Apple Watch keeps rebooting

I was having the same issue with my series 3 watch. I tracked it down using the Apple Watch logs to the Tile app, which I removed then restarted. So far, so good! The logs can be found on your iPhone -> Settings -> Privacy -> Analytics -> Analytics Data -> and look for "WatchApp Extension." You might then discover which app is misbehaving and causing the rebooting.

Hi

Whilst I can't say why your Apple Watch is restarting unexpectedly, the following steps may help to prevent the issue from recurring:

Restart both your iPhone and your Apple Watch, turning both off together, then restarting your iPhone first:

• Restart your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support
• Restart your Apple Watch - Apple Support
• If the issue persists, next close all open apps on your iPhone and then restart both devices again.

Test by removing apps:

• Remove third-party apps from the Dock and/or from your Apple Watch and then monitor performance after adding them back, one at a time:
  • Open apps
• Remove watch face complications and monitor performance as you add them back:
  • Change the watch face on your Apple Watch - Apple Support

Unpair and re-pair your Apple Watch:

• The Watch app on your iPhone takes a backup of your watch automatically when unpairing via the app.
• Initially choose to Restore from Backup during set up (most data and settings will be restored, with some exceptions, such as Apple Pay cards, passcode).
• If the issue persists, consider instead unpairing and setting it up as a new watch.
• Unpair your Apple Watch and iPhone - Apple Support
• Set up your Apple Watch - Apple Support

If the issue then still persists, I suggest that you contact Apple Support (mail-in service may be available, if required), make a Genius Bar reservation or visit an Apple Authorised Service Provider with a view to having it checked and, if recommended, serviced:

Apple Watch Service Answer Center - Apple Support

Here is what I did last week Wednesday evening that so far has been helpful.

1. On the iPhone app Watch - Notifications: Disable the Notifications Indicator and under MIRROR IPHONE ALERTS FROM:, change all notification sliders to the left (Off). (Did not change any of the factory apps, left them at Default after a recent pair as a New Watch attempt.)
2. Restart both the iPhone, and then the watch. I had read about others thinking that this was related to Notifications and some mentioned Instagram (which I had also removed before starting any of this without any changes). I observed this for a couple of hours while working and at this point it was rebooting every view minutes or so while connected to the charger. I removed it from the charger and it still continued to reboot many time. It was time to try one more time as I had an appointment at the Apple Store to drop it off and ship it to be looked at.
3. On the iPhone app Watch, select the watch to be unpaired from the iPhone and un-pair from the iPhone. Wait for it to un-pair before continuing.
4. On the watch it will be prompting to place near a phone to be paired, forced a local reset on the Watch by pressing the Side Button and acknowledging to reset all. (Do not remember the exact wording or clicks, it does not allow anything else to be done though since it is not paired to a iPhone.)
5. Once the watch is ready to pair again, placed it next to the iPhone and then paired it again. I followed the normal pairing of the watch and restored the recent backup (right before I started the process) to restore all the settings. (I was a little hesitant, although I figured I did not have anything to lose.)
6. After it has finished pairing and was running, the battery was at about 82%, it had been rebooting several times before I started this process and was done at about 9:30-10:00pm.

After this process, I wore it to bed and when I got up it was still at about 60% or more. I wore it until about noon I decided to charge it while at 31%. It was fully charged in about an hour and I put it back on. It did not reboot once all day, and worked normally with minimal battery drain. The next morning the battery was at about 30% when I charged it at about 8:30am.

It has been like this since Thursday morning with not one reboot and also has not been draining. On Saturday night, I re-enabled the Notifications Indicator, I am planning to start enabling notifications to see if anything causes a problem. Yesterday I did not get to place it on a full charge before leaving in at 6:15am, it was at about 90% and it was a very active day. At about 11:00pm last night is was at 17%, placed it on the charger for about 30 minutes or so, it was at about 91% when I took it off to wear it to bed. Got up at 6am and it is still at 80% at 8:30am. Not one issue since doing all of this.

I plan to start enabling the notifications that I might use and leave the others off. I also have not reinstalled Instagram yet. I might do that first to see what it does.

I hope that someone else might try this (I know it takes time, although if it works or helps Apple to find a root cause it is worth it) and see a similar result. I have been dealing with this since updating the middle of December to WatchOS 4.2. I am 100% sure that it is some software thing (I work in software and root cause analysis all the time), although it not widespread, it has to be some certain combination or scenario that causes it to happen.

I had the same issue after 4.2. Hubby was help via support who did some diagnostics and said it was a few apps, but mostly Instagram. He said to uninstall Instagram and see if it stops. I did, and it did. I put Instagram back on the next day and it started again. I kept it on my phone but unloaded it from my watch...still rebooting. So I did a little reading and read somewhere that many others were having issues too and the cause was notifications. They were turning off watch notifications and it stopped. Sure enough, I turned off all notifications and no reboots in days.

Hi there,

I had to turn notifications off in the watch app under 'Mirror iPhone Alerts From:'. It has been going on a bit for me so I was able to narrow it down to my issue being with the Instagram app. If you have Instagram enabled on the watch to mirror phone notifications, I would try turning that one off first. When I turn the notifications off in the watch app, it doesn't take effect and stop booting right away, sometimes it can take up to a day.

