advaith1

Q: iTunes U videos not playing on any devices, just showing black screen

I am trying to play iTunes U videos on an iPhone, but it just shows a black screen for most videos. This issue occurs on all devices (including Macs), and the same videos give black screens. They used to play properly a long time ago, but once they stopped playing and haven't worked since. I tried uninstalling and re-installing the app on the iPhone, but it still won't work. I tried downloading one of the working videos, but then it got the black screen problem too, even after I deleted it from all devices.

iPhone 6 Plus, iOS 9.2

Posted on Jan 16, 2016 5:19 PM

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Q: iTunes U videos not playing on any devices, just showing black screen

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  • by turingtest2,

    turingtest2 turingtest2 Jan 16, 2016 6:01 PM in response to advaith1
    Level 10 (85,121 points)
    iTunes
    Jan 16, 2016 6:01 PM in response to advaith1

    These steps should resolve issues around syncing or content that won't play, assuming all of the content you want is in your library.

    (If it isn't see Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device)

     

    1. Backup device.
    2. Restore as a new device.
    3. Restore the backup you made earlier.

     

    N.B. A feature introduced with iOS 9 referred to as app thinning or app slicing allows each device to download only the code and resources needed by that device, resulting in smaller downloads and better use of storage on the device. As a consequence the device no longer holds the universal version of the app that could be installed on any device so transferring apps is no longer supported. Hopefully Apple will make some changes to the way this works, but in the meantime you can download past purchases from iTunes and/or enable automatic downloads of app purchases to make sure that iTunes always has the apps that you want on your device. As long as you make sure all apps are present and updated in iTunes before attempting a restore there should be no loss of data. I can't confirm, but it seems a recent update means that all data is restored and apps that are not in the library are queued for download from the iTunes Store over Wi-Fi, in a similar fashion to the way restore from iCloud works.

     

    tt2