Apple Watch Auto Unlock Questions [MERGED]

[fischersd]

You can't enable 2FA on the apple ID page, only from a device.

Ok, so you're enabling it on your iPhone. What's the error?

 

[gwhizkids]

Here as well, the two-factor just wheels on the 'approve from another device page' and continue is greyed out. No pop up on my iphone or ipad.

I can get a pop up if I remove the mac from my devices, but it doesn't seem to approve everything, so I still get the 'finish icloud setup' box when trying to authorise watch unlock - the mac currently lists as approved for receiving auth requests under my devices, but insists I haven't finished setup either. Anyone manage to solve this?

I did. I had to sign out of every device, reboot and sign in again. One mistake I was making on the Mac was trying to use my iCloud passcode at the prompt rather than the Mac passcode.

 

[Etiene]

I did. I had to sign out of every device, reboot and sign in again. One mistake I was making on the Mac was trying to use my iCloud passcode at the prompt rather than the Mac passcode.

Every device?! Really?

Yikes. If that's the solution I'll either have to skip it (profile on my gf's mac, so not critical) or move my folks over to proper family sharing.

 

[fischersd]

The two areas that manage your Apple ID and authorized devices can get out of sync. (ran into that on the betas)

https://appleid.apple.com/account/manage
https://www.icloud.com/#settings

Another indicator is when you look on your iPhone and you have duplicate entries under Settings, Messages, Text Message Forwarding. If you blow a system away without removing it from your Apple ID page, you can have duplicates in here that will mess things up.

For those, you sign out of iCloud on that device and remove it from both pages, then sign back in again - then you should only have one.

 

[MacKid1983]

I got my series 1 to work fine it would pretty much unlock my Mac Book every time. Received my series 2 and now it only unlocks it sometimes. I wonder what I can do to fix the issue of intermittent unlocking.

 

[nikster0029]

Yea its not a full proof feature for me either

 

[yegon]

It's never worked once for me lol. Late 13 MBP, tried every trick and tip from many sources.

Same goes for Handoff/Continuity. Sketchy as heck, so infrequent does that work I ignore its existence.

IME, Apple hardware good, Cloud stuff bad still holds.

 

[fischersd]

Already a sticky for this topic here: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/auto-unlock-problems-merged.1992765/

 

[Dentifrice]

Hi,

I was able to unlock my mac since sierra release. Since yesterday, when I raise the lid of my macbook, it says "Unlocking with Apple watch" with a spinning wheel. After 5 seconds nothing happens and the password field appears.

I tried to restart my mac, my apple watch, nothing works...

anyone with the same problem ?

thanks

 

[Dentifrice]

ok played on/off with the settings and it works again. Not sure what solved it..

 

[chfilm]

So what do I do when the unlock with Apple Watch checkbox is just gone from system preferences? It was there in the beginning, then it made me change the login security to 2FA, which was a pita but worked eventually.. but now the auto unlock checkbox has just disappeared both on my Mac Pro and MacBook Air.

 

[nikster0029]

Strange, having the same issue

 

[fischersd]

@chfilm, @nikster0029 - So, have you had the feature working since enabling 2FA? (btw - you should say precisely which mac's you have - year, model, etc).
If you check System Report (Apple Menu, About this Mac, System Report), does your wifi adapter say that Auto Unlock is supported? You have to have both this as well as BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) supported for the checkbox to work.



Your systems listed under both iCloud as well as Apple ID pages need to be in sync - good indication of this is on your iPhone - Settings, Messages, Text Message Forwarding - are there any duplicates in there? (any systems mirrored in there should be signed out of iCloud and removed from 2FA, then signed back into iCloud).

This feature required that all of the systems that you use your Apple ID on have current authentication in 2FA. If you don't, it won't allow it. (you can actually see this in the logs).

 

[chfilm]

No it never worked so far: I installed Sierra yesterday, and it showed up in sys pref briefly. It said I had to deactivate 2 step auth first, so that's what I did. Then I had some trouble to switch to 2 FACTOR auth at first because it claimed my phone number was already in use (by myself) but eventually the 2FA worked.

Though when I then returned to my system security preferences, the checkbox had disappeared!
I have a nMP 2013 wich says under wifi that it does support auto unlock. Not sure about BT, but this machine should support it, right?

 

[fischersd]

No it never worked so far: I installed Sierra yesterday, and it showed up in sys pref briefly. It said I had to deactivate 2 step auth first, so that's what I did. Then I had some trouble to switch to 2 FACTOR auth at first because it claimed my phone number was already in use (by myself) but eventually the 2FA worked.

Though when I then returned to my system security preferences, the checkbox had disappeared!
I have a nMP 2013 wich says under wifi that it does support auto unlock. Not sure about BT, but this machine should support it, right?

So, all of your systems are showing up on both the iCloud as well as Apple ID pages? No duplicates in Text Messaging Forwarding? Your system is a late 2013, right? You have 802.11AC support?

Yes, your system will support BLE (my 2012 Mac Mini does). You do have bluetooth turned on, right?

Actually, this isn't a bad list of troubleshooting items (saves me typing them up)
http://www.imore.com/how-enable-auto-unlock-your-mac-and-apple-watch

If it's still not working after checking all of that:
- unpair / pair your watch
- logout/login Facetime on your mac
- logout/login Messages on your mac
- logout/login iCloud on all of your devices (yes, I know, it's painful).

