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Three days after their release, reports are mounting of Apple Watches suddenly displaying the Apple logo and restarting. Both new models are affected, and the shared crash logs repeatedly point to the same location. The first update isn't helping everyone.
The Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4 have been available in stores since Friday, including in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Initial reviews have been predominantly positive.
That changed with the first buyers. In the MacRumors forum thread, owners of both models have reported unexpected restarts since the launch; MacRumors has counted around 30 affected users. Similar reports can be found on Reddit and in the Apple Community.
Key Facts at a Glance
- Owners of Series 12 and Ultra 4 have been reporting sudden restarts since the sales launch on September 18th.
- At least four shared crash logs show the same sequence of events: The Neural Engine hangs for about two seconds, then a monitoring function forces a restart.
- Neither the first update, nor a complete reset, nor a replacement device solved the problem for all affected users.
- The logs suggest a software error; according to current reports, exchanging the watch will not help.
What the crash logs show
Several users have posted their watches' diagnostic logs in the forum. According to an analysis by MacRumors, at least four of them show the same pattern: The Neural Engine, the part of the chip responsible for AI calculations, stops responding for about two seconds. A monitoring function in the firmware interprets this as a system error and restarts the watch.
Outwardly, it looks like a forced restart of the Apple Watch: The display goes black, the Apple logo appears, then the watch restarts.
In which situations do the clocks crash?
No single trigger has emerged. Users cite editing watch faces, opening maps or the app store, making calls, ongoing workouts, turning on "Do Not Disturb," and making requests to Siri AI. Some watches even restarted while apparently lying unused on the wrist.
One of these triggers is not applicable in large parts of the German-speaking world: Siri AI is initially unavailable on watchOS in the EU, but it is in Switzerland. The other situations – watch faces, maps, workouts, idle time – affect users in Germany and Austria in the same way.
Update, reset, replacement: What hasn't helped so far
The restarts occur both with the factory-installed watchOS version and after the update that the watches download directly during setup. Some users have completely erased and re-set up their watches without any change.
A particularly revealing case from the forum: An owner of a Series 12 received a replacement unit which, according to him, crashed with the same Neural Engine error. This makes a defect in an individual device less likely.
However, the picture is not uniform. Other forum users report that their Ultra 4 has been running for hours without crashing since the first update, and several have had no problems at all.
A case for the next watchOS update
The fact that a replacement device exhibited the same error and that the logs point to a firmware monitoring function clearly indicates a software issue rather than a manufacturing defect. We therefore fully expect Apple to fix the bug soon with a watchOS update.
Exchanging the watch after the crash report from the forum won't help; the problem will simply move with the new device. It's more sensible to leave the sharing of analytics data to Apple enabled so that the crash logs are sent there, and then wait for the next update.
Have you experienced a restart with your new Series 12 or Ultra 4 yet – and if so, what was happening? Tell us in the comments what situation caused your watch to crash.
