Unable to upload large videos

Expected behavior

Uploading a very large video (e.g. larger than 500mb) to the Media Library (either from the Media Library itself or via the block editor's Video block) should work without error.

Actual behavior

Sometimes the video fails to upload.

Steps to reproduce the behavior

You'll need a large video for this (over 500mb) for either scenario below.

Scenario 1

Open the WPiOS app and create a new post using the block editor
Add a video block
Choose the large video and wait for it to upload
Observe the image upload fails (it's hard to say if this will happen every time)
Go to the app activity log (Profile icon > Help & Support > Activity Logs > Current) and scroll to the bottom to see the latest logs
Observe an error in the logs similar to:

2020-09-06 20:00:20:394 🔵 Tracked: media_service_upload_failed <error_code: -1001, error_description: Error Domain=NSURLErrorDomain Code=-1001 "The request timed out." UserInfo=

The request timed out., NSErrorFailingURLStringKey=https://public-api.wordpress.com/rest/v1.1/sites/xxxxxxxxxx/media/new?locale=en, NSErrorFailingURLKey=https://public-api.wordpress.com/rest/v1.1/sites/xxxxxxxxxx/media/new?locale=en, _kCFStreamErrorDomainKey=4}, error_domain: NSURLErrorDomain>

Scenario 2

Open the WPiOS app and navigate to the Media Library
Add the large video and wait for it to upload
Observe the image upload fails
Go to the app activity log (Profile icon > Help & Support > Activity Logs > Current) and scroll to the bottom to see the latest logs
Observe the same error as before

Reported by user on an iPhone 11 Pro Max, iOS 13.6.1, WPiOS 15.5 (15.5.0.3)

Additional info

A user who tried uploading a 1.05 gb video could upload the same video using mobile Safari via Gutenberg web (https://wordpress.com/block-editor/) but not from the app (note: WordPress.com recommends videos smaller than 1 GB)
- Cutting the large video in two and uploading each part separately sometimes worked for the user
- The videos in question are .MOV
Possibly related: Videos added/edited on the web don't load in mobile editor gutenberg-mobile#1152

_{(internal reference: p4a5px-2D2-p2}

One possible lead here (noting down for future reference) is that when I background the WPiOS app during a video upload, I can pretty consistently reproduce a failed upload (app needs to be backgrounded for ~30 seconds).

The logs show that the media_service_upload_failed happened as soon as I foregrounded the app (after it was in the background for 30 seconds) and the error is a "The network connection was lost."

