Hi, everyone!

I came to own my iPad 2 for a sad reason...my laptop broke, and I didn't want to buy another laptop in case it could be fixed. Apparently it can't be repaired, but I'm actually starting to think that I might be able to get by with the iPad alone...

So, I was liking everything just fine until I ran into this problem. I'm hoping that someone can help.

I bought a single TV episode from iTunes. I already have 1 movie, 4 TV episodes, and 1 TV series full season. I didn't expect that purchasing one more episode would be a problem....but I did get a message that there wasn't enough local storage. Went to "settings" and purchased another $20 worth of storage.

However, now the episode download is stuck. I keep getting the message that there is insufficient local storage, although when I check the capacity, the additional storage has already been added. When I try to "tap to retry" the stuck download as instructed onscreen, I get a popup that says, "unable to load movie", and I'm back to square one.

In addition, I am unable to re-purchase the episode.

What I did try was a full reset from the Settings menu. That did nothing.

Can anyone help? I'd really appreciate it! How could I make sure that I have sufficient storage before downloading so that this won't happen again?

You seem to be confusing iCloud storage with space on your iPad.

To download and play a movie on the iPad requires local space. This is a hardware limitation and can not be increased. You can see how much space you have on the iPad by going to Settings > Usage. The space available for downloads and app is at the top left. How much you've already used is to the right of it.

That's the bad news.

The good news is that most TV Shows and Movies can be downloaded again for free. They will show up in iTunes under the Purchased tab with a cloud icon (if not currently downloaded). As long as you see them there you can safely delete them off the iPad and download them again later for viewing. Of course, unless you have a better internet connection that I do, that will take some planning.

More good news. None of the content you purchase from an iStore counts against your iCloud limit. So unless you have another reason for increasing your iCloud limit you might want to see if you can cancel the upgrade and get your money, or at least some of your money back. You may have to talk to Apple support or billing to do this, but if you politely explain your misunderstanding there is a good chance they will help; especially if you upgraded within the last few days.

If you really want backup of your TV Shows, Music, and Movies; and don't want to trust whether they will stay available in the iTunes Store, you other options is to sync your iPad with a computer using iTunes. If you haven't been doing this, the first time you'll want to cancel the scary dialog about erasing your content, right click on the iPad under the Devices list and choose Transfer Purchases. You'll also want ot go to the Store menu in iTunes on the Computer and Authorize it with the same Apple ID you use on the iPad.


A little about iCloud and what it does.
Apple - iCloud - Your content. On all your devices.