My Apple Watch Ultra 2 has been acting sporadic

It's a bug in 10.3 on s9 and U2 watches.

Update phone to iOS17.4.1 and watch to watch OS 10.4

If a hard reboot does not fix it then Wipe Watch and set up again then update

Put Apple Watch on its charger.

Press and hold the side button until you see the screen with the power button in the upper-right corner, then let go of the side button. If your Apple Watch has an earlier version of watchOS, you see the Power Off slider instead of the power button.

Press and hold the Digital Crown until you see the red Reset button.

Tap Reset, then tap Reset again to confirm. 

After Apple Watch unpairs completely, you can pair again. Remember that you'll need the Apple ID and password that were used to set up the watch.

This was a recent update bug.

If a forced restart does not fix it then reset the watch like this…

Put Apple Watch on its charger.

Press and hold the side button until you see the screen with the power button in the upper-right corner, then let go of the side button. If your Apple Watch has an earlier version of watchOS, you see the Power Off slider instead of the power button.

Press and hold the Digital Crown until you see the red Reset button.

Tap Reset, then tap Reset again to confirm.

After Apple Watch unpairs completely, you can pair again. Remember that you'll need the Apple ID and password that were used to set up the watch. Set up as New Watch.

Put Apple Watch on its charger.

Press and hold the side button until you see the screen with the power button in the upper-right corner, then let go of the side button. If your Apple Watch has an earlier version of watchOS, you see the Power Off slider instead of the power button.

Press and hold the Digital Crown until you see the red Reset button.

Tap Reset, then tap Reset again to confirm. 

After Apple Watch unpairs completely, you can pair again. Remember that you'll need the Apple ID and password that were used to set up the watch. Set up as New Watch.

update to OS10.4

watchOS 10.4 includes new features, improvements and bug fixes, including:

• Tap to Show Full Notification setting now allows you to double-tap to expand the notification
• Using Apple Pay with Confirm with AssistiveTouch will require a passcode for additional security and will not support double-clicking the side button
• Resolves an issue that causes some users to experience false touches on the display
• Fixes an issue that prevents contacts from syncing to Apple Watch for some users

For information on the security content of Apple software updates, please visit this website: Apple security releases - Apple Support

Read the whole thread next time.

It's a bug in 10.3 on s9 and U2 watches.

Update phone to iOS17.4.1 and watch to watch OS 10.4

If a hard reboot does not fix it then Wipe Watch and set up again then update

Put Apple Watch on its charger.

Press and hold the side button until you see the screen with the power button in the upper-right corner, then let go of the side button. If your Apple Watch has an earlier version of watchOS, you see the Power Off slider instead of the power button.

Press and hold the Digital Crown until you see the red Reset button.

Tap Reset, then tap Reset again to confirm. 

After Apple Watch unpairs completely, you can pair again. Remember that you'll need the Apple ID and password that were used to set up the watch.

Went to the Genius bar at the local Apple Store. 3 experts concluded it was a defect display causing the erratic autonomous dialing. The sent it out for factory repair . Takes a week, but no charge ( just have no watch for a week ). I’m still thinking this is a software issue - not the physical display

Hi, I’m in the UK and have had the same issues with my Ultra2 watch, which was about 5 months old. Following a call to Apple Support, my watch was sent off for “repair” by my local Genius Bar after taking it in. They thought it might be a hardware issue, but it would be down to the technicians at the depot to determine the cause and how it’s resolved. They sent me a non retail boxed replacement watch about 9 days later. I set it up and updated the software to 10:4, The Blood Oxygen feature remains available, (here in the UK). Hope that you get yours sorted out too. More details on my issues are in my previous posts in this thread on the 9th and 18th of April 2024 if that helps. Best regards.

Don't take the watch off or it will lock, hold the crown and the button below 10 seconds rebooted the watch, problem gone.

Update phone first, then the watch to 10.4

I’ve had exactly the same problem with my Ultra2. It is a bug that Apple have acknowledged in IOS 10.3. You just need to place your watch on the charger and upgrade the software to 10.4. You don’t need to reinstall or unpair. Once upgraded, if you’ve been locked out of your phone, just wait until the period ends, re-enter your password and it will then operate as normal. This has worked for me (on April 2, 2024).

My Ultra 2 was bouncing all over from app to app this morning. I finally shut it down and restarted it. It’s was back to semi-normal but I discovered that there were maybe 30 instances of timers running. I must have done something overnight sleeping pressing the side button or something. After the restart and closing all of the running timers, it seems to be normal.

My Ultra 2 was doing the same thing, jumping between apps, starting and stopping workouts and when I took the watch off my wrist it started entering pass codes on its own until it timed out for one minute then five minutes.

I put the watch on the charger while it was timed out and when I went to check it a few minutes later it was fine.

The watch went crazy while I was playing pickleball and sweating and I think the moisture on my wrist may have caused it to short out because once it was off my wrist and dry again it was fine.

Not very ultra if moisture caused the problem.

This was a recent update bug.

If a forced restart does not fix it then reset the watch like this…

Put Apple Watch on its charger.

Press and hold the side button until you see the screen with the power button in the upper-right corner, then let go of the side button. If your Apple Watch has an earlier version of watchOS, you see the Power Off slider instead of the power button.

Press and hold the Digital Crown until you see the red Reset button.

Tap Reset, then tap Reset again to confirm.

After Apple Watch unpairs completely, you can pair again. Remember that you'll need the Apple ID and password that were used to set up the watch. Set up as New Watch.

It happened to me today. Ultra 2. Kept trying to start the compass. Then screens kept changing. I took it off my wrist and then the keyboard was typing random numbers in the Lock Screen. Locked me out. I tried to turn it off but the screen was unresponsive and wouldn’t let me slide to power off. I finally held the crown and side button and did a hard reset. Now waiting the 15 minutes until it lets me type a passcode again. Really freaky.

Happened to me. Couldn't turn off and couldn't reset.

Went to Watch App on phone and deleted the watch. Keep the cell link. That worked.

Have to reinstall as if new.

However, install 10.4 BEFORE it happens and that should fix it.

It sounds like my experience diagnosed as a display defect at the apple shop. That is under a 1 year warranty (otherwise 499 USD repair cost) .

A deeper question is: how many display dysfunctions are reported , what is apple doing about it (CAR).

It's more than a nuisance given how dependent we are on these tools ..

.