2020-10-02 17:39:15:548 🔵 Tracked: editor_video_added <blog_id: 181405924, bytes: 62974446592, duration_secs: 36, ext: mp4, media_origin: not_identified, mime: video/mp4, via: local_library>
2020-10-02 17:39:15:566 🔵 Tracked: media_service_upload_started <blog_id: 181405924>
2020-10-02 17:39:15:600 <WordPress.WordPressAppDelegate: 0x282308990> applicationWillResignActive(_:)
2020-10-02 17:39:15:613 Stats Period: finished persisting Period Stats to disk.
2020-10-02 17:39:16:258 <WordPress.WordPressAppDelegate: 0x282308990> applicationDidEnterBackground(_:)
2020-10-02 17:39:16:268 🔵 Tracked: application_closed <last_visible_screen: Post Editor, time_in_app: 47, time_in_main_reader: 0, time_in_reader_filtered_list: 0, time_in_reader_post: 0>
2020-10-02 17:39:16:276 PingHub disconnecting
2020-10-02 17:39:16:460 PingHub disconnected: WSError(type: Starscream.ErrorType.protocolError, message: "", code: 1000)
2020-10-02 17:39:16:555 TracksService sendQueuedEvents completed. Sent 3 events.
2020-10-02 17:40:02:172 <WordPress.WordPressAppDelegate: 0x282308990> applicationWillEnterForeground(_:)
2020-10-02 17:40:02:172 📜 Resumed encrypted log upload queue due to app entering foreground
2020-10-02 17:40:02:172 PingHub connecting
2020-10-02 17:40:02:214 Error uploading file: The network connection was lost.
2020-10-02 17:40:02:215 🔵 Tracked: media_service_upload_failed <error_code: -1005, error_description: Error Domain=NSURLErrorDomain Code=-1005 "The network connection was lost." UserInfo={_kCFStreamErrorCodeKey=53, NSUnderlyingError=0x281da36c0 {Error Domain=kCFErrorDomainCFNetwork Code=-1005 "(null)" UserInfo={NSErrorPeerAddressKey=<CFData 0x2832cf2a0 [0x1da4a0660]>{length = 16, capacity = 16, bytes = 0x100201bbc0004e160000000000000000}, _kCFStreamErrorCodeKey=53, _kCFStreamErrorDomainKey=1}}, _NSURLErrorFailingURLSessionTaskErrorKey=LocalUploadTask <E93686AA-64D6-478D-986A-4E79F5F6B733>.<198>, _NSURLErrorRelatedURLSessionTaskErrorKey=(
    "LocalUploadTask <E93686AA-64D6-478D-986A-4E79F5F6B733>.<198>"
), NSLocalizedDescription=The network connection was lost., NSErrorFailingURLStringKey=https://public-api.wordpress.com/rest/v1.1/sites/181405924/media/new?locale=en, NSErrorFailingURLKey=https://public-api.wordpress.com/rest/v1.1/sites/181405924/media/new?locale=en, _kCFStreamErrorDomainKey=1}, error_domain: NSURLErrorDomain>
2020-10-02 17:40:02:228 Error uploading media: Error Domain=NSURLErrorDomain Code=-1005 "The network connection was lost." UserInfo={_kCFStreamErrorCodeKey=53, NSUnderlyingError=0x281da36c0 {Error Domain=kCFErrorDomainCFNetwork Code=-1005 "(null)" UserInfo={NSErrorPeerAddressKey=<CFData 0x2832cf2a0 [0x1da4a0660]>{length = 16, capacity = 16, bytes = 0x100201bbc0004e160000000000000000}, _kCFStreamErrorCodeKey=53, _kCFStreamErrorDomainKey=1}}, _NSURLErrorFailingURLSessionTaskErrorKey=LocalUploadTask <E93686AA-64D6-478D-986A-4E79F5F6B733>.<198>, _NSURLErrorRelatedURLSessionTaskErrorKey=(
    "LocalUploadTask <E93686AA-64D6-478D-986A-4E79F5F6B733>.<198>"
), NSLocalizedDescription=The network connection was lost., NSErrorFailingURLStringKey=https://public-api.wordpress.com/rest/v1.1/sites/181405924/media/new?locale=en, NSErrorFailingURLKey=https://public-api.wordpress.com/rest/v1.1/sites/181405924/media/new?locale=en, _kCFStreamErrorDomainKey=1}
2020-10-02 17:40:02:492 <WordPress.WordPressAppDelegate: 0x282308990> applicationDidBecomeActive(_:)
2020-10-02 17:40:02:494 checkAppleIDCredentialState: No Apple ID found.
2020-10-02 17:40:02:512 🔵 Tracked: application_opened <>

Un-assigning myself because I'm not actively working on this.

@twstokes

I was not able to diagnose this issue after spending a couple of days on it.

Please note: the sample videos I used were MP4s. I didn't use other formats such as .MOV because I didn't have access to sample in these formats. The videos are:

Small: https://wordpress.tv/2019/10/08/the-history-of-wordpress-in-four-minutes/ [42 MB]
Medium: https://wordpress.tv/2019/07/04/matt-mullenweg-matt-on-wordpress/ [385 MB]
Large: https://wordpress.tv/2018/12/27/state-of-the-word-2018/ [1.25 GB]

Video upload tests

Tests using the WordPress for iOS app

Environment

WPiOS app logged into a WP.com account with Premium plan (lesser plans restrict uploads)
Device connected to WiFi: 10 MB/s upload speed (speed varies)
I did all tests from the My Site → Media screen.

