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My Apple Watch 9 is acting weird - Is this a bug?

My Apple Watch 9 (bought mid December 2023) just started going crazy. It was switching apps, trying to enter passcode, and then finally, after two minutes of trying to stop it, sounded the siren and called 911. I had to explain to the operator that my watch was going crazy and had called spontaneously. She seemed unfazed by this, so i'm assuming this is a common occurrence (also judging by other comments and questions in the forum). I was able to hard reboot my watch, which seems to have fixed the issue (but we'll see). My question is, does anyone know why this is happening? This has to be an issue known to Apple (as it's been reported on other models as well and for several years (oldest commentary I see is from 2020). Is this a bug? A virus? (If so, is there a way to remove it?) If anyone has any information it would be helpful. This happened to me in the midst of a meeting with many people around. Is it just a function of having to restart/reboot the watch periodically?


[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Apple Watch Series 9

Posted on Jan 31, 2024 4:57 AM

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Posted on Feb 3, 2024 6:20 PM

Mine just started doing this! Trying a force restart because it wouldn’t let me turn it off. Screen is jumping all over the place and the watch is not responding at all. Just bought it in November. Had my previous own for years with ZERO issues so I’m not pleased.

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Feb 2, 2024 6:50 PM in response to mjanelle4

I just experienced the same issue with my watch series 9. Feb 2nd

I removed it so luckily it did not call 911.

After hard restarting it started working normally again. After a few minutes I noticed a notification regarding watchOS 10.3 update.

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Feb 2, 2024 8:13 PM in response to Willybo

I’m wondering if it had to do with the software upgrade that came out about the same time both for watch and iPhone. Maybe coincidence. But maybe deliberate? Would be interesting to see if similar things happened with other models during updates

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Feb 4, 2024 5:30 PM in response to mjanelle4

The same happened to me right now and I googled and found this post and signed in to share here.

Sunday, Feb 4th, 2024

Apple Watch started to jump and navigate to different screens and open Apple Music, and Browser and ask for location permission. I could not stop it from acting weird. Eventually started texting my husband, and calling 911.

I tried force reboot and again repeated all this!

I put my phone in Flight mode and then rebooted the watch again to resolve the issue.

I have videos of the event as evidence!!





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Feb 4, 2024 5:33 PM in response to mjanelle4

This just happened to me, watch went crazy, then my iPhone too! Watch kept calling 911 and I couldn’t stop it. Rebooted my phone. I was so freaked out my boyfriend suggested unpairing my watch. Did that then paired again. All has been fine for a while, but the fact it happened with my iPhone too, very concerning. What’s going on?

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Feb 6, 2024 8:47 AM in response to mjanelle4

You’ve just described word for what what my watch just did in Lidl !!! I was so embarrassed the emergency sos alarm was sounding it text my Mum and called 999!! I apologised profusely to the lady and had to convince her I wasn’t being murdered or assaulted. I couldn’t turn it off and it kept entering numbers on the pin code

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Feb 6, 2024 11:29 AM in response to henkdebruijn

After the 3 hours were you able to put your passcode in and unlock your watch? Every time I try it starts the 3 hrs over. I’m getting so frustrated! I can’t do the update on my watch without entering the passcode but the stupid watch won’t let me enter it. I’ve tried the hard reboot many times, it does nothing. Just starts the 3 hrs over again. I put it on the charger and it’s fully charged.

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Feb 6, 2024 11:58 AM in response to Rebeccat503

Yes, watch is fine now. I did a hard reboot (hold down crown and side switch for 10 seconds) and then updated software on both watch and phone. Haven't had a problem since. I tried to contact Apple Support, but all they wanted was to do a "diagnostic" on it, which means nothing. They're going to try to blame us for the issue.

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Feb 6, 2024 1:10 PM in response to mjanelle4

This exact same thing happened to me around 3am PST Feb 6th, 2024. Woke me out of a dead sleep with some loud alarm sound. Then when I looked at my watch it was as though someone had hacked into my watch - or was trying to - and the screen was going crazy between trying to enter in all these different wrong passcodes and all my apps, and trying to call 911. I wasn’t able to stop the screen craziness no matter what I did, until I hard rebooted my watch (pressing & holding both buttons together on the side for 10 seconds until I saw the apple icon). But then it wouldn’t let me try to enter my passcode to unlock my watch and kept giving me 3 hrs wait times to attempt to log in. I finally had to call Apple Support and thank God I did because they knew exactly how to fix it. The lady had to lead me through how to unpair the watch from my iPhone, do both the update for my iPhone and my watch, and then restore everything back onto my watch (basically wipe it and then put everything back on) after the update installed. Oh, and P.S., the watch update install and pairing back to my iPhone process took over an hour, where this lady had to remote access my iPhone and help me through the process and then sit on the phone with me while all this downloaded and installed. What a pain in the butt. She also said “the Apple Engineers are working on whatever is causing this but we are calling it ‘ghost watch’.” Just an FYI for whoever this happens to next that needs to follow this process. But now that all that is done, my watch is back to working properly.

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My Apple Watch 9 is acting weird - Is this a bug?

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