Unable to load video / An error occurred while loading a higher-quality version of this video

I found the solution: Duplicate the video, it will download, then delete the created duplicate.

I hope I don't have to go through this every week...

I’m having the same issue as well. Right around October. Extremely frustrating when I’m paying for 1TB iCloud storage and can’t access photos of my son when he was a baby! Apple, please fix!!!

Tried this. Error popped up saying "cannot duplicate video" "an error occurred while duplicating this video, please try again later".

That is flat-out UNACCEPTABLE. None of my videos of last Christmas will play, and they all give me the same error message. So what they’re saying is that those are gone for good? Why have I been paying for this service each year if they can’t guarantee those files will be safe and viewable in the future? Isn’t that the entire point of iCloud?

Apple needs to actually address the issue with an appropriate solution. Surely there are avenues we can pursue if they fail to deliver the product we’re paying for.

I had the same issue. It's resolved now, I accepted the new icloud terms and conditions I had been ignoring for a while that was the reason my icloud wasn't working. Now my pictures are downloading just fine. If your icloud in settings is greyed out check that you have accepted the terms and conditions. Hope this helps.

And to follow up from above - no, it's NOT my system. My operating system is completely up to date and have TONS of extra space, etc. I've been through this so many times before. It's ON THEM. Always. They need to fix this on their end or at least provide us with the update that resolves these unacceptable bugs.

I am relieved to have found this page as I have started digitising all our old home videos and they were working perfectly until the end of October. Now ALL shared videos do not work BUT they do work on the original device and in my photo album, itself.

This has to be a bug but it affects Iphone, iPad, Mac and Apple TV so I am guessing it must be an iCloud issue. Do Apple read these posts? What is the best way to bring it to their attention?

***Fix***

The only thing that worked for me was to click "duplicate" on my errored out videos. The new duplicate works then also unlocks the error with the problomatic file so i was able to play both and then delete the newly made duplicate.

Hope this helps someone else. My issue started after updateing to ios 17.2 on an iphone 13

Just want to say this is happening to me too. Contacted Apple Support today and they escalated to engineering and had me send in screenshots of several error messages. This is my situation:

1. Errors are only happening on my iPhone - Mac loads photos and videos fine.
2. I get the "Unable to load video" error when tapping on a video
3. Photos take longer than usual to load
4. If I take a photo and immediately attempt to send it via iMessage I get an error "Unable to Share. There was an error while preparing to share. Please try again later."

Unfortunately when I try this I get a popup that says "Cannot start editing: photos cannot load edits for this video" :( glad it works for you though!

Hello fellow iPhone users, I’ve found the solution to everyone’s issue.

• Select the video you wish to play.
• Next after you get the unable to load video message press ok.
• Next you want to click edit video from the top right corner.
• You’ll then see the video being downloaded.
• Lastly click cancel and enjoy your video. (Make sure you have storage cause otherwise it might not work)

Hi all, I have spoken to Apple again, but they are not sure what the issue is. They said they don’t have enough reports for the same but will get the engineering team to look in to it.

I have checked my shared Albums and random videos that used to play don’t play. However if you try to share them via Whatsup or other the video gets downloaded and then will play from shared album. It is a bizarre bug.

I have had this particular problem on and off for AT LEAST TWO YEARS, probably THREE... It's always during around a new IOS update. Surprise Surprise. They KNOW this problem. Currently, it's affecting all of my new videos and some of my old videos that are longer than 4 minutes. What's weird this time is that sometimes they would play and then when I go to another video and come back, that same video that played 3 seconds ago wouldn't play anymore. Then I wait the next day, it would play again in the morning. But now I'm back to square one - they aren't playing again. Hence, why I am here along with everybody else. It's so incredibly frustrating. I've been through this so many times before but it's sad this is still affecting so many people. Everybody, please help send your complaints to their team nonstop until they fix it.

I'm having the same issue. I can't view the video at all and it doesn't appear in the icloud browser. Only affecting videos of 4k and 30 fps, everything else is fine. I can't edit and then duplicate the video. I can't share the video to any other platform. Viewing the video file in windows file explorer shows a smaller file size than the iphone reports, so I suspect there's a chunk of data missing in the cloud somewhere that I can't download.