Tests

Test #	Video	Result	Comment
1	Small video	✅	Uploaded in 2 minutes.
2	Medium video	❌	Failed after 18 minutes. Note: device had gone to sleep.
3	Small video	❌	† Charles shows "Status: Sending request body…", then "IO: Stream cancelled by CLIENT"
4	Small video	❌	† Charles shows "Status: Failed" and "Failure: EOF"
5	Small video	❌	† Charles shows "Status: Sending request body...", then after a few minutes "Remote server closed the connection before sending response header"
6	Small video	⚠️	Media appeared to fail but after returning to the Media screen, media was in library. Note: Charles proxy was not connected in this test.
7	Small video	✅	Uploaded in 5 minutes.

† Test performed while monitoring network traffic via Charles proxy.

Observations

It seems to me that uploads failed more often when Charles was used. I got this impression from the above tests and other tests I did.

Another oddity with Charles: even after an upload failed, the request status in Charles was often still be "Sending request body...". This would then change a few minutes after as noted in the above tests.

Tests using WordPress.com on different web browsers

Environment

I also did tests on WordPress.com using different browsers and platforms to see if there were problems there. I didn't use Charles proxy in the below tests.

Tests

Test #	Video	Result	Comment
1	Small video	✅	Uploaded via mobile Safari in 5 minutes.
2	Small video	✅	Uploaded via mobile Safari in 5 minutes.
3	Medium video

Debugging the WordPress for iOS app via Xcode

Environment

I ran the latest code from the trunk branch and paid special attention to these methods:

uploadMedia:requestEnqueued:success:failure, which calls into:
- multipartPost(parameters:fileParts:requestEnqueued:success:failure)

A timeout error:

See error

2022-02-15 17:01:44:417 WordPress[1319:255550] 🔵 Tracked: media_service_upload_failed .<68>, _NSURLErrorRelatedURLSessionTaskErrorKey=( "LocalUploadTask .<68>" ), NSLocalizedDescription=The request timed out., NSErrorFailingURLStringKey=https://public-api.wordpress.com/rest/v1.1/sites/202830077/media/new?locale=en, NSErrorFailingURLKey=https://public-api.wordpress.com/rest/v1.1/sites/202830077/media/new?locale=en, _kCFStreamErrorDomainKey=4}, error_domain: NSURLErrorDomain> 2022-02-15 17:01:44:443 WordPress[1319:255550] Error uploading media: Error Domain=NSURLErrorDomain Code=-1001 "The request timed out." UserInfo={_kCFStreamErrorCodeKey=-2102, NSUnderlyingError=0x11015b420 {Error Domain=kCFErrorDomainCFNetwork Code=-1001 "(null)" UserInfo={_kCFStreamErrorCodeKey=-2102, _kCFStreamErrorDomainKey=4}}, _NSURLErrorFailingURLSessionTaskErrorKey=LocalUploadTask .<68>, _NSURLErrorRelatedURLSessionTaskErrorKey=( "LocalUploadTask .<68>"

A "cannot parse response" error:

See error

2022-02-15 17:31:22:862 WordPress[1397:269654] 🔵 Tracked: media_service_upload_failed .<26>, _NSURLErrorRelatedURLSessionTaskErrorKey=( "LocalUploadTask <346B91B7-062D-4D4D-BF88-11D3EB54C49B>.<26>" ), NSLocalizedDescription=cannot parse response, NSErrorFailingURLStringKey=https://public-api.wordpress.com/rest/v1.1/sites/202830077/media/new?locale=en, NSErrorFailingURLKey=https://public-api.wordpress.com/rest/v1.1/sites/202830077/media/new?locale=en, _kCFStreamErrorDomainKey=4}, error_domain: NSURLErrorDomain> 2022-02-15 17:31:22:928 WordPress[1397:269654] Error uploading media: Error Domain=NSURLErrorDomain Code=-1017 "cannot parse response" UserInfo={_kCFStreamErrorCodeKey=-1, NSUnderlyingError=0x110255670 {Error Domain=kCFErrorDomainCFNetwork Code=-1017 "(null)" UserInfo={_kCFStreamErrorCodeKey=-1, _kCFStreamErrorDomainKey=4}}, _NSURLErrorFailingURLSessionTaskErrorKey=LocalUploadTask <346B91B7-062D-4D4D-BF88-11D3EB54C49B>.<26>, _NSURLErrorRelatedURLSessionTaskErrorKey=( "LocalUploadTask <346B91B7-062D-4D4D-BF88-11D3EB54C49B>.<26>" ), NSLocalizedDescription=cannot parse response, NSErrorFailingURLStringKey=https://public-api.wordpress.com/rest/v1.1/sites/202830077/media/new?locale=en, NSErrorFailingURLKey=https://public-api.wordpress.com/rest/v1.1/sites/202830077/media/new?locale=en, _kCFStreamErrorDomainKey=4}

