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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I had the gears issue. I turned handoff on the phone off, waited a minute or so and then turned it back on again, that sorted it out for me.

I had the same issue with my iMac while my Macbook had no problem unlocking with the Apple Watch. My solution was to disable WiFi sharing on the iMac and it worked afterwards. It turns out you need both Bluetooth and WiFi enabled before the automatic unlock can work.

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.

neither yours

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!!

what helped me was: Turning on iCloud contacts on my iPhone.

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

I had an iPhone 6s and when I shifted to an iPhone 7, unlcoking my MBP 2015 with my Apple Watch 2 stopped working. The final fix was :

  1. Unpair Apple Watch
  2. Re-Pair Apple Watch
  3. Sign out of iCloud on MBP
  4. Sign in to iCloud on MBP
  5. Check box to unlcok using Apple Watch on MBP under System Preferences > Security & Privacy


Worked at the first go

This did the trick for me. I was logged in with my original iCloud account email on my MacBook Pro and with my me.com address on my iPhone. I logged out of iCloud on my iPhone; then back in with the original ICloud email... all good. Thank you for the guidance.

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 had enabled another account for my lady on beta 3, and then I removed it. Now my watch isn't unlocking even though it has been for months. Check is there. Toggled handoff. No go.

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.