AW No longer unlocks my MBP

Rod


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2021 M1 MacBook Pro 14" macOS 14.4.1, Mid 2010MacBook 13" iPhone 13 Pro max, iPad 6, Apple Watch SE.
Maybe no one can help me with this but I will ask anyway. I have read as many articles as I can find with no real satisfactory solutions.
On attempting to select the option in Security and Privacy prefs I get the below response.

Screen Shot 2020-02-14 at 11.14.40 am.png

What the heck does this mean? My AW app shows I am logged in General > Apple ID. I cant see any easy way of logging out of iCloud short of unpairing the watch or signing out of iCloud on my iPhone.

There is the Reset option in the iPhone app General > Reset > Erase AW Content and Settings but I'm not sure what this does. Would it renew the iCloud connection on the watch on restore?

I was working fine in Australia and here in Bali before I left but since I returned it has ceased to work. Everything is the same and I cannot understand how the pref became unselected in the first place.

When I log into the iCloud site on my MBP and go to devices I see my AW and am able to locate it with Find My so that means (in my mind) that it is logged into iCloud so I'm stumped.

I've tried rebooting everything the watch works fine in every other way and it even allowed me to approve a Google Maps ID action on my iPhone yesterday.

I suppose what I want/need to do is sign out of iCloud on my Watch then sign back in but how to do that without the lengthly process of restoring either the watch or heaven forbid the iPhone.

Oh, and 2FA is working fine as well.
 
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I've had that happen before and as I recall I ended up unpairing the watch and iPhone, then pairing them again, going to System Preferences and ensuring that the option was selected to unlock the Mac with the  watch. It's been a while, so I may be misremembering.

One other thing to try is to start the shutdown process on the  watch, but cancelling it. I think that resets some things without resetting all of them. To do that you hold down the side button until the menu appears.
 
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Rod

Rod


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Jake, thanks, I'll try the latter method first but after reading a lot of older posts on the subject I'm starting to think unpairing may be the only way.
What annoys me are the enigmatic messages that are generated by the system as above. Its quite clear that the watch is signed into iCloud and it needs to be done as part of the setup procedure so saying it can be done on the iPhone app is a bit useless. When you go to the Apple Community page, although the problem is listed all the links just take you to generic "how to sign into iCloud" pages, nothing about what to do if it seems you already are.
 
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Yeah, what happens is that somewhere in the link something got un-linked. I've read elsewhere that the Auto Unlock of the Mac with  Watch involved both WiFi and BT as the devices negotiate the unlocking. And the iPhone is the pivot of the whole thing, as it is the main tie between the watch and the rest of Apple infrastructure. Like all other kinds of electronic locks I've seen, it is possible for the links to get corrupted, in which case re-initializing the links restores the ties. So unpairing the watch, while a real PITA, then selecting and deselecting the option in System Preferences, together seems to reestablish the links. I usually try the power off, cancel routine on all three devices before I do the unpairing, but I seem to now remember unpairing as the "fix." Let us know what works so we can both remember for next time. :)
 
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Rod

Rod


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2021 M1 MacBook Pro 14" macOS 14.4.1, Mid 2010MacBook 13" iPhone 13 Pro max, iPad 6, Apple Watch SE.
Sure thing Jake, thanks for the input.:app
 
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Rod

Rod


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2021 M1 MacBook Pro 14" macOS 14.4.1, Mid 2010MacBook 13" iPhone 13 Pro max, iPad 6, Apple Watch SE.
Jake, I sent you a reply via PM because I can't post a reply to the thread on the web site.


Sent from my iPhone using Mac-Forums
 

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