Apple watch update hangs on verifying update

It has to be more than that. The app on the phone has hung on verifying update for 3 nights and nothing has happened on the phone. It is my wife's Apple Watch I am trying to update. I had previously updated my own. Indeed it takes an hour or so, but the verification part didn't even take half an hour as I recall. It is the upload and restart that takes time in my experience.

thanks for your interest.

Thanks for the unpair/repair watch suggestion. So far I have been reluctant to try that because I am concerned about whether the backup will restore the watch to its status otherwise. It may be the only real option - as long as it does the trick.

Thanks for the advice.

Before doing the pair/unpair which would have mandated redoing apple Pay I restarted the watch. Whether it was that or not I don't know, but by the next day the app no longer was stuck on verifying, the watch showed the correct OS #, so all ends well.

Thanks for the suggestions - perhaps brunt was correct, but it was truly a long wait. I can't help but feel the restarts helped. (I felt safe restarting the watch as it had never shown any sign of updating.)