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

this happened to me recently and I realized that all the videos where I'm getting this "unable to load video" error, were recorded when my phone was at best below 20% battery.

some are short clips, some longer, but the error is the same and I remember the point in the day where I noticed I was in the red on battery, and those are the only ones I'm getting the error.

so, maybe a preventative note for future shoots.

I’ve had this same problem so I tried deleting some videos even though I know it’s not the storage cause I have tons in my phone and when I went to check back the videos that were saying that, all the ones that had that pop up disappeared

The duplication trick works for me but what a pain! I hope Apple can find a fix for this. Strangely enough it's not affecting all my videos but can't figure out what the commonality is (it's not the length or even how old they are... seems to be quite random as far as I can tell).

I figured a way. This works for cinematic videos which don't load. So I click on 'edit' and remove 'cinematic' by tapping on the button that says cinematic. This made the video load. Then I went back to 'edit' and converted it back to Cinematic, by clicking on 'Revert'. Now the video loads in Cinematic too. Hope this helps.

Me too, exact same time frame. But I think it’s finally been fixed with the new update! I just went to try to look at an old video that would never load and it did! I then went back further and majority of the videos are playing! So try updating your iOS if you haven’t already and see if it’s working again

I have the same

problem and tried all of Apple’s official and the community’s non official tips. None of it changes anything about the fact that I can’t view video that is over two years old. Please help!

Hey guys I think I know why it’s happening and how to solve this! It usually happens with airdropped, shared videos, or edited videos that were not taken on your phone. The reason why this may be happening is because the other person simply had a higher quality phone than you (or lower) and your phone fails to load the full quality version if this exact video. The reason on how your can solve this is to accept all the software updated, keep updating your phone, and try to avoid taking videos on other peoples devices, but apple, this shouldn’t have to be a problem, I know your doing all you can to fix this but I hope this comment is the solution to some of your problems.

Ok, so I have this issue too, with videos recorded on macbook, they don't play on iphone or ipad, they have this error and on macbook are fine. I've talked with apple support 1h and they don't have a solution for this problem yet, meanwhile I found a temp working solution: Install another video player from appstore and they will work fine! Not with all video players will work, in my case, worked with the one with blue play icon, I don't think I am allowed to say the name of the app here. Cheers!

If you click the three dots in the corner and click duplicate, it will make a new copy of the video that you can play!

This happened to many of my old videos and this is the only thing that worked for me.

Good Luck!

I've found some solutions for you. Try the fixes below. I know it's too late, but it can still be helpful for someone who has the same issue on their iPhone.

1. Deactivate the storage optimization for photos. If you have activated the storage optimization for photos, your iPhone forces high-resolution videos to be stored only in iCloud and low-resolution videos to be stored on local storage. Go to your iPhone Settings > Go to Photos > Deactivate Optimise iPhone Storage option.

2. If you've enabled the data saver, turn it off. The data saver feature limits your data usage.

3. You should allow unlimited data for syncing. To do that, Go to your iPhone settings > Go to Photos > Scroll down and Tap on the Mobile Data option > Turn on Unlimited Updates

4. you can log in with your Apple ID on the iCloud website.

Any of the fixes should solve your error. However, you can also read this article, where I got these fixes that worked for me: How to fix unable to load photo or video error on iPhone

Thank you SOOOO much gthomasNY, I was beginning to despair. Then realised I could still watch these videos on my laptop so I knew they weren’t really corrupted as I’d previously thought. Now just got a long slog going through duplicating and deleting almost all my older (ie more precious) videos .

Apple please fix this!!!

I know this is an old thread but for anyone else who comes across this the reason for the issue is most likely because your phone doesn't have enough accessible RAM to load the video. If you own a MacBook or IMac, connect your phone to it via USB or USB-C cable and open the photos app on the mac. Click the name of your phone and click the video that you would like to load. From there click import video and since your mac is significantly more powerful, it will be able to load the video. Note: Time to process may vary depending on size and quality of video. Hope this helps!

Here’s what worked for me. I tried the Edit button solution but that didn’t work so instead I clicked on the 3 dots in the right hand corner and selected DUPLICATE. That caused the video to download and after it duplicated both versions were able to play. I deleted one version so I only had one. It’s a bit tedious to have to go through each one but that’s what worked for me. My other videos were fine from 2018 on so I only had to duplicate the years before that. Good luck!

My iPhone not editing unable to load this video issues please check my phone

Yes, same here issue appeared again :(