Playing not working on Apple Watch - gist.github.com

Update March 21st, 2024

The release of iOS 17.4 on March 21st, 2024 did not solve the problem 🙅🏻

Same thing here, updated the iphone 14 pro max to the latest firmware, apple watch series 2 stopped working correctly!

do you think that the series 2 has been considered too old to keep up with the updates?

The only ones having troubles are the ones with the S2’s….

My complication works, partially. For example it will show the Song, Artist, etc. It even shows correctly as 'Paused' ... however if I click on the complication, the watch will default to show what's playing ON THE WATCH.

Screen simply shows "Loading..." and is otherwise greyed out. If I then click the back arrow, it brings me back to the Now Playing main screen with Apple Watch Not Playing, and below it I see iPhone. What shows there may or may not be correct. Sometimes it's simply old/outdated track info. Sometimes it's correct. If I click on it, usually the track name and artist is correct, but there is no live info on the screen?