No ping sound, halve the time?

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Level 1

10 points

No ping sound, halve the time?

Dear all,

I own the iPhone 6 (problem first notices with latest iOS 8.4 and sadly remained with iOS 9 beta 4) with the Apple Watch Sport. Everything is working just fine except the pinging my phone part. Sometime is just works, but in many trails my phone will not make any sound. I test cased for a while now, but I'm not able to figure out why it sometimes works and sometimes it doesn't.

What I do know is the following. When I notice my phone is not picking up the ping (phone is right next to me) then I try the long press on the Apple Watch ping bottom. This suppose to trigger the flashlight as well the ping sound, surprisingly my phone flashes in that case without the sound. So it does work, halve???

What I also try in many cases when I notice it's not working (no sound) is that I unlock the phone and then lock it again, usually most cases if I send ping after that the phone does play the sound?

Anybody recognize this behavior and knows how to solve it??

iPhone 6, iOS 8.4.1, Also tested with iOS 9 beta 4

Posted on Aug 27, 2015 3:47 PM

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Answer 1

Aug 27, 2015 4:18 PM in response to nicopeet911

Welcome to the Apple Community.

Have you tried restarting the watch (hold in bottom button until able to power off, or hold down button and crown to force restart if necessary) or even resetting it if the restart doesn’t help (My Watch > General > Reset).

You may also wish to restart your phone at the same time.

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Answer 2

nicopeet911 Author

Level 1

10 points

Aug 28, 2015 12:49 AM in response to Winston Churchill

Hello thank you for the warm welcome,

Yes I have tried all those things. Both phone and watch reset, off/on, closing all apps and then off/on, dis-attaching the watch and re-linking it with the phone, nothing helps. In addition, yesterday I tried the ping again, phone had a good connection to WiFi at home, and phone lays on my lap, so very close by, result no sound, tried a long ping, flash ping works but no sound. After that I tried switching off only WiFi on phone, again no sound, but flashing light with long ping. Did the same with only WiFi on and Bluetooth off, same results there. (Also tried with muted phone, sound low, sound high, sounds not muted)...

Then I pushed the home button on the phone, so that the screen lights up only briefly in lock screen, then I send the ping, result, iPhone plays ping sound, long ping result, iPhone flashes and plays the sound! 😕 After this when the screen go off again, the previous result of no sounds repeats itself.

What am I missing here?

Seems kind of stupid if I have to push the home button to be able to hear the ping sound when I'm searching for my phone does it?!

Any one more suggestions...? Maybe it solves itself with the new upcoming updates, lets hope so. 😐

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Answer 3

Sep 17, 2015 6:55 PM in response to nicopeet911

Hi,

I have the same problem but mine only started with OS9 on my 5s and apple watch.

This is one of the best features about this watch, hope they fix this soon.

Thanks

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Answer 4

yar2050

Level 1

10 points

Sep 18, 2015 10:27 AM in response to nicopeet911

I was able to get the ping to work if I kill sound-making apps (in my case, the Audible app makes the ping not work).

So... this is a problem in iOS 9, since this solution makes no particular sense (but it works).

Thx!

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Answer 5

Sep 19, 2015 9:26 PM in response to nicopeet911

Hi,

I came on here after googling for this issue myself.

It is happening on both my watch with an iPhone 6 on iOS 9. However i never had the issue on iOS 8.4.

My girl friends watch is also doing this with her iPhone 5 on iOS 9. She never had the watch with iOS 8.4 to know if it was affecting us then.

So as far as i know, it's an iOS 9 bug.

Just as you said nicopeet911 the light flash will also work, but the sound won't. Really bloody annoying.

I've also noticed Siri do a tone of weird stuff on iOS 9 with WatchOS 1. I guess we will have to wait if this is fixed in WatchOS 2.

Kind Regards,

Aaron

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Answer 6

Jonathan UK

Level 10

164,015 points

Sep 20, 2015 5:25 AM in response to nicopeet911

Try resetting the network settings on your iPhone (you will need to re-establish any Wi-Fi connections afterwards, if configured):

- Settings > General > Reset > Reset Network Settings.

Then restart both your iPhone and Apple Watch:

- To restart Apple Watch: Press and hold the side button until you see the Power Off slider; Drag the slider to turn off completely; Afterwards, press and hold the side button until you see the Apple logo.

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Answer 7

Sep 22, 2015 8:33 AM in response to Jonathan UK

Hi mate,

Sadly that didn't do anything.

We are still getting the same behaviour on WatchOS 2 as well.

I'm starting to think it's a bug with iOS.

Kind Regards,

Aaron ******

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Answer 8

Jonathan UK

Level 10

164,015 points

Sep 22, 2015 8:31 AM in response to Insomniac86

Hi

In another thread, unpairing and re-pairing has unfortunately not helped either.

You may wish to contact Apple Support: https://www.apple.com/support/watch/contact/

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Answer 9

Sep 23, 2015 7:37 PM in response to nicopeet911

Try updating to iOS 9.0.1

So far it appears to have resolved the issue for me.

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Answer 10

Sep 23, 2015 8:33 PM in response to Insomniac86

Nope, looks like it's still playing up.

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Answer 11

debsej

Level 1

0 points

Sep 30, 2015 11:02 AM in response to nicopeet911

I spent sometime on Apple Support Chat yesterday. The issue has been escalated. The only thing that seemed to have an effect was turning off Siri,

When I turned off Siri the watch could ping, I turn it back on and it works for a while , but goes back to being a intermittent problem. But I notice it not lighting up when it pings anymore.

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Answer 12

nicopeet911 Author

Level 1

10 points

Sep 30, 2015 11:43 AM in response to debsej

I can confirm that Debsej information is correct. Turning off Siri seems to offer a temporary solution for the pinging and not playing music problem. Hope that Apple smashes this bug with the official release of iOS 9.1

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Answer 13

Oct 2, 2015 8:26 AM in response to nicopeet911

Interesting about having siri on...

I got a new iPhone 6s+ and wiped the watch to factory defaults. Paired it with my new phone, and i haven't had an issue since.

So i wonder if factory resting it and repairing it will work for you on the same phone. In other words, don't just un-pair and re-pair, but delete all data. Then try adding it back as a new watch.

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Answer 14

Jkasual

Level 1

0 points

Oct 7, 2015 2:04 PM in response to WhiteRabbit73

yea im having the same problem. I also have the iphone 5s and the sport watch. I heavily depend on the ping to find my phone. it worked fine on ios 8.4 for 5s and before I updated ios for the watch

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