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

same issue for me on my Apple Watch Ultra -

couldn't figure out how to restart as it went crazy trying apps, dialing 911, attempting to crack my password.

Holding down the digital crown and side button (below the digital crown)

at the same time forced a restart.

Pretty creepy experience - like one of those movies where the AI takes over and the then next thing you know your fighting your Roomba off with the toilet plunger.

Seems fine now, but I'm unplugging everything before going to sleep.

This might not be it, but when it does happen, this is how it will start.

Same - Apple Watch 9 did same thing on Feb 13. Sent an alert to my emergency contacts (good to know that works) and only stopped after updating the watchOS firmware to v10.3.1 last night (I wasn’t able to turn the phone off however as it kept doing things on the screen)

But then this morning it did the same thing. I was able to turn off my watch for an hour or so which did the trick this time. Obviously not fully fixed (?) in latest firmware.

Me too! This is the second time this has happened to me in the past 6 months. This time the timer started, I tried to stop it and screen went crazy, flashing really fast. I tried pressing the crown. Then siren sound and it called 911. There was no way to cancel it. I told the operator my watch went crazy. She replied….no problem. After calling 911, I pressed the crown and the phone acted normal. I did a reboot anyway.

By the way, this was at 2:15am. I had just returned from restroom. Now I am wide awake.

I just saw there is a watch update so I am installing that now. I’ll reboot again after the update as a previous poster recommended. Hopefully after that I can go back to sleep. I’ll call Apple Support Monday.

Mine just did this nonsense today. It was flipping around apps, typing in random passcodes... I did the hard reset and all seems well. It wants to do the 10.3.1 update from 10.2 current OS and will do that tonight. I hope that is the end of it!

This happened to me tonight March 14 on a series 9 purchased in December 2023. I did the hard restart and it stopped acting weird. Still assessing the damages as it was opening calendar invites, trying to enter the password, trying to delete apps, resetting alarms, etc. Glad I read this post before it called 911. I'm updating phone and watch software so hopefully that resolves the issue.

I had this happen today and I contacted apple support. Said they had never heard about this issue before and did not suggest I needed to update. I am updating now so hopefully all will be good. Even asked me to video tape the problem if it happens again because no one there knows about this problem.

Same thing happened to me today, March 30. Watch 9 went crazy, apps flickering and changing all over the place. Haptics going wild and then a siren went off. No way to stop it. It called 911 and I had to tell them that I was fine and that my watch was going crazy. I finally was able to power it down (holding down the crown and the side button). I've unpaired and re-paired and "set up as a new watch." Updating the iPhone 14 and the watch OS now too. This was pretty scary and, in addition to calling 911, it sent a message to my wife that there was an emergency at our house. Not good.

After hard reboot and software update my watch kept sending SOS messages to my ICE. A call to support led to repairing my watch to my phone. I just finished that so we shall see if that fixes the problem.

I updated to 10.4 this morning and then left for work. It sent out SOS twice after that. So, I did a factory reset and then restore from backup. I'm hoping this solves the issues. I've had two Apple watches prior to this one and never had a problem. This one went haywire last night and called 911 plus sent SOS texts to my emergency contacts.

This exact same thing happened to me yesterday with my Ultra 2. And to boot, I was attending a play when it happened. Among the many crazy things it was doing, it had my phone ring the audible locator jingle, which I couldn’t stop. I was horrified!

I’ve done the hard reboot which stops the watch doing haywire things. However, any time I look down at the watch, rather than the normal face appearing, it has some random app open, most often the compass.

I have automatic software updates turned on on both my watch and iPhone, but when I just checked today, they both hadn’t actually updated. So I’m doing the updates and hope the crazy behavior is now a thing of the past.

dianefromtowson wrote:

my Ultra II just went nuts. 4/6/24. So it was not fixed with the last update. I’m doing a hard reboot to see if it helps.

If 10.4 did not fix it then your watch may be faulty. Go through this…

Apple Watch basic diagnostics - Apple Community

KatHarmon wrote:

My watch is up to date and it is still doing it.

If it is doing it on 10.4 then go right through these steps, the last being getting the watch fixed.

Apple Watch basic diagnostics - Apple Community

Birgit Rhoads wrote:

I did call Apple and hope the problem is reported. It is unacceptable to have your watch just go bonkers!!!

If it only happens once, it's a glitch. There is pretty much no piece of technology made by humans that doesn't have the occasional glitch. A one-off problem generally doesn't provide enough data to determine what caused it. No sense in letting it bother you too much.

If it happens repeatedly, arrange to have Apple run diagnostics.

jsalzer wrote:

For everyone that responds trying to downplay play this “bug” it isn’t helping.

I'm not downplaying anything; just being realistic. If something goes wrong only once, there's almost nothing you (or anyone else) can do about it. If it happens more than once, have Apple run diagnostics.

Apple doesn't read here for feedback or suggestions. You can, however, let them know your observations here:

Product Feedback - Apple