Send/Receive images between Galaxy Watch and S8 failing "copy canceled"

[d4005]

I've enabled Auto sync of images from my phone to my Galaxy watch and specified two folders ("whatsapp images" and "Copy to watch") but nothing was sent from phone to watch.

I also looked at the gallery on the watch which had a few sample images in it (and I added a couple of screenshots) but when I try to send them to the phone, it starts the "Copying image" process with a small animation showing that it's going from the watch to the phone but after 30 seconds or so it gives up and says "Copy canceled". No prompt on my phone asking if I want to accept the images. Just silence until the watch gives up.

As far as I can tell I'm following the correct processes on both sides (phone -> watch and watch -> phone) but no progress.

[AndrewL]

@d4005

As a troubleshooting step please open the Gear Wearable app on your phone > Tools > Select Media > Choose the photos you wish to transfer > Done. Are you able to transfer images manually in this manner?

[d4005]

Hi Andrew,

I don't have a Tools menu in the wearable app.

[AndrewL]

Apologies, @d4005. If you select 'Add content to your watch > Images' and manually choose some pictures, are you able to complete the transfer?

[d4005]

Hi Andrew,

I tried that. It doesn't work either (see error screenshot below). I have bluetooth enabled and can install apps, reconfigure widget order, swap watch faces and pretty much everything else. It's just the image transfers that aren't working. It's very weird. These are small images too (couple of hundred KB at most).

[AndrewL]

I wonder if the images are cloud backups, or being backed up by the cloud while you're attempting to copy the image, and this is what's restricting the transfer. As a troubleshooting step please can you try switching off your cloud sync, taking a fresh picture and attempting to copy that over to your watch. This will help determine if the cloud backup is somehow interfering with the process. Let me know how you get on.

[d4005]

Sadly that didn't affect anything.

I've also tried using wifi instead of bluetooth, didn't help.

I've also checked all permissions (wearable app, gallery) and all seems well.

[d4005]

Well, some good (if a bit confusing) news. It works now. Last night I gave up on trying to copy. This morning I was looking at something on my Galaxy watch and decided I should turn off the always-on display. Then I went to get my phone and upon unlocking it saw that the Galaxy Plugin had notified me that it was in the process of copying my most recent 200 whatsapp images (a folder I'd chosen yesterday to auto-sync). It was at 4/200 by that point.

I have no idea if it's a coincidence that turning off always-on triggered that. I had always-on enabled for the last few days. As a test though, while it was still copying I enabled always-on again, to see if it would break the copy (which was at 55/200 by now) but it had no negative effect. The copying proceeded. I also tried the inverse copy path (once the 200 copy had finished) and copied a few screenshots from my watch to my phone.

So if it happens again to someone, disabling always-on MIGHT be the solution. It's a heck of a coincidence that I did that and within minutes the auto-sync started.

[realAlexSSS]

I was having trouble transferring 2 pictures from my phone to my watch, and I turned on always on and turned it back off, all in about 10 seconds, and it delivered literally less than a second after! Thank you 😂