Movie Won't Download from iTunes on iPad

How about this? I can't download 5 movie rentals. Says waiting all the time. It took me 7 tries to get to apple support. I was transferred 6 times between apple and iTunes. No one could help. In the end a tech asked me to download for $5.00

another movie to "try" to see what's happening. Nothing worked and the she hung up on me. I waited one hour and 13 minutes for absolutely nothing and it cost me $5.00! Complete. f---ing idiots. I'm tossing my iPad in the garbage and will

Post this on every website imaginable.

Are you downloading movies from iTunes one at a time?

How much free space is left on your iPad?

Ideally, it should be more than 6-7 GBs to download one full HD movie.

Ideally, at least 8-10 GBs of free data storage space to store one full HD movie.

Your iPad needs, at the very minimum 2-6 GBs of free data storage for iOS, ALONE, to run from minimally to nominally/optimally.

Full HD movies are between 4 and 7 GBs in size.

So, downloading 5 HD quality movies is, at least, between 20-35 GBs of data that your iPad needs free data storage space for.

Your iPad needs to have, at the very least, 37-40 GBs of free data storage space left to download this content.

How fast is your Internet connection?

Have you tried a hard reset of your iPad by holding down both the Home and sleep/wake buttons simultaneously until your iPad goes to black and restarts with Apple logo, then release the buttons?

Good Luck!

I have had similar problems with my iPad! I have done the reboot, erase & restore, etc, but when I try to sync purchased TV shows from my computer to my iPad, it will show that it has synced the shows I checked, but they do NOT show up on my iPad. I have also tried to download purchased shows on iTunes directly on to my iPad, but it still does not work! I'm starting to think it may just be an iPad glitch, & that there is no fix for it!....Very Frustrated!!!!!

This has happened to me several times and I've done most of the things everybody is talking about here to try and fix the problem but to no avail. The only thing that seems to work, kind of, is renting or buying SD versions of every movie. Every time I forget to choose the SD-version things break down and I'm throwing away money. Ridiculous!

If it's an HD movie, you may not have enough space on your iPad. Have you checked to be sure?

Not sure if this applies to movies also.

The GB size of the download app file is the compressed size (like .zip or .dmg). When the file is installed/uncompressed it can be 2-3 times larger.

 Cheers, Tom 😉

Even if this isn't the case, I think an extra 1.3 GB isn't enough overhead for a well running iPad - even for the 16 GB model.

You're welcome, but please see my note below in response to Texas Mac Man.

This exact thing happened to me (iOS 7.0.4). iTunes video rental/purchase downloads kept failing and automatically restarting and I assumed it was an internet problem. But after creating more than 2x enough space for the downloaded movie, it was finally able to complete the download without incident. To me, this reads like a memory use error that does not generate an error message. I don't agree with TexasMan that the final file size is 2-3x larger than the compressed download size because then the Usage panel would show really large file sizes. Instead, at some point in the video download process, there is a REALLY inefficient use of storage memory. In any case, I think this problem can be cured by clearing 2-3x more storage space than is needed for the video.

Oh my god I am sooooooo annoyed and frustrated, enough to throw my ipad out the window!! Tried everything suggested and none of it works. Rented movie and part way through download it stopped and now it goes straight to download error. I have 15g of space for a 4g movie. Cannot put into words how angry I am, especially when I see posts in 2010 with similar issue. Don't even know where I go to get my money back.

I have been having this problem since iOS 7 released. I have a 32gb 3rd gen iPad. I seem to have some artificial cap of 7 items from iTunes on my iPad at once. Even with 6 movies I have 5.8gb left. I only download the SD versions.

As soon as I hit 7 movies/tv shows on my iPad downloads fail almost 100% of the time. They get near the end, freeze and then loop. Ocassionally I'll get a "Unable to download" error but most times it just keeps going over and over. Not only do I have this extremely annoying issue, but during this problem my iPad becomes nearly unusable. While downloading, my iPad runs so poorly I'll open my cover or press the wake button and the screen will remain off. I can press both buttons, open/close the cover and NOTHING. It will stay like that for a minute sometimes. IF it becomes usable apps will take 30 seconds just to open/close, scrolling is unresponsive for many seconds at a time and then scrolls all at once. It almost as if the download is using all of the CPU's power.

I have 253 movies I've bought in iTunes. I own 6 Apple TV's, 2 Retina Macbooks, 1 iMac, 2 iPads and 2 iPhones. iTunes works great on all of those devices minus my iPad. My wife's, which is the same model minus a cell connection is fine. I am extremely annoyed with this problem. I've started to loathe using my iPad and thats just rediculous.

If anyone has suggestions I'm all ears, I've tried these fixes:

Erased all content/settings and restored from iCloud Back up

Erased all content/settings and restored but DID NOT use iCloud back up. (I did notice downloads worked great for the first few weeks, then went to crap.)

Tried force restarting the iPad when its acting up

Used my Time Capsule's Wifi - No change

Used my guest network from my Netgear router - No Change

Used my parent's wifi today - No change.

This doesnt seem to be a widespread problem, I've had trouble finding help on these forums. Apple is constantly silent and most other users never reply with the same problem. I'm close to giving up and getting a replacement from Square Trade. I will not buy a new iPad less than two years after getting that one, mainly out of protest. I have little confidence in the Air doing much better or lasting longer than this current one.

I figured i'd keep trying to find a solution to the problem, I was interested in the lack of space for the iPad to operate. When I check my usage section i had 4.7gb free yet the "Videos" portion shows "No data" when I have 6 movies downloaded. The no data thing has been going on for a month now.

I deleted two apps at 2.6gb leaving me 7.3gb free. I tried to download an SD movies that was 1.4gb, it got to 1.2GB and just restarted without any notification, it got to 1.2GB again and crapped out. I stopped the download.

Does anyone else have the problem of the iPad not showing how much space the "Videos" section is using?