It’s good practice to keep your Apple Watch up to date so it can stay at its optimal operating. But it is very frustrating when a problem prevents the update from occurring. Even more infuriating when your Apple Watch is unable to check for update.
This, in turn, prevents you from potentially loading a new update, and rendering you unable to address existing flaws or bugs in the watch’s system.
Luckily, there are a few easy troubleshooting methods that will allow you to fix an Apple Watch unable to check for updates. Keep in mind some of these fixes can also be helpful when your Apple Watch is stuck verifying an update.
1. Assure Internet Connection
The most common reason for your Apple Watch’s inability to check for an update is that it cannot establish a connection to the internet (or at least a stable one).
In fact, the error message that you’re presented with when being informed about the problem actually often states this as being the reason. That means you need to make sure that your iPhone has a valid internet connection.
If the current location is definitely in the vicinity of reliable Wi-Fi, this may just be a matter of resetting the Wi-Fi connection.
First, make sure to connect your Apple Watch to Wi-Fi. You can find out by going over to the Settings menu and checking the Wi-Fi tab to confirm the connection.
If not, toggling the Wi-Fi off and on again typically helps reestablish the connection. If the Wi-Fi seems on but the watch still can’t check for an update, unplug the router for a few seconds, then plug it back in.
And after about a minute of reset time, try searching for the watch’s update again.
2. Make Sure Enough Space Is Available
When you install too many apps and other miscellaneous files on your Apple Watch, the lack of hard drive space can prevent the checking of the update.
Certain scripts need to be run in order to reach out to the servers that house the update. These scripts require a particular amount of space on the watch, so if that space is not available, then the server contact protocols cannot run.
You can alleviate this problem by freeing up space on your Apple Watch. One way to go about this is by removing the watch apps that you don’t regularly use.
It may also be worthwhile to remove the cached data as that can occupy more space than you realize.
3. Reinstall the Watch App
If there is an issue with the Watch app, an easy solution is to simply uninstall the app and reinstall it again on the iPhone device.
Find the Watch app on your iPhone, touch and hold it lightly for a couple of seconds. When prompted, select Rearrange Apps, then tap the minus icon, which will ask to confirm the app’s deletion, then proceed to uninstall it from the phone.
Once you’ve removed the app, access the App Store and search for the Watch app again. When found, tap the cloud icon to download it to the device again.
After you’ve re-installed the app, open it and pair the watch with your iPhone again, then attempt to check for an update to see if the problem persists.
4. Change Region
There is another clever trick to overcome the problem of an unavailable update. The lack of available updates could be linked to a problem with the servers attempting to make connections in that particular country.
For example, if one were to try to connect to a server in another country, the problem may not happen.
This redirection can be accomplished by altering the region on the phone.
- Open the Settings app on your iPhone
- Then, under the General tab, find the Language & Region option.
- Tap the Region field and change it to another country on the list of choices.
Save the settings and try for an update again.
5. Restart iPhone
The tried-and-true method of “turn it off then on again” applies to this issue as well. Simply power cycle the phone and try accessing the update search again. For comprehensive step-by-step instructions, here’s how to restart an iPhone.
Restarting your phone will clear out any bugs that may have prevented the update servers from working properly.
6. Pair Apple Watch With Another Phone
If all else fails, it might be worth considering that the phone is the problem. To test this, attempt to pair your Apple Watch with another iPhone device.
Once paired, try to access the update servers again to check for an update. If this works, load the update, and once complete, repair the watch with the original device.
Conclusion
We hope you found this guide useful in helping you troubleshoot your Apple Watch when it’s unable to check for update.
Let us know if this helped fix this problem. If you found success doing something else, leave me a comment down below!
If nothing has worked, then it’s worth looking for other signs of bad network connectivity. If other devices connect fine, it might be the Apple Watch that has a problem in need of repair.
In that case, stop by to visit the nearest Apple Store or contact Apple’s customer service to diagnose and fix the problem.