The Apple Team is aware of the problem and are currently investigating it. Myself and others have been providing logs and feedback to help out so eventually a fix will become available. Hopefully soon 🙂

I have pretty much done what you have done a few times without resolve. I have no issues at all until I mirror my phone notifications for Instagram and it stops after I turn it off. All other notifications are on. The odd thing is, that it can take up to 2 days for the reboots to start after re-enabling the Instagram mirrored notifications and up to 2 days for them to stop after I disable the notifications. But it is definitely that one for me.

The issue is pretty widespread with many having the same issue from my research on different sites and forums. That is how I learned it may be a notification issue after I had read about others disabling notifications and having the reboots stop. My husband had been in contact with Apple before discovering this and in the logs it showed it was Instagram causing issues and they had initially thought it was the Instagram app itself. I had the opportunity to send the watch back after speaking to them at that time but decided to keep on researching since I knew it wouldn't solve the issue.

In your response to Trota5mundosIG you are saying that you have your phone notifications for Instagram off? After you have done all your steps have you had Instagram notifications on to see if it starts rebooting? I'm curious, I you know you said you don't need them on all the time, but do you think that maybe turning them off may be caused the reboots to stop?

The Apple engineering team had reached out to me after I been active in this post. I've been having to turn on Instagram mirrored notifications wait for the reboots and then capture logs and send them in to them so they can check them. Others have been also.

If resetting your watch doesn’t fix the problem, the problem is your phone. Unpair watch. Reset watch and reset your phone. Do not restore phone from a backup. Start fresh. I went through several Apple support calls and returns to figure out this solution.

Thank you soooo much for posting this issue. I've been having the same exact issue for over 2 months. After it was just in a constant reboot, I chatted with support 3 different times. And with all due respect, they are clueless. Unpairing, updating, etc. They finally agreed to accept it to service it and my husband gave me his Apple Watch to use. The first day I wore it, his watch that was operating fine started rebooting. I found this thread and realized it was my phone settings for the watch. Last night, I turned all notifications off. Every single one. No rebooting at the gym this morning and nothing since. It would have rebooted at least 12 times by now on a good day.

I hope Apple starts reading these support threads and gets the update out soon. I could have spent so much less for a watch to keep time and track my steps and workouts. So frustrating.

There is a recent update that came out last weekend for the Apple Watch and iPhone. I updated my iPhone first with the new iOS, then updated all the apps. Next, I ran the Apple Watch update from my phone.

All is working now and no more crashing or rebooting is happening. I also, turn off all the app notification that I did not need especially for old apps. The culprit is somewhere in an outdated/incompatible app on your phone and the notification services. Start by turning off (disable) all notifications on your watch, using the Watch app and see if the issue persist. If it doesn't, there's your issue, problem and focus for a fix. If it still crashes after doing that, then it is definitely something wrong with the watch. Hope this information helps. The new iphone/watch update pretty much solved the issue for me. No more restarting...Hallejuah!!

So. I had contacted Apple and I even received the box to send in the watch.

It kept rebooting. It was so bad that I had timed it and knew the window I had which was about 60 seconds to try to catch the cycle. Being stubborn and a former jail break unlock guy before it was easy I managed to shut down the watch between the reboot loop. It took me about 4 tries to catch it. Once it started from a successful cold boot it stopped the loop. I immediately deleted all non native installed apps on the watch. And I have disabled the auto install of apps that extend to the watch. Since then it’s been fine. And that’s the way it will stay. Al the “other” apps can stay on the phone.

That was my fix.

My OG Apple Watch was doing this recently, every single time I attempt to change a complication it crashes within a couple seconds. It had been getting slow and I felt it was time for an upgrade... I'm sorry to say my new Series 3 watch does the exact same thing 😠

The fix is uninstalling all Apple Watch apps, it was for me at least. Very dissapointing.

Do you still get notifications on your watch though? I had apps removed from my watch, but was still getting notifications from the apps on my phone and that is what caused the rebooting for me. It stopped soon after notifications were turned off.

I ended up going to the Apple Watch app and turning off every notification I could find as well as uninstalling every app rendering my watch a HR monitor, step counter and timepiece. I have added some social media apps, their notifications, my texts and some other things over time and continue not to have any rebooting. Since I was also getting rebooting using my husband's nonproblematic watch while mine was at Apple (they did nothing), I was able to know for sure that it was a setting or settings on my phone.

When my watch was at Apple, they reached out to me for more specific information and I sent them the link to this thread and went into detail on my specific issue. When they sent my watch back, it said that they diagnosed the battery and it was determined not to have any issue. LOL I never said anything about the battery other than the rebooting eventually got so bad it drained it within a few hours. They should be paying us for fixing their problems!

I have same issue as everyone on this thread, constant restarting, not wanting to charge as it constantly restarts, sluggish performance at times (usually right before it crashes) and everything started with most recent soft update.

"Geniuses" are not aware of that being a big issue, i went to apple store to fix this issue, and after doing all sorts of tests only abnormality was MAPS app causing some issues, since i have done watch restore beforehand, next step tech suggested it might be hardware issue, and wanted to send my watch to service, $229 to get that fixed (that is some joke). I decided not to send but wait for next soft update. In the meantime i did another reset, but this time i didn't restore my watch from back up, but set it up as brand new watch - that did the trick! several days no restarts.... Well, after few days issue came back, but now i'm definitely convinced its a software issue, not hardware. Here is the fun part, i dont run any apps on my watch, so it must be something within the most recent update which keeps the watch working hard, draining battery, and restarting constantly.

That is what I did. I turned off all mirrored iPhone alerts but kept them on the phone. Since I had contacted support previously and was told that Instagram was the cause for me, I going to gradually start turning on everything but Instagram and see what happens.