Unable to Activate Auto-Unlock

Hello,


So i've installed the beta 2 on all of my devices, enabled 2 step factor auth etc... etc... Everything seems to be working but when i hit the checkbox to enable the service, i get stuck with a endless 'Turning On...' spiral and it never ends. If i close everything and come back, rehit the 'Allow your Apple Watch to unlock your Mac', i get the turning On... again forever.


Any ideas on how to fix this?


Thanks,


Phil

  • I have the same issue. Did all the recommended things of rebooting everything , turning off sharing and so on. Still get the spinning wheel. Apparently its waiting to the watch to display allow $%^s MacBook Pro to access and push the side button on the watch twice to accept but that stage never happens. It seems the laptop doesn't see the watch. and is waiting for a response that is not going to happen. Im on a MacBook Pro 2021 14". My other Macs are working with the watch just fine.

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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 had to toggle handoff off and then back on and watch unlock started working for me again!!!

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.

How do you do that? Cheers 😉

I mean where do you buy the card from?

purchased off eBay. Fits perfect and works great.

Apparently it can even be done with older iMacs and MacPros. I am about to try it with a 2010 iMac. They sell complete kits on eBay and other marketplaces to upgrade to a Wifi ac card (and newer bluetooth).

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.

I also found that beta 8 seemed to ***** up something in the network settings. I was able to get Unlock working again only by both:


1) Reset Network Settings on iPhone (which also resets network settings on watch).


2) Reset the bluetooth module on the Mac (Shift+Option while clicking the bluetooth menu, which will give you access to the Debug menu. Select "Reset the bluetooth module").


Hope that helps someone!

I have successfully installed Sierra on a Mac Pro (Early 2008) with a modified Wifi+BT4.0 card, and all Continuity/Handoff features work as expected, including Unlock with Apple Watch!

I have literally tried everything and nothing seems to work. I feel disappointed...

Yer I just updated to this version this morning, and I have the latest Developer build for WatchOS3, iOS10.0.1 and macOS Sierra, and for some reason the ability to unlock my mac with my watch was turned off.


I tried to turn it on and nothing.

Tried:

Resetting network settings and bluetooth - no go

Signing out and back in to iCloud - no go

Restarting mac - no go

Restarting watch - no go

Failing reinstalling macOS or resetting the watch, nothing has worked so far.


Hopefully I'll be able to get it working tomorrow as another person stated they were able to get it working a few days later.


Wish me luck!

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'll second this. I've tried everything here, rebooted everything, signed out of iCloud on everything. Nothing.


12" Macbook Sierra GM

iPhone 6+

42mm stainless watch + Watch OS 3 GM