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Apple Watch not unlocking macs

I have a version 6 on watchOS 7.1. A week or two ago it stopped unlocking both my macs (2018 mac-mini & 2019 MacBook Pro 13). It seems to function normally otherwise. I've tried many of the other remedies to fix this issue found on this forum involving deleting files and removing keychain items but it doesn't work.


In the mac logs (running `log stream --predicate 'category == "AutoUnlock"'` in the terminal) I see a few seemingly relevant lines:

success = NO, identifier = XXX, time = 0.00, error = Error Domain=com.apple.identityservices.error Code=200 "(null)" UserInfo={NSUnderlyingError=0x7f7f3e1734f0 {Error Domain=com.apple.ids.idssenderrordomain Code=29 "(null)"}}


Pairing lock session notifying delegate with error: Error Domain=SFAutoUnlockErrorDomain Code=151 "Setup request failed" UserInfo={NSLocalizedDescription=Setup request failed}


Any thoughts or other things I can try?

Apple Watch Series 6, watchOS 7

Posted on Dec 1, 2020 4:20 PM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Dec 10, 2020 4:35 PM

I called support and they helped me get this fixed. What they instructed me to do:


  1. Turn off my macs
  2. Unpair my watch from my phone (keep the cellular plan if you have one)
  3. Turn off the watch
  4. Turn off the phone
  5. Turn on the phone
  6. Turn on the watch
  7. Pair the watch to the phone, let that all complete
  8. Turn on the macs
  9. Attempt to turn on the 'Unlock my mac with watch' option in preferences


This worked for me.

Similar questions

7 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Dec 10, 2020 4:35 PM in response to Leanne_68

I called support and they helped me get this fixed. What they instructed me to do:


  1. Turn off my macs
  2. Unpair my watch from my phone (keep the cellular plan if you have one)
  3. Turn off the watch
  4. Turn off the phone
  5. Turn on the phone
  6. Turn on the watch
  7. Pair the watch to the phone, let that all complete
  8. Turn on the macs
  9. Attempt to turn on the 'Unlock my mac with watch' option in preferences


This worked for me.

Apple Watch not unlocking macs

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