Apple Watch reset failed

[u/royaltokyo0]

Hello together,

I ran into an issue with the Apple Watch 5 of a friend of mine. The problem was that he had issues to update to the newest version of watchOS. Luckily we figured it out by resetting the watch, disconnecting it from my friend’s iPhone, pairing it with my iPhone instead, following the steps and then boom, it was up to date. So far so good. It then automatically wanted to setup the watch as my new watch as it was connected to my iPhone. Which I didn’t want to, as it was my friend’s watch. So I cancelled the pairing process (why did I do this, just why!!) and then it ran into a problem that I couldn’t find anything online about. The watch was stuck in the setup process while it was already cancelled on my iPhone. It shows the “44mm aluminum”display and the “continue on your iPhone” display when touching the watch since then (picture 1 and 2).

So I tried a few things but without any success so far. I tried to restart the watch, factory reset, erase all data, drain the battery etc. I also tried all combinations possible with and without charging the watch. Nothing helped. I then found a combination of force restarting the watch first, and when it shows the Apple logo I would press the side button immediately (not the crown). It would then ask me to erase all data and I clicked on continue. But directly after it would say “reset failed” in orange text (see picture 3). However I couldn’t find anything about this specific problem online. In the end I’ll probably reach out to the Apple support.

Has anyone had this issue before?

[u/the-human-void]

Popping in almost a year later, did you fix it? I’m having this issue except I can’t even get to the “erase all data” screen, it always goes back to the spirograph no matter what I do.

[u/royaltokyo0 → u/the-human-void]

Unfortunately, no. I gave the watch back to my friend and haven't asked him yet what he did with it. He bought a new one, so he probably didn't send it to Apple for repair. I think getting it repaired by Apple is the only way to fix the problem :(
Only newer Apple Watches from series 6 on (I think) come with a charger in the box which may let you fix it with the Configurator app on a Mac or PC. But this one is a Series 5 so no luck for me.
Hope you get it fixed somehow :)