Wear OS 6 bug traps Galaxy Watch users in an app launch loop, but there's a fix

Google has finally begun rolling out the Android 17-based Wear OS 7 to Pixel Watches, and while the OS will eventually expand to the broader Android wearable ecosystem, a majority of the wearables will have to stay on Wear OS 6 for the next little bit.

For most, this isn't a big issue. However, for some Galaxy Watch users, Wear OS 6 is presenting a new challenge that's locking users out of their apps.

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The new bug, which is impacting apps like Gmail, Google Calendar, WhatsApp, and more, prevents apps from opening up. If you tap an impacted app, you'll see its splash screen for a few seconds before you get kicked right back to the app drawer.

Although this has been an issue for some time now, it seems to have started affecting a new subset of users recently, as highlighted by user viniciusrodsilva on the r/GalaxyWatch subreddit (via Android Headlines).

The user shared a video of the bug in action, with sever users chiming in with their experience. "Same thing here. Mostly Gmail but sometimes happens on other apps too. I have a watch 8," wrote one user, while a different one wrote "You're not alone, it suddenly just happened out of nowhere.

Hope they address it soon. Today I had to read an urgent email and was not holding my phone, and Gmail simply wouldn't launch.

Luckily, one tech-savvy user (Eddietrix77) was able to analyze the bug and find out that this isn't an issue with the apps. Instead, it's because of OS-level memory failure.

The user found that the issue was connected to the OS thinking that the said app was already open. For example, if you've previously opened and closed Gmail, the system, due to a glitch, might think that Gmail is already open. In such a scenario, the next time you tap the Gmail icon, the OS sees that the app might already be open, "panics because it can't kill it, and aborts the launch entirely."

The quick fix here is to Force Stop all the apps giving you trouble. Alternatively, users have found that the May 2026 security update fixes the issue for good.