I completely replaced my search controller with search bar and my own cancel button which fixed all my issues and is working the way I wanted instead of tapping our heads :)

I am facing similar issue. My watch recording is getting published to my iPhone, but there is no acknowledgement to watch back. func session(_ session: WCSession, didFinish fileTransfer: WCSessionFileTransfer, error: Error?) is not getting called. using progress observer of WCSessionFileTransfer, it is fixed. But no idea whether there is any fix from apple in iOS 17.6 and watch os 10.6.