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

Hi. I am pairing my Apple Watch Series 5 to my iPhone running ios 14. The pairing is successful but unable to proceed with the set up because an update is needed to be downloaded first. I updated the os for watch but I keep on getting “Unable to Check for Update - Checking for a software update failed because you are not connected to the internet”. I am definitely connected to the internet.

Watch was reset to factory defaults and I am now pairing it as a new device but it fails due to the issue mentioned above.
  • I solved this issue by uninstalling the Watch app from my iphone and reloading it. After reloading the app I paired the watch to the phone and the update started loading.

  • I will say one thing today was a frustrating day trying to get the watch to pair for a few hours. Finally I have success. My fix is the same as many but it took only one try when I changed the Country and Language. I decided to use language Portuguese, and country Afghanistan. It worked. so mad I could not see straight. But success, hope it works for you. It will.

  • Apple Watch 3, iPhone 11Pro w/ iOS 14.6 - nothing works to update the watch and make it a usable device, it's basically a dud now. I've tried resetting the iPhone and trying to update the watch in different language. No dice!

Accepted Reply

Hard resetting iPhone fixed this issue.

Steps are:
  1. Press Volume Up and let go.

  2. Press Volume Down and let go.

  3. Press and hold the side button.

Note: This does not wipe any data from your phone
  • This didn't work for me.

  • Same issue here. Reset series 3 Apple Watch to factory settings and tried to pair with iPhone X on iOS 14.6 and no matter what I do, I get the not connected to internet error when I am most definitely online.

    restart, reset, reinstalling watch, changing languages, changing region- none of that worked. Very frustrating!

  • @Patcwin thanks, that worked for me

Replies

This is the most absurd thing I've ever seen from Apple. I've tried everything mentioned here multiple times before booking an appointment at the Apple Store. The gentleman at Apple was familiar with the issue but tried to say it was a hardware issue on my watch and it would cost $207 to replace the device.

How can someone say that they believe this is a hardware issue? Figure it out Apple.

The Apple support helped me on that issue: go to Settings > General > Reset > "Reset Network Settings". This will restart your iPhone and you will have to re-connect to your wifi and re-enter the wifi password. After that, you can pair your iWatch and perform the mandatory software update. This worked for me (iPhone 8 / iWatch 3 GPS) :-)

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I've tried all the solutions on here and they didn't work. Here's what I did that finally worked for me. My watch was unpaired to begin with so I can only speak on what helped me to pair it again. 

  1. Hard Reset BOTH iPhone and Apple Watch
  2. Remove Apple Watch from your iCloud (Settings --> Your Name/Apple ID)

3.Update your iPhone if it needs to be. 

After Updating my iPhone and going through the pair steps, I no longer received the error message.  Hope this works for you! (iPhone 12 Plus iOS 14.4 ---> 14.8) Apple Watch Series 4 Updated to 7.6.2)

Disable Automatic updates on your iphone, turn on Bluetooth. try again according to the manual This worked for me.

YOU HAVE TO UPDATE YOUR PHONE TO THE LATEST SOFTWARE

Hi there, I have the same issue and here is how I fixed it, disconnect and reconnect it from the watch till you see it green, that means it’s charged enough, then I switched regions on my phone to Canada and I turned all location services off and then it started downloading the update, hope this helps.

My son just got the IPhone 13. He downloaded the watch app and BOOM updating!!! I tried all of the previous suggestions except another phone. I have a 12 for reference.

I swear, you always need to start with the simplest steps if not you're torturing yourself. As of rigth now the update started due to the fact that i turned off my mobile data and used only wifi I hope it does help someone.

After hours upon hours of scrolling through this feed and trying every solution listed (more times than I’d like to admit) my brand new Series 5 watch just wouldn’t update therefore wouldn’t complete activation. Finally, I’d had enough and called support. Whilst on the phone I figured I’d give it one more shot with the only solution I was yet to try. I put the damn thing on my wrist whilst I paired and prayed to see anything other than “cannot update no internet”. By the grace of whatever god heard and saw my mental breakdown and decided to help, it started to work and download the updated software! It is currently still updating but out every solution offered including combining them, all it took was to put it on my wrist!

Changing WiFi network solved it for me

This is very annoying & persistent issue with very simple solution: connect to a different WiFi network and try again.

My Watch was collecting dust for a year because of me being unable to find a solution. I tried every possible thing shown on every single site. I was ready to give up, the last thing I wanted to try was to pair it with some other iPhone. Went to my office to ask people if someone can borrow me their iPhone. While waiting for someone with an iPhone to show up I decided to give it another try since now I'm on a different network. Guess what? It freaking worked. After a freaking year of head banging, all it needed was different WiFi network. Mind you that I tried via cellular network, that one didn't work either. IDK what was causing this, was it CGNAT my provider introduced or some glitch between my Apple Watch - iPhone - Router I don't know. I'm happy it's fixed, hopefully it will work for you too.

None of the resetting worked for me... I had to change my region to Canada and then it worked flawlessly. Weird fix.

Weird bug...same thing was happening to me on Apple Watch Series 3 and iPhone 11 Pro. Had to remove/unpair the apple watch from everything on my phone (icloud, watch app, etc.) update to iOS 15.1, hard reset the phone and watch. THEN - put the iPhone on low power mode and turned off wifi assist (settings->cellular->wifi assist) and paired the watch manually, and it finally worked. Hope this helps.

Put your phone on battery saving mode and it fixed the problem!

I had the same problem

I even returned my watch and got a replacement but it still happened

here’s how mine managed to update:

  1. First I signed out of iCloud on my iphone (I’m running a 12 on iOS 15)

  2. I then hard reset my iPhone by quickly pressing volume up, then volume down and then holding the power button until the phone powers down. (it will start it self back up and no data is lost)

  3. I then factory reset the watch and waited for it to boot back up ( this may take some time, for me it took 15 minutes)

  4. After that I started the pairing process using the automatic option with the camera over the frame of the watch

  5. The error will come up again but then I waited as it was still checking for an update and the update came up after around 5 minutes of waiting.

it seems for this bug there is no official fix and different things work for different people. The changing of region/language didn’t work for me. I hope this works for you as this needs to be patched by Apple quickly

Nothing is working for me. Ive tried everything posted on here. Sometimes apple gives me the urge to chuck it out of the window