Bug 300115 – iOS/iPadOS 26 Home-Screen web app: <video> won’t play after relaunch

• Component: Media
• Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE

From a PWA launched via Add to Home Screen, video plays on first launch but fails after a cold relaunch. Tapping Play flips to Pause, yet playback doesn’t start. 

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Open a page with an HTML5 <video> (e.g., https://www.w3schools.com/html/html5_video.asp) in Safari.
2. Add to Home Screen and launch.
3. Tap Play → video plays.
4. Force-quit the app.
5. Reopen from Home Screen.
6. Tap Play.

Expected:
Video starts playing.

Actual:
Controls show Pause, but the video is stuck (time doesn’t advance; no audio).

Environment:
- iOS 26/26.0.1; iPadOS 26
- Multiple devices (issue not device-specific)
- Launch mode: Home Screen (standalone/PWA)

ps. Very occasionally it does play, but it’s sporadic.

I’ve run into the same issue.

As I can see on the Apple forum, other people are also reporting this problem:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/256152107

The only temporary workaround at the moment is replacing videos with GIFs. However, iOS optimization reduces the FPS of these GIFs, which significantly worsens the overall user experience.

That’s why this issue is quite serious, and no viable alternatives are currently visible.

[Radar WebKit Bug Importer]

<rdar://problem/162376566>

I have the same issue since update my iphone to ios26 :

<video
          ref={videoRef}
          key={video}
          className="h-screen w-screen sm:w-full bg-black object-cover"
          style={{ backgroundColor: "#000000" }}
          src={video}
          poster={image}
          preload="metadata"
          crossOrigin="anonymous"
          muted
          loop
          playsInline
          autoPlay
          disablePictureInPicture
          disableRemotePlayback
          tabIndex={-1}
          draggable={false}
          aria-label={`Video for ${name} exercise`}
           "x-webkit-airplay": "deny",
         "webkit-playsinline": "true",
        />

Before this code works but now, my app not work anymore on ios safari pwa added to home screen ;(

I've tested with TikTok pwa and we can see the issue too.

1 Add web TikTok app to home screen
2 open first time , videos work
3 close and re open video not work (blocked videos)

same issue. i created a ticket but looks like this one already exists. Ref to dup - https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=301485

[Sam Sneddon [:gsnedders]]

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 300990 ***