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

Place watch on charger for entire setup

When trying to complete Family Setup on a refurbished Series 6 watch I got the dreaded "Unable to Check for Update - Checking for a software update failed because you are not connected to the internet” error. None of the other suggested fixes I tried worked, e.g. manual pairing, changing language/region, unpairing my personal watch first, hard resets of both watch and phone. I did not have the watch on the charger because I had fully-charged the watch prior to attempting setup. On a whim I put it on the charger and then began Family Setup again. Boom! This time it showed the update (2.0GB!!) and the time to complete (2 hours!!!). I left it on the charger for the entire time it needed to complete the update, and now everything is fully up to date and I was able to complete Family Setup. Not sure if this is suggested anywhere in the preceding 21 pages, but I did not see it in my searching. Hopefully this helps someone.

I managed to make it work. Make sure you connect to 2.4ghz wifi on your iphone.

At first, i connect to 5ghz wifi. However, since my series 5 only have 2.4ghz, then it cannot connect to my router as my iphone is connected to 5ghz.

Hence, once i changed my iphone wifi to 2.4ghz, walla, the apple watch managed to get connected to find the update.

hopefully this will help others.

I GOT IT TO WORK ---

Not really sure which step did the trick. But here's what I did.

I had an Apple Watch 4 Series, connecting to iPhone 12 Max Pro with latest iOS (16.2). Nothing was working. Would pair, and then say "unable to update".

Initially when I would try to manually pair it wouldn't work. No pin would show up.

Finally, what I did was, I switched to 2.5GHZ wifi network (if you have 5G you can call your ISP and have them split your network into 2) and then I restarted the watch. Finally, I tried to do it manually after restarting over 20+ times. And boom... Miraculously worked.

I upgraded from a series 3 to an SE. While trying to pair my brand new SE to my iPhone 13 Pro, I too received the message stating the update required for pairing could not be completed due to not being connected to the internet. I was very much indeed connected and I tried different Wi-Fi connections and all other sorts of recommendations found in the many pages of this thread. What finally worked for me is this: upon receiving the above mentioned message of not being connected to the internet, I left the message up (as in I did not select either option given to try again or start over) and navigated to the Bluetooth settings in my phone. One of the connections listed was “Apple Watch.” Clicked on the “I” next to it , clicked “forget this device” and then went back to the watch app, clicked “try again” and the update initiated. I now am paired with my watch and enjoying the new product. I hope this helps someone.

It’s worth making sure the watch has at least 50% battery AND is on the charger when you do setup. if not you’ll get this message.

Hello, I tried almost all the methods here, but to no avail (all had the same error, so I assumed none of the methods worked)

I'm using an apple watch series 2 , used with an iPhone 12.

So I was exploring, and what worked for me was my iPhone connecting via a VPN (I was using Ivacy in my case, but feel free to use one of your own if you have).

And voila the update started to work. My watchos was then updated to 6.3 (can't recall which version my watchos is on)

At the end , I'm not sure if it's a VPN or DNS issue that resolved it for me , but you can give it a shot and let me know if it works.

I had the same issue. I was able to solve this after I hard reset my apple watch by pressing and holding both the side button and Digital Crown for at least 10 seconds and and then release both buttons when you see the Apple logo. Apple watch updated the software afterwards.

What worked for me was to get an old phone with an older iOS (in my case it was 14.7) and it works.

I found a fix. Go to your iPhone Setting and log out of your iCloud account. Launch Watch app and pair with the watch will allow you to update the watch successfully.

Uninstall the watch app and reinstall it, at the moment you will do that update will start upon restarting the app.

Ive recently had the same issue with my Series 4 after getting it back from my wife after getting a series 8.

would not update after trying to pair saying "not connected to the internet" message

Fix:

• Create a 2.4Ghz WIFI network only on your router
• Connect your phone to this.
• Erase Watch app on iPhone and reinstall
• on Watch - Hold Crown and Side button until screen goes black, then release. when Apple logo appears, hold the Side button again for 20 seconds until it asks "Completely erase watch" select this and green tick.

*Hard reset your iPhone (iPhone 12 Pro Max, Tap Volume Up, release, Tap Volume Down, Release, Hold Power Button until phone powers off and when logo appears let go.

