"In doubt, reboot"
Always come back to the basics when it comes to IT!
Context
I recently changed my 5 years old iPhone 8, and switched to an iPhone 13 Mini.
The switch / update process went relatively smoothly (although it took quite
some time to restore everything).
The problem
One of the things which I can only do from iOS is to synchronize my Suunto 9 Peak Pro running watch (e.g. to download my runs, or upload a route).
So I had to add the Suunto to the new iPhone:
- I first removed the pairing to the old iPhone on the watch itself,
- I also removed the connection on the iPhone 8 as well,
- then I tried adding it from the new iPhone, to no avail!
I first tried from the Suunto app itself, but as it was not working, I tried from the iOS settings/bluetooth section, with still no luck.
What I tried
Initially, I thought that was because there were too many bluetooth devices where I was: I was in an hotel with a lot of "smart devices", so a scan from my Xperia 10 III running Sailfish OS was giving me a lot of nearby devices.
I rebooted the new iPhone, but that didn't change anything.
I started thinking that there was maybe a hardware problem with this new iPhone, and I may have to return it back to the store to get it exchanged.
I had to run an errand outside, so while there, I tried one more time but again, failed.
What worked though, is finding and connecting to the car's audio via Bluetooth -
which proved that the iPhone's Bluetooth stack worked fine.
The solution
When back at the hotel, I decided to do the only thing left: rebooting the Suunto watch.
Once back, I tried again searching for the watch, and boom, it worked straight away!
Wrap Up
It's a running joke in IT, that when something does not work, "in doubt,
reboot".
And while I like to think that we are exaggerating, sometimes it turns out that
doing so helps!
What probably happened in my case, is that the Suunto was still "tied" to the old iPhone - even though I had removed the pairing from the watch, and also from the iPhone 8.
Anyway, next time this happens, I'll be quicker to try a reboot first :-)
Tags: Misc