Apple Watch Stuck in "Preparing" during watchOS 9.6 update

Same so many times I’ve tried. The only reason I care to update is because I read that it’s a fix for the battery draining fast which just started two days ago.

This update that keeps getting stuck in preparing I don’t know how many times turning watch off, phone off, deleting the update turning everything back on again and it’s still stuck in bloody preparing. What do I do now.

Because the watch is stuck in "preparing" mode, it keeps draining the battery life on my watch. It is only lasting 5 hours!

Happened to me as well. Then I noticed that I still had Express VPN toggled on. When I turned that off. It slowly finished preparing. Maybe the VPN was interfering or maybe it was just really really slow in doing its thing. I have a 15 pro and ultra 2. I wouldn’t expect their bleeding edge tech to take more than 20 min to update.

Don’t miss the important steps of restarting (actually powering down and turning back on, should see the  reboot screen) BOTH the phone and the watch after deleting the file.

Since doing this my watch updated and is has had no other issues related to OS updates, even updated itself again last night with no trouble

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i tried all of these steps about 20 times and didn’t get it to work, until finally I deleted the update file, restarted both the watch and phone again, started the update from my phone, and this time I put BOTH my watch and phone on the chargers. Every other time I only had the watch on the charger. I don’t know if that last step had anything to do with it, but it’s the only thing I did differently and it worked.

How do you delete a file that isn't there because it never get's past the "preparing" point?

The only thing that worked for me was to unpair my watch from my phone and reinstall that watch. Then, the software worked. I tried deleting the software update and then restarting both the watch and my phone several times and it didn't work. Once I unpaired them and paired them back up again - it worked perfectly.

Same. Tried everything in this thread over two days and talked with tech support. Also, while stuck in "preparing," my watch will only charge to 63% and then drain quickly while I'm wearing it. Deleting the 10.4 update lets my watch work normally running 10.3.1, which I will use until Apple fixes this glitch in 10.4.1.

My iWatch is stuck on preparing the update! Now what??

Thank you! 🙏🏾 This combination of steps helped me resolve the issue.

As yourself, I didn't find an update...at first. After restarting phone and watch, then Watch → General → Storage showed the update file, which can be selected and then a Delete button is offered.

So now I've got a retry on the update going, which it claims is going to take 7 hours. I am on a Gbit Xfinity link. I should be able to download 700Mbytes in moments.

We'll see. This is psychotic.

I was able to get the update going by turning off auto update and powering off both the phone a watch. When I powered up the phone reverted to saying it was up to date with the previous update then asked about updating to the current one.

Been there, done that, all as with your experience. Details for possible benefit of others here.

Deleting update data did nothing, attempt to update WatchUltra to 10.4 just cycled back to 'prepare.'

Shutting down & restarting watch and phone seemed hopeful. Time bar said 20 minutes... got to ten, though in 45 minutes as the time backtracked several times... finally 3, 2,1 minutes, then seconds... 3,2,1, 0.

Oh boy! at last.

Nope. Bounced back to "preparing" again, about 3/5 of bar filled as before -- many times before-- and stuck there.

Should anyone try to follow the suggestion to contact Apple Support, after several tries "Apple Watch update stuck on 'preparing' got me "Apple Watch shuts down and won't restart."

Chat got me... (my responses slightly truncated.)

Thanks for contacting Apple Support. My name is (xxxx). Please give me a

moment to look over your information. (...typing, 20-30 second wait)

Hello. (...typing)

I hope your day is going great so far! (...typing)

How can I help you today? (... typing) (Me: how about you look over my information?")

I see, thank you for bringing our attention to this one. (...typing)

We want to make sure that your concern is being taken care of. I'd be more

than happy to help you out and check further!

(Long wait. ... typing.... ) I totally understand. We could now jump on to

performing steps that could help us sort this out. (...typing)

Depending on the outcome, we may consider escalating your case further.

Sounds like a plan?

(me...  No, sounds like no plan... ...signing off) (Chatbot? could any human devise such inane input?)

I figure that, at our modest hourly rates, I could buy a new watch or phone with the time I've spent over Apple's inability to properly configure an update (this is obvious from the number and dates of entries here--).

PS: I'm assuming that my watch draining to zero several times a day with no haptic to tell me to charge it has to do with it being in an unending 'preparing' mode. Turning off automatic updating for IOS might have helped a little.

I really just want to point out that if restarting your phone and restarting your watch doesn't work, you must unpair your watch from your phone and go through re-pairing it. I deleted the file, restarted my phone, restarted my watch and it would not work. I kept getting "preparing". It was ONLY AFTER I unpaired and re-paired my watch and phone that the update worked.