Continue to Watch app and re-pair manual mode by entering the code on apple watch

This paired and update then proceeded without error message and watch updated successfully.

hope this helps

I have a series 5 watch that I had not used or updated since I got my iPhone 14 pro max. I let it sit for months and finally decided to use it again. I kept getting the not connected to internet error. I scoured through these forums and tried everything. Nothing worked. Finally I used my roommates phone and was able to update the watch. I recommend doing this before trying all the other stuff. I messed with all sorts of things in the settings and nothing worked and now I’m not exactly sure what I even changed. Oh well, Apple should most definitely have a better fix but they don’t. You would expect a little more out of a trillion dollar company.

After 2 months of frustration and reading SO MANY POSTS, I finally got the watch (series4) to update to then pair to my iPhone 13. DO NOT GIVE UP! I tried all the tricks given and, honestly, it was changing the country to AFGHANISTAN that allowed the update. Unbelievable. It’s a banner day for me.

shutting down 5GHz wifi channel did a trick in my case.

I resolved this issue by turning off the VPN on my iPhone. You can turn off the VPN under Settings->General->VPN & Device Management

After spending a couple of hours trying a bunch of different complicated methods proposed, it was the simplest that ended up solving the problem for me - uninstall the Apple Watch app on my iPhone and install it again.

FIXED:

I’ve tried many solutions in this forum but none worked, so I attempted to setup the watch manually (without using the phone camera to scan the watch face) and it worked!

I tried a good number of steps here but did not work. Called Apple tech support and these steps worked.

On phone Uninstall watch app Reset network settings Go to Settings>General > Reset >Reset all network settings Phone restarts. Setup wifi password again Install watch app again

On watch Press the crown and the bottom button together When apple logo shows up, press the bottom button only, it will give option to erase all contents to factory defaults

Start pairing process again between phone and watch.

Has anyone gotten this to work? I tried bunch of times on multiple iPhones. I am using an Apple Watch Series III on iPhone 13 Pro. I’m getting same error. Software update error

In my case the soultion to enroll update was to... use my sister's ip6s and on her phone update started. Then i cancelled and went back to my xs max and there i did the same steps and boom - the update is downloading.

Tried and tried. I finally got the update to download. Then out of nowhere the watch started to unpair. Now I can't get it to pair at all. (Changing region on phone and watch got me the farthest.)

I wasted many hours trying most of the remedies in this thread.

I was trying to get a new Series 6 apple watch to pair with my iPhone X Max.

I have an AT&T Router that has both a 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz WIFI networks. It is configured by default to put these both on the same SSID and then dynamically route each connecting device to the appropriate network ("band steering").

What finally worked for me was this turning OFF the 5ghz WIFI network in order to force the Apple Watch software update to be downloaded off the 2.4 GHz network.

Here's my theory on the problem:

• The iPhone and the Apple Watch find each other via Bluetooth
• You start the pairing process
• The iPhone says, "Hey Watch - you gotta download this 2 GB software update, use this WIFI connection to download it"
• The Watch gets cross ways when routed to the 5 GHz network.

The Series 6 Apple Watch is supposed to support 5 GHz WIFI networks, but this was definitely the culprit for me.

It's possible that the band steering feature from the AT&T Router jacks up the initial connection, or it's possible that the Patch download code has to work on both older and newer Apple Watches and has something that doesn't play nice with a 5 GHz WIFI network.

Hi all - I wasn't able to resolve this issue "unable to check for update error" with all the factory / network / hard resets what resolved for me was ensuring that the "setting time zone" was ON under system services on my iPhone (General -> Privacy & Security -> Location Services -> System services -> Setting Time Zone" as soon as this was resolved I no longer had the error message

Its a very old thread but it seems to be still active so i thought i would contribute since i spent multiple days trying to get my girlfriends series 3 apple watch to work. Nothing seemed to work until i switched to my Guest wifi network (2.4Ghz). It doesn't hurt to reset both the phone and the watch too but what finally made it work was changing wifi networks

I had the same problem with iPhone 15 and Watch Ultra 2. I cannot update from watchOS 10.0.2 to 10.2.. I solved unpair and reinstall the Watch app in iPhone. This advice helped me. Thanks @wilderwayoutdoors so much. :-)