Apple Watch Series 7 Will Not Update

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Level 1

69 points

Apple Watch Series 7 Will Not Update

I recently upgraded from my Apple Watch SE to an Apple Watch Series 7 about 2 weeks ago, everything went fine with pairing and connecting- But now I have found an issue with updating. When I go to check for an update in settings, it says "Unable to check for update; An error occurred while checking for a software update." I click "Try Again" but the same message pops up everytime. This issue has been happening for about a week and will not allow me to update to watchOS 26.

I am currrently stuck on watchOS 11.6.1

Apple Watch Series 7

Posted on Oct 8, 2025 1:01 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

javaliga

Level 10

120,173 points

Oct 8, 2025 4:38 PM in response to zurires269

The first (and simplest) thing to try if something isn’t working right is to restart your Apple Watch and its paired iPhone. If necessary (device not responding), try a forced restart. Both methods can be found here:

How to restart your Apple Watch - Apple Support

Restart your iPhone - Apple Support

If that doesn't help, the next steps would be to unpair and pair your watch again and restore from the backup just created. This should result in no loss of data. It deletes all temp and corrupted files and re-indexes the file system.

Unpair and erase your Apple Watch - Apple Support

Set up your Apple Watch - Apple Support

As a last resort, follow the above procedure for unpairing and pairing the watch, but do not restore the backup. Set the watch up as new instead. There should be no loss of Fitness data or Awards since those are stored on the paired iPhone, not the watch.

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Answer 2

zurires269 Author

Level 1

69 points

Oct 9, 2025 6:29 AM in response to zurires269

Thanks for the reply! I have tried upiaring and pairing again about 3 times- Setting it up as a new watch as it is currently set up as. I have not yet tried to force restart it, don't know why I have not tried that yet but I will try that and see if it responds when trying to update.

Based on all the issues other people are having with watchOS 26- It might be best that I wait to update anyway until those issues/bugs are fixed.

Thanks again

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Answer 3

zurires269 Author

Level 1

69 points

Oct 10, 2025 5:09 AM in response to zurires269

Looks like the force reset did not work, I just thought of this- Could it be because I paired it to my phone which is not up on the newest update?

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