Apple Watch - workout app freezes

I had this problem for ages, tried all the suggestions, nothing worked, so I called Apple Support. They got me to completely unpair the watch. And by un-pair I don't mean just disconnect bluetooth, I mean completely unlink the phone and watch (ie. go into the Watch app on your phone, select the watch, click on the "i" icon, then select un-pair Apple watch).

Once this is done, you then need to re-pair it, and what this does is completely re-install all the apps etc from your phone, onto the watch.

This solved the problem and my workout app has been working fine ever since, no more freezing. Hope that helps someone.

Have you tried switching off the "Detect Gym Equipment" setting in the Workout section of the Watch app on the phone?

(You can also switch it off in the Settings app on the Watch - in the General/Workout section)

I am not 100% sure yet but it seems to have helped in my case...

(And I am not sure why it was switched on in the first place)

Hope this helps

Marcin

If I change the dock to Favorites and add Workout App as the only app and also disable auto-detect gym equipment in the watch menu (settings>general>workout>detect gym equipment) the app stops freezing.

To my surprise it now actually works better on my watch since I turned ON "detect gym equipment". The byline says that it will try to detect equipment all the time instead of just when you launch the workout app. So now it looks for it all the time instead of just when I open the workout app, which is what I think is a big part of the long freezes... It still hangs for a second or so, but before it was like 10 seconds or more.

Hi

Whilst I can't say why that is happening, the following steps may help:

Close certain apps and restart both your iPhone and your Apple Watch:

• Close the Watch app, Activity app and Health app (if open) on your iPhone:
  • Double-click the Home button, then swipe up on each app preview to close the apps.
• Turn both devices off together, then restart your iPhone first:
  • Restart your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support
  • How to restart your Apple Watch - Apple Support

If the issue persists, next 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 still persists, then I suggest that you contact Apple Support (remote diagnostics and/or mail-in service may be available, if required), make a Genius Bar reservation or visit an Apple Authorised Service Provider for assistance:

• US: Apple Watch Service Answer Center - Apple Support
• Elsewhere: Apple - Support

I seem to have solved this, at least for me. I believe the real culprit is the music app, which gets loaded with the workout app to allow music controls during a workout.

I had a theory that it was taking a long time loading the "tiles" representing all of the albums and playlists stored on my watch, since I had the "Heavy Rotation" option turned on in settings. This was syncing around 15 separate items to the music app.

Anyway, I unchecked Heavy Rotation so that only the standard 3 personalised Apple Music playlists were synced, and this has solved the problem for me.

Greetings greg,

You know what, you are definitely onto something with the recent app setting. I changed the dock to favorites and I haven't had the freezing issue...

I've had this problem for a long time and it was driving me nuts. I tried many things. I just wanted to report that the latest update to WatchOS 4.3.1 seemed to have resolved it for me!

It's becoming pretty apparent that Apple don't know how to fix this, so I am resigned to using the following workaround whenever I want to use the Workout app:

• Press the side button and scroll to the Workout App. Swipe it towards the left and press the 'X' to close it.
• Re-open the Workout app and it should work normally.

This procedure wastes about 10 seconds, whereas letting the Workout app crash and restart seems to waste at least a minute.

That worked ! Weird but it worked for me. Setting the Dock to Recent helps.

I wouldn't bother wasting time and money to go into an Apple store. From everything that has transpired, it is a software bug. And not a "life-threatening" one, so there will be no mainstream backlash, which is the only thing that makes Apple do something about an issue. They will take their sweet time fixing it, or it will fix itself with the next main OS.

I find that it sometimes helps to turn on reduce motion.

Hi.

I’ve been having the same issue on Watch series 1 ever since the se ond or third OS4 update.

With my situation though the first time I load the app nothing happens. It then crashes after about 30 to 40 seconds. I then load again and this time it usually works straight off.

Doesn’t matter if I load from the app screen or the dock. I already had the dock set to favourites so that didn’t make any difference.

I’ve not tried unpairing and repairing yet but given that this is a very recent flaw I would suggest it is a software fault.

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