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With new iOS 7, video streaming takes up phone's capacity

I noticed that with the new iOS, your videos (movies, television shows, music videos) are readily available to stream in the Videos app. But whenever you stream the video, it actually takes up storage in your iPhone. Everytime a video is being watched, your available storage capacity in your phone keeps on getting decreased quite significantly. And there's no way to delete the storage it's taking up, I think whenever a video is being streamed, the streaming file is being kept under the "Others" category because when you plug your phone ito iTunes, the "Others" section shows a huge amount of storage being taken up. Has anybody seen the same thing? And if so, is there a fix to this problem? Because my storage capacity is diminishing everytime I stream a video and the whole point of streaming a video is to NOT have it take up space in my phone's hard drive memory but unfortunately, it is taking up space in my phone's memory. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated or maybe Apple is coming up with a solution hopefully.

iPhone 5, iOS 7.0.2

Posted on Nov 1, 2013 9:30 PM

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79 replies

Nov 2, 2013 12:31 AM in response to bossodg

I'm pretty sure it's a stream, it's not like I clicked on the cloud symbol and if I did, it would start downloading the movie or tv show. Besides, with the new iOS, the videos app is supposed to show all your past purchases and let you either download it from the cloud or stream it. I'm pretty sure I'm streaming the videos but it's also taking up space on my phone's memory. If you're willing or if anybody wants to try it, go to your videos and if you have bought a movie or tv show from iTunes before, try streaming the movie or tv show, and then go to your phone's settings and check if your storage capacity remained the same or if it decreased (and make sure you check the capacity before you stream too).

Nov 2, 2013 6:22 PM in response to Louie0722

I'm on the phone with them right now. Apparently everyone is having this issue and no one knows it yet (in my opinion). Most people probably don't stream HD movies or maybe they do but I know this is a major issue with me now. U may as well download the content so u can delete it because streaming it downloads it but doesn't allow u to delete it. Only thing that works so far is Erase All Content and Settings and restore from iCloud backup. It clears up the space but doesn't solve the temp downloading while streaming issue. Let me know if u find a solution that works.

Nov 2, 2013 6:52 PM in response to pclark1987

Ok. I tried what Apple said and it doesn't fix it. Setting up as a new device doesn't fix the problem. I know this is the issue with stolen storage space because when I stream the same exact movie from my Mac Mini (downloaded ya know? to my Mac mini) it doesn't take up ANY space. So I know streaming from iTunes in the cloud is the problem. No solution yet.

Nov 3, 2013 8:03 AM in response to Louie0722

Yikes I discovered this issue last evening. I watched 5 minutes of a streamed iTunes movie and my iPad memory went from 2.0 gig to 900MB I did a full reset overnight and now I have a respectable 6.0 GB of memory available. pclark1987, I think you are right that many people are unaware of this problem. The watching the movie to the end trick did not work for me and so far there is no obvious way to clear the cache for streamed movies. Hopefully a fix is in the works.

Nov 4, 2013 2:28 PM in response to Louie0722

Hello Louie. You are not alone. And it's a relief that I just learned that neither am I. I have the exact same problem with my iPhone 5S 16GB and my iPad Air 32GB. It seems Apple is completely unaware of this issue. I purchased Apple care with my iPhone 5S and took it to my Apple store. They had to reset my iPhone and erase all the data and return it to factory settings in order to remove the data. It seems that whenever you stream movies, tv shows, music videos and even music, the storage capacity goes up. I checked, and my storage being used on my iPhone 5S was only 500 MB. THEN, I just watched 10 seconds of the Hunger Games HD, and went right back to check the usage and BAM, it hiked from 500 MB being used to 3 GB being used.


Hopefully Apple can figure out a way to solve this problem. Because I think it's brilliant that it can be done. It's kind of like an UltraViolet service. Streaming all of your purchased movies, tv shows, and music without having to download the files sounds like a great idea. ...The problem is... they DO download.

Nov 10, 2013 5:36 PM in response to Louie0722

Hello All,


I am also experiencing this issue. I called Apple support and they said it is with iOS 7, but they do not have a resolution yet. I've DFU restored my iPhone several times, and that only resolves the problem until you stream a movie again. I've also e-mailed Apple's Office of the President department to try and get this resolved faster.


Below is a tread I created on the AnandTech forums:

Hello All,


I traded in my iPhone 5 32GB for an iPhone 5s 16GB. I opted to go for the 16GB version this time since you can stream iTunes purchased content to the phone.


After installing all of my standard apps and copying over some music I had 6GB of free space on my iPhone. However, after watching only 5 minutes of a 3 hour movie on my iPhone by streaming it from iTunes cloud and exiting the Video App the phone free space dropped down to 100MB. Also, the phone froze and rebooted after this. I've DFU restored the iPhone several times and set it up as a new device five times now. The issue is repeatable. Some have suggested to skip to the end of the movie and allow the last few minutes of the movie to play and the movie to end to free up the cached data, but this does not work. When viewing capacity usage in iTunes all of this cached data is reported under "other".



Can anyone else test and confirm? I just want to ensure that is it not something unique to my device. Maybe Anand can investigate and create an article about this issue so that Apple will fix it faster. Per Apple phone support this is an iOS 7 bug, but they seem kind of clueless sometimes.



Thanks.



Chris


I'm glad to get confirmation from someone besides Apple Support that the issue is wide spread and not unique to my device.

Nov 11, 2013 3:39 PM in response to Louie0722

Hi All,


I believe I am experiencing this with my MacBook Pro Retina. The "other" category of storage kept creeping up, and my disk is almost full. I bought this computer in May, so I am baffled as to why my disk would be nearly full! After reading this thread, I monitored the "other" storage while streaming a movie from my iCloud... yep, "other" was growing by the minute.


Does anyone have a suggestion of how to clear the "other" category on my MacBook? I live outside the U.S. and can't get to an Apple store for at least a month. Help!


Thanks,

Nov 11, 2013 5:52 PM in response to ephilipp

Hello Ephilipp,


I have the same issue with my iPhone and iPad Air. The only solution to clear your hard drive is to return your computer to factory settings. I had to back up my files, and then restore my iPhone and iPad to factory settings. Until Apple comes up with a solution, for now, I simply just don't use the streaming option. If I watch a movie or tv show or listen to music, I download the file from iCloud versus streaming the file from iCloud, that way, I can delete the files when I want, instead of the files being stored in "other."


Hope this info helps.

Nov 11, 2013 10:29 PM in response to Jefferson590

Hi Jefferson590,


Thanks, that is insightful. At the risk of sounding like a total newb, what should I do about preserving my current iTunes and iPhoto libraries? I'm assuming that if I reset to factory settings, and then restore from a TimeMachine backup, that I'll be back where I started. Any ideas about how to easily save those big files?


Thank you.

Nov 13, 2013 5:22 AM in response to ephilipp

I'd find the "iPhoto Library" file (you'll know you've found it by its size...80gb, etc.) and transfer this file to your external hard drive, seperate from your time machine backup. Then drag it to the newly restored mac. Easiest way to do iTunes at least for music is iTunes Match. It uploads all your music to the cloud and u can download it all after restoring. The movies and such id find individually and copy them to your external hard drive and move them back after. Same thing with any other files.

With new iOS 7, video streaming takes up phone's capacity

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