Downloaded movies won’t play without WiFi?

Solved it!

This was making me crazy for a while, scanned all the posts I could find, tries all suggestions, Nothing worked!

But Then:

While connected to WiFi, open the TV App on your I-Pad, go to Library. It will show all purchased videos.

Tap the video you want to "Save" to view in Airplane mode. You'll get a page that shows a brief explanation of the movie. You can then press the "Play" button....But Don't!

On the far right side you will see the icon for "Cloud" down load. Press this instead. You will get the circle showing progress which will eventually become solid, then the word "Downloaded" will show.

Thats it...you can now go to airplane mode and watch the movies you downloaded through Cloud.

I was on chat/call with Apple and they claim to not have heard of this before. I first went into Settings>MY NAME>iCloud>Photos and they asked that I select "Download and Keep Originals" which did nothing to help. Next Next I went to Settings>General>iPad Storage> and look at how much was being used for the TV App (68GB) and then they asked me to select the TV menu in Settings and click on "Offload App." I then did a power off and started back up and went to the app store to reinstall the TV App. That did NOT solve the problem either. They also suggested that I "Reset Network Settings" Settings>General>Reset which I did not do.

The last thing the suggested was restoring the iPad to factory settings and seeing if that solves it. It did, for now. Of course, I had all of my photos on the cloud so I didn't lose anything...at least i don't think I did. Now the frustrating part of trying to get all of my apps back on. Some of which are no longer available in the App store. :-(

I hope this helps you guys.

Frustrating event.

I downloaded a purchased movie from iTunes, and I can’t play it thru AppleTV from myacbook pro.

I flew from Chicago to Panama City Beach, Florida to help my brother during the Mitchell’s storm. There was no internet nor TV cable in his house. So I said great, we can watch my downloaded movie on his AppleTV. Surprise, AppleTV in cohort with iTunes couldn’t connect to the internet, so no movie night.

I was able to connect via his local WiFi but no to the internet. Even when using my iPhone as a hotspot to connect to the internet, which worked great, but then I needed to switch to his local internet to see his AppleTV, and that’s when I got the grey box and iTunes searching for internet. Which it couldn’t find because laptop and AppleTV needed to be on the local network.

So no movie watching. Thanks to Apple’s draconian, overzealous, paranoica, DRM crap.

Paid for a movie and was useless when it was needed the most.

No more purchases from iTunes.

Also, I learned how useless iCloud is during no internet or WiFi access. Luckily, ATT cell plan allowed me to access iCloud, but at a price.

Don’t put all your eggs in one iBasket!

I discovered this the hard way. Long flight, ready to relax and enjoy my movies. No Internet connection and no movies. Watching movies while offline is one of the main reasons why I and many people own an iPad. I have spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to solve this "problem". The simple answer is you can't fix this "problem", because it isn't a problem. I believe this has been put in place intentionally for reasons mentioned in this thread, copyright protection, etc, whatever. I just want to watch MY owned movies on My owned device.

However there is a workaround. Download the VLC app onto your device and transfer your movies to VLC using file share in iTunes while your device is connected. Your movies will play while offline, every time.

This is not the best solution for everyone as you need to sync your device with iTunes to get your movie content, but it will get you watching your movies in the air.

I don't see where anyone has ever replied with anything of help. I too had this happen and feel your pain. What's the point of having this "support" if no one is actively supporting? I'm having an error message for downloading pics to my laptop and same thing. No help! 😠

In had same problem a few days ago. Got home rang apple, apple connected to my device and the problem was solved.

now I can watch apple movies offline

I am having he same problem. I bought a movie and downloaded it to my iPhone to watch on my flight and I was unable to watch it without WiFi. This used to never be a problem on my older iPad in the past. I’m quite annoyed about this. I was all set up with movies for a flight and I couldn’t watch any of them. I was going out of my mind bored because my whole plan fell through. It was really upsetting especially because I spent the extra money and bought the movie. If there’s any work around to watch it please let me know. I’m flying back home tomorrow and still have the movie on my phone. It’s a bit ridiculous if you ask me. Owning a video files on your phone but not being able to play it???

I’m spewing venom this morning because of this!! Why? Why, would I need an internet connection to watch something that is already downloaded? It’s on my device!!!! This is absolutely ridiculous! I’m so mad I’m actually leaving a comment, I never do this stuff. BS

You don't need full internet just a "wifi" connection I tested earlier this week and was able to play the home movies after connecting to Southwest's wifi (without paying for the internet service) the connection itself allowed it to play. I connected to my wife's phone acting as a hotspot and got the same result of it allowing to play. I was able to shutoff the connection to save battery afterwards and it allowed it to finish playing.

I had same problem , it looks like you have to start watching it with WiFi then you can stop it , go offline and continue watching it offline.

About renting movies from the iTunes Store - Apple Support

To watch your movie when you're offline, like on an airline flight where Wi-Fi is not available:

• Download the entire movie before you go offline.
• Press play to start watching. The 48-hour timer starts even if you're offline.

You might consider downloading rented movies prior to the day of your trip to make sure you have time to download all of the content.

See Rent movies from the iTunes Store - Apple Support, in particular the section Watch your movie rental offline.

To watch your movie when you're offline, like on an airline flight where Wi-Fi is not available:

• Find the rental and tap the download icon . Download the entire movie before you go offline.
• Press play to start watching. The 48-hour timer starts even if you're offline.

You might want to download rented movies prior to the day of your trip to make sure you have time to download all of the content.

The same trick should work with purchased content. As long as you are online the first time you try to play it then iTunes or your device should be able to validate your use of the protected content. You then shouldn't have any problems playing it while offline.

tt2

If it’s a digital rights issue, why are they denying my right to watch a home movie downloaded onto my device? When exactly do they feel they’ve gained the rights to content that I’ve recorded?

if this issue applied only to content downloaded from their store, you could have an argument for this.

They have ave bugs in the software, not features.

Perfect. Whoever did this stupid difficulty should be fired. I made my mind to buy only tv show because they work well without internet during the flight. If is a long flight I have the option to watch with UNITED but they talk so much and I have to wait until they stop to say so many blabla in many languages and then I eat and go sleep. Apple or Itunes are not giving us what we bought. It shows downloaded , my internet is premium as well, but until the flight gets higher, the internet is not going to help. URRRR! I'm mad! Thanks everybody!