My download of Apple watchOS 10.4 STOPPED during "preparing" and won't advance.

My update has been stuck on preparing for over an hour. Hey Apple, we clearly spend waaaaay too much money on your products, can you please at the very least deliver on what we pay for? Sorry if it’s too much to ask :/

I tried this method multiple times. I have a Iphone 12 Pro Max- Watch is 7 with wifi. It will not update. I have deleted the storage several times. Tried hard resets. Watch 100% charged and on the charger as well as Iphone. I give up.

The last 2 days, the watch dies quickly as if it is trying to update and can't. Very frustrating.

Same issue here.

iPhone 15 on iOS 17.4.1

Apple Watch 7 watchOS 10.3.1 trying to update to 10.4

I tried to update today while both were on the charger this morning (fully charged) it sat in “preparing…” for 8 hours. Finally rebooted both the iPhone and Watch, deleted 10.4 from storage and restarted the install. It downloaded and then sat in “preparing…” for another 3 hours.

not sure what to do. The watch has plenty of space, network is awesome, not sure.

Applewatch 7 / iphone 15Promax -

Same situation - 1,5 hour of preparing with no visible progress

Deleted / restarted everything 2 times.

halfbaked / Downloaded/ deleted update file 10.4 was 1,04 GB ( !!! )

is the full download like 5 GB ?

Just tried the update last night. Did not work. Sat on preparing all night long. Deleted it. Restarted everything and it does the same thing. Pretty frustrating. Guessing we will need an update to fix the update.

I’m in the same situation. Followed everybody’s advice here and no success. Left it on the charger overnight and it was still on “Preparing” in the same spot 8 hours later. Guess I’ll be using 10.3.1 for a while longer.

I have tried every way mentioned here and I have the same issue. My iPhone is a 12 and updated. My watch is an SE. The update hangs on Preparing.

Several friends are having the same issue. My guess is there is a problem with the update and Apple will fix it.

I opened a ticket for this with Apple support. Tried to resolve via chat but they could not. Was then escalated to phone support where they said this was an "emerging issue..." Since March? Now escalated to a supervisor.

I am trying to do this due to this other issue of the watch going crazy and opening random apps. I tried the online chat and that guy gave up. Then I tried the phone support and they gave up and gave me a supervisor. That guy hung up on me. Then I got another guy who was either playing games or texting while talking to me (constant beeping). He asked me to unpair and then try the update again. This didn't work and he bailed. Now I have an appointment with the Apple Store when I will ask for a refund. Product is a complete joke and the support is even worse. How far Apple has fallen...

update - before I posted this reply, I had my watch on preparing on the new update (after downloading it) around 13 mins after made this reply, my watch went to install the update, I am replying to my post to let everyone know it's now working on my end

Exact same thing happened to me. My Apple watch (series 8) doesn't keep the battery charge so the first thing I was going to do was install the updates and if that doesn't help, reset my watch. The updates got stuck on "preparing" for all day. But the suggestion below worked to actually finish the updates.

This is 100% ridiculous. I have done everything suggested. I even reseted the watch. Nothing works. Still stuck on preparing. The crazy thing is my wife and daughter got new watches and they updated just fine. I know it's not that big of a deal. But the fact that apple is not even acknowledging this is insane.

Same issue; noticed battery on watch dying after 12-14 hours. Spotted that update was stuck at around 60% 'preparing.' I've turned off automatic updates. I've deleted the download on the phone, I've turned off both the watch and the phone numerous times. At the moment it's having another go telling me it'll be around an hour ... but I know it's going to fail again.

[Edited by Moderator]

I have the same problem with my Apple Watch Series 4 44MM and my Iphone 11 ProMax 256 GB , it has the latest IOS , more than 50% battery charged in both elements , any help , I am having trouble not using my watch, thanks in advance.

I followed a fix i foound here which didn't work:"on iPhone of to watch, then general, then storage-if download 10.4 is there delete it...I did then attempted to download again and it got a bit past half loaded and stopped in exactly the same place again 'preparing' Help please.