[Apple Watch] Unable to Check for Update - Not connected to the internet error

For me, disabling the second line only worked.

I had the same error message trying to reset and re-pair an Apple Watch series 3, to an iPhone 12. Short answer: if your iPhone is low on power, plug it in. Longer answer: It was being given to someone else, and we just wanted to pair it. The watch itself had not been updated to the new watchOS for a while. I also knew it my phone was on wi-fi. I was helped by another user here who had to switch to 'low battery' mode. That made me think ; my iPhone 12 was running low on power, so much that the indicator was RED. I just plugged in the iPhone to power, and then hit 'retry again' twice, and it proceeded. So make sure your iPhone has plenty of power, or plug it in. That worked for me.

Changing the language and country worked!!

I tried everything before doing this, I don't think it's a problem with the phone, it's a problem with the apple watch itself. I have an apple watch series 3, so an older watch.

The language I chose is Portuguese and the country was the one right below USA, I think it was Afghanistan.

GOOD LUCK! I've never wanted to smash something with a hammer more in my life.

I finally figured this out after two months of frustration. I have an iPhone 12 and an Apple series 4 watch. I could not get past update and not connected to the internet. Today, I decided to try pairing it with an old iPhone 7 we have around. It worked! I could update the watch! Then I reset the watch and started to pair it again with my iPhone 12. Everything went almost smoothly.

It stated there was another update needed to 8.4. When I did that update, I got stuck on the ‘what wrist will you be wearing this on’. I started over again and chose to skip the update and continue. It worked like a charm.

I tried every single option offered on this over the months. Seriously, every one of them. So the trick is to find an older phone with WiFi connection and it should allow you to update. Not sure why this worked, but it did!

I tried all procedures from https://www.wipelock.com/phone-tips/apple-watch-unable-check-update/ and others, but nothing worked for me. So I tried to follow the steps that @jwongthecity posted and it worked to me (very simple procedure).

• After reset and erase all data from the apple watch, I turned off the Wifi on iPhone before start pairing and left only LTE Data (3g/4g/5g data) on (Apple watch won't be able to download the update by LTE)
• Once in pairing, click on "Update" and wait some seconds to the apple watch make the activation
• After that, the screen will show "Checking for Updates..." but nothing is happening because the WiFi is still turned off
• So go ahead and turn your WiFi back on your iPhone
• The update will picked up and FINALLY my apple watch and phone are paired

Thanks man!

Check if you connected to a 5GHz Wi-Fi, Apple Watch 5 or earlier version can only support 2.4Ghz Wi-Fi. I fixed it by switching to a 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi

I fixed this issue by pairing them manually during setup instead of scanning the watch with the camera

I was able to bypass this issue by uninstalling and reinstalling the Watch app.

After hours of struggling with this and spending countless hours reading through different forums online; I stumbled on the solution and it was quite simple and straightforward.

1. Phone must be on wifi; using your mobile data does not count as an "internet connection" (for whatever reason)
2. Phone and watch must be closely within range. In my case, anything aside the phone and watch being side-by-side was not effective.
3. Watch MUST be on charger all through the process.

It worked seamlessly once all these were met. Not sure if this applies globally, but in my case this was it!

Hope this helps someone. Cheers

I, alike many of the folks trying to update their watch. Left my watch on a counter dead for a good few months. I just spent about 4 hours absolutely stumped with this same issue and got to page 9/17 of the answers on here.

My solution.. (not sure if you wearing the watch is related) I took it off the charger and put it on, both my iPhone 12 Pro Max and my Series 4 watch were fully charged. I went into my Xfinity app and made two separate networks 2.4, and a 5gH. I connected my phone to the 2.4, and turned off cellular data.... IMMEDIATELY popped up ready to download. I shut both my phone off, watch off, uninstalled/reinstalled the app, signed out of iCloud. If it was a suggestion... I tried it. Hope this helps! Its currently downloading, says it has about an hour! We shall see!

Hard reset both watch & iPhone, put in low power mode, reset network settings, switch language from English to Portuguese and pair the watch MANUALLY. Do NOT scan the watch. Type in tge code. Update should start. Took me 2 hours to figure out and 1 hour to actually update it 🤦🏽‍♀️😮‍💨

Hey! I have been struggling to figure out this software update error all day. I found a solution by deleting my iPhone software and deleting the Apple Watch app, then restarting both my watch and iphone. Then I re-downloaded the Apple Watch app and started to pair and update. Pairing was a success and it started to update.

How to delete software update (which can be re-downloaded): Iphone settings > General > Iphone Storage > scroll down until you find "Software Update" > Click> then press delete update. ** you could also delete the Apple Watch App from this iPhone storage section.

I hope that helps! Good Luck!

Finally got the software update to load. 1 uninstalled watch app and reinstalled 2 powered phone off and turned back on 3 plugged both watch and phone into chargers

Had the same issue. I did notice that before the screen that gives the option to select update there is a screen that pops up for less than a second and disappears. I had to do a video recording on another phone so I could replay the video to see the pop-up. It’s another screen giving the option to update the watch os. Is has two options, “dismiss” or “update”.

I restarted the pairing processes. Then I continuously tapped the screen where the pop-up had the “update” option. It then did the watch software update, and the pairing was successful.

Hi, everyone. I finally found a solution. I believe this is a connection problem. So, what I do:

1. make sure your iPhone is connected to a 2.4G WIFI.
2. set DNS in your router to 8.8.8.8.
3. disable IPV6 and dhcpv6 in your router.
4. reset your router.
5. factory reset your iWatch.
6. done, try to pair normally.

Hope this is useful for you.

set the language up as Portuguese on start up on watch and then follow the prompts to update the software on your iphone these will be in Portuguese after the initial error message "You are not connected to the internet" let it sit for 4 minutes and eventually it will let you set it up in Portuguese.

After trying several solutions proposed in this forum, the solution that finally worked for me is hard resetting your iPhone.

If you have an iPhone X or later (with no home button), follow these steps :

• click volume up button once
• click volume down button once
• click and maintain the lock button (on the right side) until the power goes off and the Apple logo appears.

This will refresh all the software on your phone.

After that, reset your Apple Watch, and start pairing it with your iPhone, you should see the software download bar, this may take a long time but right after it, you'll have the latest software updated and your Apple Watch up and running.

Go to your cellular data settings and change “Voice & Data” to LTE then “Data Mode” to standard the watch isn’t compatible with 5G

I solved this by switching the phone to low battery mode and attached both iphone and apple watch to the charger while pairing. It didn’t give me an error this time.

iPhone 8 and series 3 watch: I restarted both devices and went through the usual steps, whereupon the watch shut down completely. Restarted it by holding down the crown and side button together. It went through a startup procedure after which the update was installed. Apple software is more the stuff of Harry Potter.

I tried all of these and then spotted one that said to put my phone on a 2.4GHz connection. That fixed it immediately.

I hope this helps.

Had this same thing happen with my son's 3 series watch and the phone hard reset worked thank goodness, because it was super frustrating! Thank you to everyone for your ideas because I was not sure what I was going to do....

i tried every single thing posted and nothing worked. BUT then i went to device storage in settings/general and deleted all the data for the watch and BOOM, updating without an issue.

Putting iPhone in low power mode worked for me

Older Apple watches cannot connect to 5ghz SSID's. So make sure your phone is connected to 2.4ghz wifi before attempting to pair Apple Watch after reset. This resolved the same issue on my Apple Watch 3 with iPhone Xs running latest iOS 15. Hope this helps. Good luck!!