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

Contact Apple Support. I have never heard of this happening.

Official Apple Support

I am running IOS 17.4 now, however I did not do the step of un-paring and re-pairing the watch to my phone. I have done that step now and we'll and see if that resolves it

This should have been fixed in iOS17.4.1

Same issue here with my series 9 running WatchOS 10.3.1. iPhone will be updated to 17.4.1 tonight. The watch hard reset appears to have stopped the strange behavior which started out of the blue.

I had that same issue but the hard reboot didn’t help. I would contact Apple

I just had my 9 go crazy, launch apps, had the siren, then the emergency operator. I have 10.4 installed. The bug is NOT fixed.

You didn’t read the thread. OS10.3 had a bug, OS10.4 doesn’t.

You didn’t accept the bug fix update - why?

Just maybe you need to do better?

Try 10.5

This happened to me also last night — Feb 1. My timer kept restarting itself and password keep trying to unlock watch. Got locked out many times.

finally took it off then put it on charger. Seems to be working fine now. And yes, it seemed like it was having a seizure!

Hello everyone, just came across this thread on 2/2/2024. Mine started with me clicking the button on the side to see battery level and suddenly I see passcode entering on its own, apps opening and switching, entries I never made happening on the watch. I started off with wiping the underside with a clean soft cloth. Next I took off the protective cover and band which got me down to just the watch itself. The behavior continued which brought me to support. I will try putting it on the charger and see what happens. Really starting to get tired of paying Apple money and getting subpar software.

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?

This happened to me as well -- Apple Watch 9 -- on Feb. 9th. I ended up turning the apple watch off, as well as my phone that it's attached to, and it seems to have resolved the malfunction (for now).

Has anyone had this happen more than once on their watch? Or was it just the one time?

I have commented a couple of times, same exact issue a few weeks ago. I truly feel EVERYONE that had this issue NEEDS to contact Apple. Yes, they’re going to do a diagnostic test, but if they hear from enough people perhaps they’ll look into this. Thank God it hasn’t happened again, but I fear it will. It’s extremely scary when you can’t control your watch. 🤦🏻‍♀️

Mine did this yesterday out of the blue. First it triggered ‘find my’ on my phone, and it gave the alert sound. That’s what when I noticed the screen on my watch was going crazy, almost like someone had control over apps. It was opening and closing random apps. It ended up calling 911, the siren sound went off I’m guessing for fall detection. Unfortunately couldn’t stop the call, but luckily 911 operators were nice about it.

Put the watch on the charger as it wouldn’t allow a restart. Eventually after it sat I was able to restart it and get the new update. I’m hoping that works because I’m terrified to wear this watch now. This is obviously an issue since it’s not just me it’s happened to, hoping Apple addresses it.

Mine did the same thing tonight. It didn't call 911, but it did send a message to my 2 emergency contacts. At least I know that that feature works. Did the hard reset by holding down the crown and the button under it. Now updating phone and then will update the watch. Hopefully this won't happen again.