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Petcook Author

Level 1

80 points

Your Apple Watch must be signed in to iCloud to allow it to unlock your Mac.

My macbook pro (OS Sierra) stopped using my apple watch to sign in. I've tried reclicking "Allow your apple watch to unlock your Mac" in the Security and Privacy tab of the Systems Preferences; however, I keep getting a dialog box with this notice, "Your Apple Watch must be signed in to iCloud to allow it to unlock your Mac." My apple watch is signed into iCloud with the same iCloud account on my Mac and everything was working fine a few days ago.

Any suggestions?

MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2013)

Posted on Oct 30, 2016 9:54 AM

Top-ranking reply

Muxa

Level 1

4 points

Posted on Feb 3, 2017 12:15 AM

Unpairing and repairing the watch did not help.

Here's what i've tried:

on Mac open System Preferences > iCould > Account Details > Devices Devices, select Apple Watch and click Remove From Account
restart iPhone
open Apple Watch app on iPhone
open General > Apple ID
I saw my Sign In button below my Apple ID
then i accidentally went back to General and after going to Apple ID again the Sign In button was not longer there!

Come on, Apple, you've got improve the quality control of software that you release!

View in context

57 replies

Nov 5, 2016 11:12 AM in response to erichungtwtw

erichungtwtw wrote:

I solved the problem by unpairing then repairing apple watch.

Well, that fixed it for me too. Thank you!

Mrs.Cox

Level 1

4 points

Nov 5, 2016 7:35 PM in response to don montalvo

Thank you so much, i was able to unpair/ repair it and then it worked

Petcook Author

Level 1

80 points

Nov 6, 2016 9:27 AM in response to Petcook

Ok, after fixing this problem a week ago, my computer has reverted back with the box "Allow Apple Watch to unlock this Mac" unchecked. Once again if I try to check the box I get the same error message "Your Apple Watch must be signed in to iCloud to allow it to unlock your Mac." What's going on? I don't want to do this every week. Is Apple fixing this bug?

Nov 6, 2016 6:34 PM in response to Petcook

I've had this very frustrating issue as well. I had it working briefly on my late 2013 iMac at work, but it didn't stay working for long.

I have powered off/on my iphone 6, Apple watch and iMac multiple times, at the same time, to no avail.

I have unpaired and re-paired the Watch to my phone once, which took approximately 45 minutes, so don't want to do that again.

I have turned off/on the bluetooth and wifi on i phone and imac. No luck.

At this stage I am thinking it is because of the work wifi configuration- I believe that wifi is a necessary component of all this.

Unfortunately I don't have a recent model Mac at home so can't test this outside my work environment.

Petcook Author

Level 1

80 points

Nov 8, 2016 4:23 PM in response to Petcook

This is crazy! The apple watch unlocking the mac keeps turning on and off.

October 31 -- can't check the Unlock this Mac box and I get the iCloud error message. Later that day, I logged out and back into iCloud and the system worked and allowed me to check the "Allow Apple Watch to unlock this Mac" box. Everything worked for a week.

November 6 -- Apple Watch stopped unlocking the Mac and once again and the "Allow Apple Watch to unlock this Mac" box was unchecked and the error message prevented me from checking the box again. I decided to let it go and just login with my password.

November 8 -- My computer started unlocking with my watch. The "Allow Apple Watch to unlock this Mac" box is checked once again. (I didn't do anything)

I don't get it. I think this is bad coding that needs to be completely changed. It obviously is not reliable. I completely give up. If it works, then great. If not, then I will just type my password.

TheiGuy

Level 1

4 points

Nov 9, 2016 9:42 AM in response to Petcook

I just ran into the exact same behavior described by both of you. I even tried restarting my MacBook Pro, iPhone 7 Plus, and Apple Watch 1, but no go. It still says the watch isn't signed into iCloud. The watch works just fine and the Watch app on my phone doesn't say anything is wrong.

TheiGuy

Level 1

4 points

Nov 9, 2016 10:24 AM in response to erichungtwtw

erichungtwtw wrote:

I solved the problem by unpairing then repairing apple watch.

This worked for me as well.

Nov 9, 2016 1:20 PM in response to erichungtwtw

I solved the problem by doing this, but 1 day later it stopped working again.

Unpairing, then pairing my watch again takes about 45 minutes, so I don't want to do this again.

wbcfox

Level 1

4 points

Nov 10, 2016 2:44 AM in response to Petcook

Un-pairing and Re-pairing did NOT work for me. However, rebooting my macbook and apple watch worked! Not sure anyone else was able to fix it as simply as I did but just offering my solution!

Krakatos

Level 1

39 points

Nov 10, 2016 9:00 AM in response to wbcfox

Re-booting my Mac and watch also worked to allow me to enable the unlock option. Thanks for the tip.

Just prior to that, I had to turn off the old two-factor verification and enable the new two-factor authentication.

The only problem right now is that it's stuck on "Turning on..." the watch unlock.

wbcfox

Level 1

4 points

Nov 10, 2016 9:38 AM in response to Krakatos

Interesting because I had similar issue. It said, "Turning on," for about 2-3 minutes and then it turned on. Not sure if yours was eventually turned on or not? This really shouldn't be so hard Apple!!! Smh...

Krakatos

Level 1

39 points

Nov 10, 2016 11:17 AM in response to wbcfox

I can't get it to turn on. I've rebooted the Mac and the watch a few times. It's stuck on turning on... I can't believe how hard (impossible?) this is, either.

Nov 10, 2016 11:30 AM in response to wbcfox

Yes, I agree it shouldn't be so hard for the user, and of course it's not supposed to be, there are clearly things to be fixed. You should keep in mind that what is going on in the background is actually quite hard. See here: https://youtu.be/vpCQk1pYFco?t=40m15s

Nov 11, 2016 3:49 AM in response to Petcook

same problem here (Macbook Air Late 2014 MacOS Sierra & Apple Watch Series 2 WatchOS 3.1) ...

Unpairing & repairing isn't really a great option as it takes almost an hour.

I hope Apple is aware of this bug and will fix it soon

Nov 12, 2016 1:17 PM in response to erichungtwtw

Problem solved via unpair/re-pair and using the option to restore the backup, worked relatively fast on an apple watch series 2.

Your Apple Watch must be signed in to iCloud to allow it to unlock your Mac.