Apple Watch 4: Suddenly stops streaming, only controls iPhone now

[chilecayenne]

Plan:

Premium

Country

US

Device

Apple Watch 4 paired with iPhone 12 pro max: Both latest versions iOS

Operating System

(iOS 14.4 on phone )

My Question or Issue

My Apple Watch has been streaming Spotify for months now just fine.

Yesterday, all of a sudden, it will only control Spotify on my iPhone. I select the watch on the watch and the watch icon just blinks and blinks, and never connects it says.

Other cellular works on the watch, signal is strong.

Not sure what problem is.

Only thing I can think of was that last weekend, I changed my Spotify password and selected the option (done from computer) to disconnect all devices.

ON other devices I just had to put in the new password and they came up.

I don't see anywhere on the Apple Watch to update a password, and from what I understood, it would do this from the iPhone it is paired with, right?

Spotify on that phone has had the new password entered and works just fine.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

Thank you!!

CC

[chilecayenne]

Anyone?

Anyone?

Bueller?

[Ver]

Hey @chilecayenne,

Thanks for reaching out to us and welcome to the Community 🙂

Could you try logging out > unpairing your watch and phone > restarting both devices > pairing them again and logging back in to your account?  Are there any changes?

It's also a good idea to reinstall the app on the watch to see if anything changes. 

Let us know how it goes. If you have questions, you know where to find us.

[SRead609]

I am having this very issue except it only plays two tracks before cutting out with an error. All on the latest updates and strong signals. 

[Eni]

Hey @SRead609, 

Welcome to the Community and thanks for reaching out about this. 

Just to confirm, have you tried the steps @Ver sent previously? If so, let us know if they made the difference. 

Additionally, we suggest that you try running a clean reinstall of the app on your phone to get rid of any cached files that might causing trouble. 

Let us know how it goes 🙂

[chilecayenne]

I removed the Spotify app from my phone which also removed it from my watch.

I reinstalled the app. on the phone.

The app shows up again on my watch.

From the watch, I can play the app on the phone...the watch now doesn't even show the ability to switch to or play from the watch the phone is now the only available device.

On the phone it shows itself as available device, and my marantz stereo receiver via bluetooth.

But now, neither watch nor phone show my watch as a device viable to stream from....which again, used to work just fine in the past before I changed my account password and disconnected all devices due to possible unauthorized access to my account.

Not sure what to do now...seems to be getting worse.

[Jeremy]

Hey there @chilecayenne,

Can you let us know the following:

• The iOS of your iPhone.
• Your watchOS on your Apple watch.

It would also be great if you can unpair the devices and the reconnect them with eachother again.

We'll keep an eye out for your reply.

Take care!

[chilecayenne]

Sure.

Phone iOS: 14.4 - Model = iPhone 12 max pro

Apple Watch 4: watchOS version = 7.3

Everything points to being up to date.

I've done everything short of unpairing the watch back and forth and would prefer to not have to go through the hassle of that procedure if at all possible.

I shouldn't think such a drastic step would be something casually recommended as a first level remediation step?

Thanks in advance, I appreciate the help!!

[chilecayenne]

Any updates for me?  I provided the watch and phone OS version numbers.

Thank you.

[Alex]

Hi @chilecayenne,

Thanks for the reply.

Can you try the following:

• Make sure watch's firmware's updated and update Spotify versions to latest available version.
• Try connecting both your phone and the watch to a different network.
• Make sure the Spotify app is granted all Permissions on your phone.
• Try to unpair and the re-pair the watch and the phone.

Keep us posted on how you get on with this.

Cheers.

[chilecayenne]

Ok, I've tried all the recommended steps, even unpairing the watch from the phone and re-pairing.

Same thing. I try to have the watch as the streaming device and it just sticks blinking at "connecting".

Not sure what to try next.

This used to work.

Everything is latest version.

[CarlosE]

Hi again @chilecayenne,

Thanks for trying and keeping us posted.

Could you try logging in to a different account, like a friend's or relative's, and let us know if that makes any difference? That way we can check if this is account related.

Something else to try is to check if you can stream from the watch when using a different connection, like a WiFi network instead of cellular. This would also help us narrow down the possible cause of this issue.

We'll keep an eye out for your reply.

[chilecayenne]

I don't have another account I can try. (besides wouldn't that violate Spotify's TOS?)

I've tried it in house with wifi and away from house on cellular.

Still no cheer in Mudville, doesn't work.

😞

[Jeremy]

Hi there @chilecayenne,

Thank you for your reply.

Can you create a test account? You can do it here.

Keep us posted 🙂

Take care!

[chilecayenne]

Are there instructions somewhere on how to create a test account?

Thank you!

[Novy]

Hey @chilecayenne, 

Thanks for getting back to us. 

In order to create the test account, you'll need a different email address and you can sign up here.

Since it's for testing purposes, there's no need to subscribe to Premium. 

We'll be on the lookout for your reply.

[chilecayenne]

Ok I was getting ready to take a walk, I just decided to try to use Spotify on my watch again....no changes I've done since last time....and out of the blue, it worked.

I thought back and then though I recalled a few days ago, a Spotify app update came on my iPhone.

I checked back and yes, on the 22nd there was a Spotify application update on my phone, which I'm sure is then pushed to my watch.

I'm guessing something in the update fixed the problem?

Or, did perhaps it take a full blown update to make the watch and phone app see that the password was updated, etc.?

Remember the start of all of this, was my finding someone had been in my account and I changed the password and shut off access to all devices until they logged in again with the new password...at that point, the watch stopped functioning.

Anyway, I'm guessing something like this happened, but it shouldn't be down that long due to that.

So, ya'll might want to look into this a bit more.

Thank you!

[CarlosE]

Hey again @chilecayenne,

Thanks for keeping us posted about this.

We're glad to know it was sorted out and it's now working as expected. Some issues can occur due to many different factors and it's not always easy to isolate and fix them, but the right teams are always working on this to improve the app and solve any issues as soon as possible.

If you need a hand with anything else, we're always a post away.

Have a good one 🙂