Some Apple Watch Series 4 Models Caught in Reboot Loop Due to Daylight Saving Time Bug

Some Apple Watch Series 4 owners in Australia experienced crashes and reboots on Saturday due to a bug that surfaced because of the daylight saving time change (via 9to5Mac).

applewatchseries4aluminummodels
According to Reddit users hit by the Apple Watch bug, the root of the problem appears to be the Infograph Modular face's Activity complication, which displays a timeline graph with hourly data for the user's Move calories, Exercise minutes, and Stand hours.

When daylight saving time (DST) lops an hour off the typical 24-hour day, the Activity complication is apparently unable to compute the change and draw the timeline graph with only 23 hours, which throws the Apple Watch into an endless reboot loop until the battery runs out.

According to reports, the bug corrected itself when the date rolled over the next day and the normal 24-hour day was reinstated, but some users were able to restore normal function to their watch before then by removing the Infograph Modular watch face via the iOS Watch app.

This isn't the first time Apple has been caught out by daylight saving time changes, but the company has a few weeks yet to fix this latest DST bug before it happens again when Europe and the U.S. change their clocks on October 28 and November 4, respectively.

Related Roundup: Apple Watch 10
Buyer's Guide: Apple Watch (Neutral)

Popular Stories

Generic iOS 19 Feature Mock Light

iOS 19 Leak Reveals All-New Design

Friday January 17, 2025 2:42 pm PST by
iOS 19 is still around six months away from being announced, but a new leak has allegedly revealed a completely redesigned Camera app. Based on footage it obtained, YouTube channel Front Page Tech shared a video showing what the new Camera app will apparently look like, with the key change being translucent menus for camera controls. Overall, the design of these menus looks similar to...
2024 App Store Awards

Apple Explains Why It Removed TikTok From the App Store in the U.S.

Sunday January 19, 2025 6:58 am PST by
Apple on late Saturday removed TikTok from the App Store in the U.S., and it has now explained why it was required to take this action. Last year, the U.S. passed a law that required Chinese company ByteDance to divest its ownership of TikTok due to potential national security risks, or else the platform would be banned. That law went into effect today, and companies like Apple and Google...
iPhone SE Dynamic Island Majin Bu

iPhone SE 4 Leak Shows Dynamic Island, Casts Doubt on Rumored 'iPhone 16E' Name

Monday January 20, 2025 9:01 am PST by
A new iPhone SE is widely rumored to launch this year, and the device has potentially been confirmed today by known leaker Evan Blass. In a private social media post, Blass shared an image of what appears to be source code mentioning an iPhone SE (4th Gen), which casts doubt on the alternative "iPhone 16E" name rumored for the device. However, the name in the source code could be a...
iOS 19 Roundup Feature

iOS 19 Rumored to Be Compatible With These iPhones

Saturday January 18, 2025 10:28 am PST by
iOS 19 will not drop support for any iPhone models, according to French website iPhoneSoft.fr. The report cited a source who said iOS 19 will be compatible with any iPhone that can run iOS 18, which would mean the following models: iPhone 16 iPhone 16 Plus iPhone 16 Pro iPhone 16 Pro Max iPhone 15 iPhone 15 Plus iPhone 15 Pro iPhone 15 Pro Max iPhone 14 iPhon...
airtag 4 pack blue

AirTag 2 Launching This Year With These 3 New Features

Sunday January 19, 2025 8:11 am PST by
After a four-year wait, a new AirTag is finally expected to launch in 2025. Below, we recap rumored upgrades for the accessory. A few months ago, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said Apple was aiming to release the AirTag 2 around the middle of 2025. While he did not offer a more specific timeframe, that means the AirTag 2 could be announced by the end of June. The original AirTag was announced...
iPhone 17 Air Size Feature

'iPhone 17 Air' With Rear Camera Bar Allegedly Shown in Leaked Photo

Tuesday January 21, 2025 12:46 pm PST by
A leaker known as "Majin Bu" today shared an alleged image of a component for the rumored, ultra-thin "iPhone 17 Air" model. The blurry, pixelated image shows a pair of rear iPhone shells with a pill-shaped, raised camera bar along the top. On the left side of the bar, there is a circular cutout that appears to be for a single rear camera. On the right side of the bar, there appears to be an ...
apple power beats pro 2

Powerbeats Pro 2 Coming Soon: Apple to Announce Them 'Imminently'

Sunday January 19, 2025 8:25 am PST by
In September, Apple said that it would be launching Powerbeats Pro 2 in 2025, and it appears the wireless earbuds are coming very soon. Powerbeats Pro 2 images found in iOS 18 code In his Power On newsletter today, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said the Powerbeats Pro 2 are "due imminently." In addition to Apple filing the Powerbeats Pro 2 in regulatory databases last month, Gurman said Apple is...
Generic iOS 18

Everything New in iOS 18.3 Beta 3

Thursday January 16, 2025 12:39 pm PST by
Apple provided the third beta of iOS 18.3 to developers today, and while the betas have so far been light on new features, the third beta makes some major changes to Notification Summaries and also tweaks a few other features. Notification Summary Changes Apple made multiple changes to Notification Summaries in response to complaints about inaccurate summaries of news headlines. For...

Top Rated Comments

Reason077 Avatar
82 months ago
Seems a little ironic that a Watch, of all things, can’t handle the DST change correctly.
Score: 23 Votes (Like | Disagree)
coolfactor Avatar
82 months ago
Seems a little ironic that a Watch, of all things, can’t handle the DST change correctly.
Dealing with timezones and human-made exceptions to normal time cycles, such as Daylight Savings Time, is complex stuff! Even harder to test! I give Apple full credits for doing their best with this. But I am surprised it hasn't been fixed in some low-level library shared across all of their platforms.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
chrono1081 Avatar
82 months ago
Dealing with timezones and human-made exceptions to normal time cycles, such as Daylight Savings Time, is complex stuff! Even harder to test! I give Apple full credits for doing their best with this.
Bingo. People have no clue how complex date and time programming is. I dread every time I have to do it.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
allenvanhellen Avatar
82 months ago
I’m getting tired of Apple rushing stuff and leaving things undone. They may be small issues, but they’re growing in number.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
newellj Avatar
82 months ago
Correction: the changeover happens on early Sunday morning, not Saturday, but this is still Saturday in the US, ‘cause we live in the future!

Don’t you love time zones?
Totally, even within a time zone, going to the other side, or other end, of the time zone can be interesting. Changing days is arbitrary and a little bit of a mind-bender. Needless to say, those of us in NA appreciate those of you Antipodes serving as beta testers. :eek: :D. (meant in good will and good humor)
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Nozuka Avatar
82 months ago
I don't see a problem that they forgot about the time change on the complication. Can happen to the best of us.

But i'm a bit disappointed, that this complication bug reboots the whole watch. it should just kill the complication.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)