Re: Unable to Activate Auto-Unlock

I get 'Turning On...' spinning for a while and then the error 'Your Mac was unable to communicate with your Apple Watch.'  Have tried multiple restarts of everything, as well as turning 2FA off and on.

I have succesful aktivated Auto Unlock, but unlock doesent work. The Apple Watch is on my wrist, unlocked and directly in front of my iMac. Turn the auto unlock option off and on, reboot mac, reboot watch doesent help.

With 2FA enabled and Beta 2 on my mac and Apple Watch When I go to turn on Auto Unlock it just says Turning on... with the endless spinning wheel have tried restarting and nothing has been working so far. Anyone else have any luck?

I am having the exact same experience.

Apple ID has 2FA not 2FV as required. Watch OS beta 2, Sierra Beta 2, iOS 10 beta 2.

Spinning wheel to the left, "Unlocking with Apple Watch" shows for a bit then I get a password prompt with no errors. Password works fine.

The irony that it now takes longer to log in if the auto unlock is activated is not lost on this developer.

On my late 2014 IMac 5k 2FA is enabled on iPhone b2 and Mac b2 in the settings the feature will not show in the pane. I have tried logging out of iCloud and back in restarting device etc.

Just thinking, because I can not test it now.

iPhone 6s iOS10 beta 2

AppleWatch watchOS3 beta 2

MBP Late 13 MacOS sierra beta 2

I saw the option for a while after installing on the MBP. Got the spinning wheel, but no functionality, it never went away. Then I "logged out of" iCloud, after that I do not even see the button anymore. 2FV and all that is active, I see all the devices in iCloud...

Could it be they have to be in the same WLAN for this to work? Or at least for the setup to work? I can not really test that at work because the WLAN is proxied and all that.... so no idea. How does this work anyway? Bluetooth alone can't be, that is not close enough to work reliably. Must be something else....

s.

Same problem for me with my iMac Late 2013, after updating i see the checkbox and after update my 2 factors security, the box disapear and nothing. I tried ti reboot iPhone, iMac, Watch and disconnect- connect iCloud but nothing. I tried also reinstall the OS and same problem. I think i can wait a version 3 to use this feature

for me it's working. Installed beta 2 on all my systems and enabled two-factor as also disabled two-way auth...

BUT for me it's only working if i'm not connected to my external (thunderbolt) display... -.-

if i have my thunderbolt display connected, it seems like trying to unlock with the watch but then i still need to enter my password...

anyone with the same problem or solution to this?

thanks much and best regards,

Chris

Had the same issue on my 2016 rMB. I logged out of iCloud on my computer and then logged back in. Got it to finally set up. Haven't tried to see if it works though yet.

same thing with  late 2013 mac pro. saya turning on forecer. it works with my mac book.

I had this feature working right after installing the latest beta on my Retina MB, late 2013. It was fast and working great.   I followed the instructions in the release notes for OSX Sierra current beta to get it up and running.  I tried the auto unlock feature at least a dozen times over the day and it worked just fine.  This morning when I got near my MB, my Apple Watch started pinging me saying it was unlocking my MB even though I hadn't opened the lid.  Then when I did open the lid, auto unlock failed to work.  It tried  (spinning circle, says "unlocking...") then the message and spinning circle disappeared as it reverted back to asking for my password. Password unlocked the MB.  System prefs on the MB shows a check mark next to the auto unlock feature in the General tab.  iPhone watch app shows my apple ID, and I'm using the 2FA per instructions.  It simply refuses to work now.  Rebooting the MB and watch had no effect, nor has logging on and off iCloud on the MB.  Something changed, just not sure what.  If I come up with a workaround, I'll post it.

Apple Developer Relations08-Jul-2016 04:40 PM

It needs to be a Mid-2013 or later Mac. Please provide your response or results by updating your bug report. If uploading files, please compress first.

The same problem, my mac cannot communiate with my watch.

Macbook Pro 13'' mid-2014, with mac OS sierra public beta 1.

iPhone 6 with iOS 10 developer beta 2.

Apple watch with Watch OS 3 developer beta 2.

I think I have found the problem..

You have to go to your iPhone,

then go to Watch app --> Passcode --> and turn on the "Unlock with iPhone" option.

Now go and enable the service from your mac

Just set up b3 (directly from b1) and I got this error.

Simply powering off the Apple Watch. booting it, and unlocking it with my iPhone allowed the Mac to connect to it.

It doesn't work, but at least the checkbox is on!

Hi i litrally have had all of the Above Issues but i got it to work by 1 Changing the passcode on my apple watch from simple 4 digit and turned off unlock with iPhone on iPhone, 2 Re started apple watch, 3 Re Enabled unlock with iPhone now works Every time Hope this Helps for Everyone

MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2014) 1TB 16GB (Sierra 16A270f)

Watch SS 42mm

iPhone 6s Plus 128GB

I was able to solve the issue by turning off handoff on my MacBook and restarting it followed by turning off handoff in the watch app and restarting the phone. Once they were both up and running, I enabled handoff on the MacBook and then in the Apple Watch app.

When I went back to the Security and Privacy control panel to turn the unlock feature on, it actually took a second for the option to appear. Once it did, however, it worked as soon as I checked the box and put in my Mac password.

Hope this helps!

able to get option to show up on early 2013 map retina after upgrading wifi card to BCM94360CSAX for those interested.

