# Download to iPad --- "Buffering" ??



## rspike (Aug 28, 2003)

I've been downloading shows to my iPad for airplane travel. 

When watching them, 10-12 minutes in the show freezes and the screen says "buffering". I'm then not able to watch any further. 

Why is this happening? What is it buffering since the entire show is downloaded locally to the iPad?


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## CaptainCake (Mar 11, 2015)

I've been having the exact same problem and I have no clue how to fix it. Did you ever figure out what the problem is?


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

My guess is a glitch in the playlist and/or missing segment. When you "download" a show to the iPad it's really just saving the stream in it's original format to the disc. The Stream uses a technology called HLS, which breaks up the recording into hundreds/thousands of tiny (10 seconds I believe) files. Those files are then tied back together as a single stream using a playlist file which basically just lists all their file names in succession. If just one of those files is missing or is corrupted then it can ruin the whole stream. Although they could do a better job of dealing with errors. They should offer a way to seek past them since the whole point of this format is that you can seek to any of the segments directly.


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## rspike (Aug 28, 2003)

I ended up uninstalling the a App and then doing a fresh install. 

Seems to be ok now.


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## CaptainCake (Mar 11, 2015)

I deleted and reinstalled the app, but I'm still receiving buffering errors. There doesn't appear to be any consistency in where the buffering occurs in my downloads, but I am downloading away from home. I always have a solid connection when I so I don't know where the holdup is.


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## Diana Collins (Aug 21, 2002)

CaptainCake said:


> I deleted and reinstalled the app, but I'm still receiving buffering errors. There doesn't appear to be any consistency in where the buffering occurs in my downloads, but I am downloading away from home. I always have a solid connection when I so I don't know where the holdup is.


I have had very little success downloading out of home. It always seems to result in an unplayable download. I recently tried to download 4 1 hour programs using hotel wireless and only 2 of them would play all the way through. In this case I got an "Unexpected error" message (I guess that is as opposed to the _"expected"_ errors).


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## Mikeguy (Jul 28, 2005)

diana collins said:


> In this case I got an "Unexpected error" message (I guess that is as opposed to the _"expected"_ errors).


Thanks for my big morning computer chuckle for the day.


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## wco81 (Dec 28, 2001)

I've run into it when downloading away from home and the connection is marginal at best.

Sometimes, if it's an hour recording and it buffers at 20 minute mark, I play it again and then quickly wipe past the point where it's buffering and I can finish watching the show, though there might be like a 5-minute gap that I missed.

I use Medium quality. The best quality is much larger file sizes and the quality difference isn't that big on my iPad mini Retina.


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