Apple really has made this feature very sensitive to any issues with its iCloud credentials - all of the ducks have to be in a row...and our ability to see which duck isn't is pretty much non-existent.

 

[chfilm]

Hey, thanks for the list, I went through everything correctly, down to the part where the troubleshooting starts, so now I'll have to try all that... *sigh*.
All my devices show up correctly both on the icloud and apple id page.
How can I check which icloud ID is used on my apple watch??

 

[fischersd]

Hey, thanks for the list, I went through everything correctly, down to the part where the troubleshooting starts, so now I'll have to try all that... *sigh*.
All my devices show up correctly both on the icloud and apple id page.
How can I check which icloud ID is used on my apple watch??

It's in the watch app on your iPhone - General, Apple ID. (should be the same as your phone...be odd if it wasn't).
Anything odd in your setup? (sharing your Apple ID with others for any reason?)

 

[chfilm]

Hey, yes it's the same like on my phone. The only slightly odd thing I can find is the fact that the same apple ID has two different email adresses associated to it. An old one: chfilm@me.com and a current one: chfilm@icloud.com.
All my devices are signed in to chfilm@icloud.com, but on the mac it says chfilm@me.com. Might that be any problem? Everything else is really as it should be.
I'll get my Watch S02 tomorrow, so I'll have to do a new pair anyways. Maybe that will solve it..

 

[chfilm]

Turns out: The deactivation of 2 STEP Auth had deactivated the icloud keychain on my iphone... It also had let to some other funny things, like suddenly my mac wasnt receiving or sending imessages from my phone number anymore, but only from my apple id. Turning it all back on on my phone, now I have the option to unlock with the watch again!
It works on my nMP.

On the Macbook air though, I get an error, that communication with my watch has failed. "Make sure your watch is turned on and unlocked and on your wrist."

CMON it works on the mac pro wich is 1 meter away from the macbook air..

 

[fischersd]

Yes, you'll have a new round of "fun" once you switch to the new watch. And, yes, the Apple ID should be the same for all of your systems (most of us have .me, .icloud, some have .mac)
The ID should be the same across the board - so, I'd switch the mac (even though it's working) to the .icloud address so it's the same as the others.

 

[apfelbaum]

I'm sure you will...hopefully it won't take you too much work once you have the new card (have a BRCM4360 card in my 2008 17" MBP and it's working great - so, yep, it can definitely be done!)

Today I upgraded the wireless card in my late 2012 iMac and so far it works, I have 802.11 ac available and auto unlock is now supported (Automatisches Entsperren -> auto unlock, Unterstützt -> supported). The option to unlock the iMac with the Apple Watch is now available and I could activate it, however it took me a few attempts and a reboot of the iMac and the Watch to activate it.

At first auto unlock was very unstable and it worked only maybe every 6th or 7th time, but it got better now about 2 hours later and on my 2015 MacBook it also took about 2 or 3 days for that to become reliable but still takes sometimes a second attempt, so I would say that it doesn't seem right now to be better or worse on the 2012 iMac:



Now I just need a new router that supports 802.11 ac, should make Airdrop a lot more useful

 

[fischersd]

Today I upgraded the wireless card in my late 2012 iMac and so far it works, I have 802.11 ac available and auto unlock is now supported (Automatisches Entsperren -> auto unlock, Unterstützt -> supported). The option to unlock the iMac with the Apple Watch is now available and I could activate it, however it took me a few attempts and a reboot of the iMac and the Watch to activate it.

At first auto unlock was very unstable and it worked only maybe every 6th or 7th time, but it got better now about 2 hours later and on my 2015 MacBook it also took about 2 or 3 days for that to become reliable but still takes sometimes a second attempt, so I would say that it doesn't seem right now to be better or worse on the 2012 iMac:

View attachment 663171

Now I just need a new router that supports 802.11 ac, should make Airdrop a lot more useful

Awesome! Glad to hear. Yep, the speeds on AC are quite nice.

 

[ScottButler]

Could anyone with the latest 10.12.1 betas let me know if this feature has improved at all?

So far this feature feels very un-Apple like, and unlocks my Mac maybe 2 out of every 10 times. It tries to unlock then shows the password prompt after about 5 seconds, really hope this works better soon, it's so handy when it works

 

[testcard]

I've been lucky in that unlocking has worked for me in all the recent public betas. If anything, it's become slightly faster, taking around 2 or 3 seconds to unlock.

 

[Berti10]

Hi everyone,

I have a Bug occuring, when using the new Auto-Unlock feature of Sierra. The Hardware is a Retina 5K and an AW (1. Gen). As explained in the title, the Auto-unlock feature works only one time, not a second or third time and forces me to type in my password after 1 second of trying to unlock. I have to restart the Mac or disable and then reenable the feature in order to get it back working. I also have a MBP where it works flawlessly. Any ideas?

Things I've already done:
- Soft Reset Apple Watch
- Restart Mac
- Reinstall Sierre via Recovery (CMD + R at Startup)

Also, enabling the feature under a secondary test account fails due to connectivity errors.