Videos Won’t Play On Your iPhone? Try These 11 Fixes

Do you have trouble with videos not playing on your iPhone or iPad? Perhaps the app you’re using to play the video does nothing or shows a blank screen. Or maybe it ends up freezing or crashing. Learn how to fix that.

Videos won’t play on your iPhone for several reasons. Corrupt video downloads, incompatible file formats, and other issues can play a factor. Thankfully, a little troubleshooting is all you need to fix video playback issues on your iPhone.

1. Force-Quit and Relaunch App

It’s a good idea to begin by force-quitting and relaunching the app that fails to play videos on your iPhone. That clears a corrupt or buggy application state and is a quick fix for most unexpected issues.

For example, if the Apple TV app is causing problems, swipe up from the bottom of the screen (or double-click the Home button) to open the App Switcher, then swipe away the TV card. Next, relaunch Apple TV via the Home Screen or App Library.

2. Check Your Internet Connection

Poor network connectivity can result in stuck or erratic video playback while streaming content on apps like YouTube and Netflix. That even affects the Photos app if it has to fetch your iPhone camera roll videos from iCloud.

To confirm, run an internet speed test using an online tool like Fast.com. If the results don’t look good, try the quick fixes below:

• Toggle Airplane Mode on, then off.
• Go to Settings > Wi-Fi, and then forget and rejoin your current Wi-Fi network.
• Restart the Wi-Fi router (if possible) or switch to a different wireless network.
• Switch to Cellular and configure the app’s preferences to allow streaming or downloading over mobile data.
• Reset your phone’s network settings (more on that further below).

3. Check the Server Status

Server-side issues are another reason videos won’t stream or download on your iPhone. Most streaming services frequently broadcast the server status on their website, which you can check for confirmation. Or, you can use a third-party online status monitoring tool like DownDetector. If there appears to be a server outage, you’ve got nothing to do except waiting.

4. Restart Your iPhone

Restarting your iPhone is another speedy method to fix unexpected problems with the system software and the apps that run on it.

To reboot any iPhone model, open Settings and tap General > Shut Down. Then, power down the device and hold the Power button to turn it back on. If the video appears frozen and the screen is unresponsive, force-restart your iPhone instead.

5. Update the App

Although there’s no guarantee, installing the latest updates for an app can play a significant role in resolving known bugs that cause video playback issues on iPhone. Open the App Store, search for the app in question (e.g., YouTube), and tap Update if the option is available.

Note: To update native Apple apps like Photos and TV, you must update iOS. More on that later.

6. Uninstall App and Retry

Next, consider deleting and reinstalling the problematic app. To do that, open the Settings app and tap General > iPhone Storage to reveal a list of iPhone apps. Then, tap Delete App (or Offload App if there’s a substantial amount of downloaded video files you don’t want to lose). Follow that by searching for and reinstalling the app via the App Store.

Note: iOS restricts you from removing the Photos app. As a workaround, go to Settings > Photos and toggle iCloud Photos off, then on. Also, if your iPhone’s storage has sufficient free space, select the Download and Keep Originals option to cache your photo library locally.

7. Download a Compatible App

Suppose you have trouble playing a video clip you downloaded using Safari on another web browser. In that case, it might be in a video format that your iPhone does not natively support—e.g., MKV or AVI. A dedicated media player like VLC Player will allow you to start playing it.

To open an incompatible video file format on a different app, attempt to open the file in the Files app. Then, tap the Share icon and select the app on the Share Sheet.

Alternatively, a video converter on a PC or Mac can re-encode videos in an iPhone-compatible format like HEVC, MOV, or MPEG.

8. Delete Corrupt Downloads and Retry

Downloaded videos can sometimes corrupt and refuse to play. The only fix, in that case, is to delete and redownload them.

For example, switch to the Downloads tab on Netflix, tap the Edit icon, and the Delete icon next to a movie or episode you want to remove. Then, download the video again or stream it.

9. Clear Browser Cookies and Cache

If an online video has trouble loading or playing in Safari, a corrupt browser cache might be the source of the issue. Clearing the cookies and cache might help, so go to Settings > Safari and tap Clear History and Website Data.

Do you use a different web browser? Learn how to clear the cache in any browser on iPhone.

10. Install System Software Updates

An outdated version of iOS can also cause video playback and other issues on the iPhone. To update iOS to its latest version, open the Settings app and tap General > Software Update > Download & Install.

On the flip side, beta releases of iOS are often plagued with severe bugs and other problems. If you’re enrolled in the Apple Beta Software Program, we recommend you downgrade your iPhone to the stable channel.

11. Reset Your iPhone’s Settings

If the video playback problems on your iPhone persist, it’s time to factory reset the network settings on your iPhone. Often, that fixes an incorrect network setup preventing videos from playing.

To do that, open the Settings app and tap General > Transfer or Reset iPhone > Reset > Reset Network Settings. Then, enter your device passcode and tap Reset Network Settings again to confirm. After the settings reset, manually join a Wi-Fi network and attempt to play a video again.

If resetting the network settings doesn’t make a difference, revisit the same screen above but select the Reset All Settings option instead. That reverts all iPhone settings to their defaults and helps resolve deeper underlying conflicts that could be preventing your iPhone from playing videos.

Grab the Popcorn

iPhone video-related issues are bound to crop up at one point or another, but the reasons are pretty much the same each time, and the fixes above should help you get through them. Don’t forget to bookmark this tutorial so you can get to it quickly if you ever need to.