I had similar issue as well.  All my devices were updated to latest version (developer 7 on 10.12).   I would click on the checkbox to activate it and it spun and then after 5-10 minutes would give the error.  I tried signing off from icloud, rebooting, even doing a fresh in stall of the OS - nothing seemed to work.  So after a couple of days I was working on the laptop and casually went to try it again - and bam - it worked.  So not sure why it worked then and not the times earlier.  Either way it's a cool feature.

I wish in the future we'd get the ability to unlock our dekstop Mac's as well.  Maybe not automatically, but once in range we can click something on the watch to unlock it.

13" MBP Early 2015 + Sierra GM

42mm stainless watch + Watch OS 3 GM

iPhone 5S + iOS 10 GM

I keep getting the error "Your Mac was unable to communicate with your Apple Watch"

2FA is enabled, handoff works, with a locked watch I get the error message that I should unlock my watch and retry, so the devices do seem to communicate.

I tried pretty much everything mentioned here. Created a new user account on my mac, signed off and on to iCloud on all devices, unpaired and repaired my watch, even set it up as a new watch instead of restoring from backup. Turning handoff off and on again, disabling FileVault nothing worked for me so far.

/edit: I also reset Bluetooth on my Mac and cleared my iPhone network settings. No go.

I hit this problem too, and managed to sort it out after a fairly significant amount of screwing around and reaching dead ends.

I'm assuming what went screwy for me was that I had to enable 2FA before enabling the option, which went smoothly and authenticated my Macbook, but there's no prompt to authenticate the phone, it wasn't until I went into Settings > iCloud on my phone and waited 10 seconds or so that I was prompted to authenticate it with a code (which was then sent to my Macbook) Once I authenticated the phone I went into the settings in my watch app to check everything looked fine, and then restarted my watch (probably not necessary, but I did it anyway) and once it started back up, unlocking via the watch started working.

If you've turned on/toggled 2FA and haven't authenticated both your phone and your computer, go into the iCloud settings on each and enter the codes from the other when prompted. My guess is this problem is happening for at least some of you because you've recently turned on 2FA to use it, but haven't yet been through the 2FA song and dance on your phone, since only your Mac will have prompted you do it at the time.

Some of you seem to have taken desperate measures though, I guess you guys are out of luck until the 20th :/

Mine was flaky until the official macOS sierra and iOS 10 came out, then it was working brilliantly.

Then my iPhone 7 arrived, I set up my new iPhone with a backup from my previous phone and since then the auto-unlock no longer works.

I turned off "Allow your Apple Watch to unlock your Mac" and tried to turn it back on, but it gives me the "cannot connect to Apple Watch" error message.

This is very frustrating.

1. Unpaired the watch and paired it agian.

2. Logged out of iCloud on my computer and then logged back in.

3. Turned on "Allow your Apple Watch to unlock your Mac"

4 It works now

There were 2 things that wasn't mentioned here (or anywhere else!) that resolved this problem:

1. Turn on 'Back To My Mac' in System Preferences > iCloud

2. If you have other routers in the house running as "extenders", turn them off. Just leave only your main router running.

Best regards,

Ben

Guys the watch has to be on your wrist to work. Was having the same issue because i kept pluging it in to an outlet while activiating the setting.

I found that by turning off Automatic Login (in Users and Groups), the feature worked. None of the other suggestions in this thread worked.

I'm running the final release not beta but having the same issue.

For Auto Unlock to work the devices need to be able to talk via bluetooth and Wi-Fi.  I fixed it by making sure all of these were turned on and all devices were connected to the same Wi-Fi network.

Also, if your Wi-Fi router supports multiple bands (2.4Ghz, 5Ghz) ensure all devices are using the same band.

To be clear: If on your apple watch app from your iphone you toggle handoff off and then back on it should work.  I was having this same issue but it was unclear from all these posts on where I should be turning off and on Handoff.  Turns out I decided to try doing the same thing on the watch app.  It worked!!

have you figured out this issue? i have the same one

After reading various replies to your post, I followed several options, but the one thing that worked for me was to check my iCloud settings on my phone (using a restored image of Beta after upgrade from iphone 6 to 7 plus.)  My watch had previously worked just fine to unlock my MacBook Air... same o/s was simply restored on the new phone.

Issue was under Settings-iCloud-Keychain, Find My iPhone and iCloud Backup, were all set to "Off."  Tried to enable only Keychain on, but would not hold setting.  Would turn on, but then off when backed out.  Once Enabled all 3 settings, then they held in "On" position. 

Went back to MacBook Air settings, Security, checked the "Allow Apple Watch to Unlock Mac," and BOOM!  It popped right on, without issue. Then tested unlock and working flawlessly, as before.

Long story short, your issue may have to do with iCloud security settings, which makes sense, since this is a shared pool of security settings.

I have the same issues and logging out my AppleID on Mac and logging back in solved it for me. Hope it can help!

Unpairing watch and pairing it again helped me (watchOS 3.2, ios 10, Sierra 10.12.4). Unlocking my macbook with watch is working now.

I have tried to figure out this problem for three days now.

What worked for me was to change the password on my mac to the same password as my iCloud account.

I had this problem after upgrading to a series 2 Apple Watch. Logging out of iCloud on my iPhone then logging back in fixed the issue (I was prompted to re-enter my Mac Book Pro password on the iPhone when logging back in).