[Apple Watch] Unable to Check for Update - Not connected to the internet error

Make sure you are connected to a 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi and NOT 5 Ghz. As soon as I connected to 2.4 ghz, I pressed try again and immediately worked!

I have being dealing with the same issue on my Apple watch. Actually, i closely monitored the Update process after clicking Update now. Just for a fraction of time I saw a Pop up Window asking for access permission to update, the main issue is that just after a second, without even giving time to click on update, the Update process starts and in sometime you see the Unable to update error with no Internet! Then Infinite loop fun starts...

• I somehow managed to click on Update Button in above-mentioned permisson window before the Infinite loop starts in. Worked like charm.

Can confirm. Switching your phone to your 2.4g network will allow your Apple Watch to connect to the internet to download the update. I was having the same issue as everyone in this thread and this is the only thing that fixed it.

I had the exact same problem. I tried to troubleshoot using different methods for over a month & have attempted to update the watch using 3 different wifi networks but to no avail. Today I bit the bullet and took my iPhone & Apple Watch into the Apple store. While waiting for a technician to become available, I decided to connect to Apple’s wifi & tried updating again. To my surprise, this worked. The no internet connection alert disappeared and the watch began updating on Apple’s wifi straight away. The estimated update time was 3 hours so I left my phone and watch with the technician and came back 3 hours later. My watch is now setup and working great! I hope this helps!

Hey guys.

Just wanted to help you guys out with this issue. I came across this check for update issue around 6 months ago and gave up entirely (my watch collected dust since then).

Decided to give it another try today - and it fricken WORKED.

What I did (following some steps from the first page)

1. Signed out and in of icloud on my iphone (uninstalled and reinstalled apple watch app)
2. Reset/erased contents of apple watch.
3. Turned on apple watch.
4. Turned on iphone + signed back in.
5. When setting up my apple watch - I DID IT MANUALLY (Don't use the camera to sync the watch and your iphone, instead use the serial code).
6. Voila

After numerous attempts, I changed the language again to Portugese then Afghanistan as Country. I was able to update the apple watch. I had another stumbling block when the watch was stuck in signing in to icloud account for hours. I just chose skip and continue when the iphone was asking for me to update the watch again then restore from back up or set up as a new watch. I hope this helps.

Can be an abrupt suggestion but, give a try while wearing it once its 100% charged and then go for update. Worked for me.

I ran into this issue when trying to pair my iPhone X running iOS 15.1 with my Apple Watch Series 5 trying to update to watchOS 8.1.

I was able to get to the screen which asks to update the OS on the operating system.

When I tapped the 'Update Now' button, I notice a modal flash on the screen with buttons 'Dismiss' | 'Update' that displays for less than a second and disappears without prompt. I couldn't read the message but it seemed like it was related to the update.

The iPhone screen immediately redirected to the spinning screen 'Checking for Updates' after which I get the error 'Unable to check for update - you are not connected to the internet' (Try Again | Start Over).

I tapped on 'Start Over' again to unpair and go through the process again. When I re-tried the update by tapping the 'Update now' button, I immediately tapped the area where the 'Update' button on the brief modal would display briefly and somehow I was able to see the watchOS 8.1 Software Update screen.

Hopefully this will help someone else save time as I went through pretty much all of the other suggestions (hard reset, change of region, etc) to no avail.

I was having the same exact issue ! I was so frustrated and I was definitely connected to the WiFi all bars to be exact ! Delete the app watch and reinstall also turn off your Bluetooth this is what worked for me it may say the same thing after doing these steps just press “TRY AGAIN”

This is what worked for me - Hope this helps :)

My solution was totally different from other answers; I just needed to get the most recent iOS software update, which hadn't auto-updated because I didn't have enough remaining storage space.

So I cleared out some storage space via settings, got the software update on my iphone, reset my phone, reset my watch, went to the Watch app, and it worked perfectly from there.

I hope this helps!

I had the same problem. Tried everything suggested. I finally tethered the wifi to my other iPhone for data and it worked.

Most likely the issue can be resolved by turning off your cellular data and exclusively using wifi. If you don't turn it off it creates a conflict and simply spins it wheels, never updating

Hi everyone

I was also having this issue because Apple had to replace my iphone X after damaging it in store fixing my camera…my series 3 watch was happily connected to my original phone but refused to connect to the replacement one and insisted on an update to the watch which said it would take 24hours (!!!) and then failed to update after all that anyway. I tried restarting both devices and resetting the watch, turning off Bluetooth, changing the location/language as suggested in this forum and none of it worked. I was then clicking through almost all options in settings to see if anything looked remotely relevant and went into the name/ID bit with my initials at the top of settings, scrolled down and it listed my devices of which one of them was my watch. Clicked into the watch and selected ‘remove from account’’. For whatever reason this then allowed me to pair with my watch without updating. I’m not sure if this will work for others but worth a try?

NONE of anything in this forum has worked for me. So disappointing. Getting this error when trying to setup a brand new Apple Watch for a family member for Christmas. Ugh. Using a iPhone 13 Pro to setup a Apple Watch Series 5 (GPS + Cellular) Any other ideas anyone?

As I mentioned under another comment, I got an Apple Watch 5 Ceramic Edition and tried to pair it with my iPhone 13 Pro, which is on iOS 15.1.1, so it's the newest Update possible at the moment. I tried every "Solution" in this whole forum, sadly nothing worked for me. I called up the Apple Support and we went trough some troubleshooting, without success. At the end he basically said that I need to send in my Watch and get it replaced for around 900€, that's actually more than i paid for it lol. I made an appointment at the Genius Bar for Monday, I will update my Comment here then.