The "cannot parse response" especially deserves more investigation, but I didn't dig into it further.

Next steps

I spent a lot of time with Charles proxy but don't feel like that was the right approach since requests seemed to fail more when the proxy was connected. I think digging further into the issue through Xcode's debugger would be the best next step.

Other options suggested to me are (h/t to @twstokes here):

Test using a simulator in the cloud (this helps speed up turnaround time on media upload tests which seem to take up to 40 minutes on an internet connection with 10MB/s upload speed.
Upload media with cURL: Note that the cURL request (copied from Charles) includes the binary blob of media, so it's really large and might be difficult to paste to the terminal
Play with Network Link Conditioner and use smaller files: Again this might help reduce the turnaround time for media upload tests

Unassigning myself since I wasn't able to find a solution during groundskeeping.

Just wanted to note that this issue may be improved by recent .com server side tweaks. _{ref: pgbkb-8lq-p2}

Thanks for reporting! 👍

Simulator test plan (goal: confirm). Sign in using docs/simulator-sign-in.md. Build from current trunk.

Setup: WordPress.com site on a plan that allows video uploads (VideoPress). Create a large test video on the host, for example ffmpeg -f lavfi -i testsrc=size=1920x1080:rate=30 -t 900 -b:v 6M big.mp4 (about 650 MB). Add it (and a .mov copy) with xcrun simctl addmedia. Debug builds enable Media Library v2; turn Media Library v2 off in Me › App Settings › Debug › Feature Flags (then relaunch) to test the shipping library. Use the default React Native editor (Experimental Features › Experimental Block Editor off). iPhone simulator.

My Site › Media › + › Choose from Device › pick the 650 MB video. Keep the app in the foreground until the upload finishes or fails.
Repeat, but press Home (xcrun simctl or the UI) about 10 s into the upload, wait 30–40 s, then bring the app back.
Repeat steps 1–2 in a new post using a Video block › Choose from device.
After each run, search the Xcode console (or Me › Help & Support › Logs) for media_service_upload_failed and NSURLError -1001/-1005.

Pass / report: Reproduced if an upload fails with an NSURLError although the server accepts the file (upload it from the web to check). Attach log excerpts and screenshots. If nothing fails after 3 tries of each, recommend closing; if only the backgrounded case fails, report that as the remaining bug.

What might stop it from triggering: the original failures were intermittent and may have been network- or server-dependent.

Unless the plan says otherwise, build the Jetpack scheme and use bundle ID com.automattic.jetpack in the sign-in commands. The WordPress app hides Reader, Notifications, Stats and the dashboard cards for WordPress.com accounts.

When you're done: post the results here. If you now have reliable steps, remove [Status] Needs Repro. If you found the cause and a fix approach, remove [Status] Needs Plan and add [Status] Ready for Dev. If a "confirm" plan didn't reproduce, say so and recommend closing. Remove Simulator Testable when you're finished.

Generated by Claude Code

Repro run (2026-10-31, trunk e64c851)

Result: Blocked: needs info ⏸

Needs: a WordPress.com site on a plan that allows video uploads, plus permission to upload a large test video to it. The upload is a WordPress.com write. A mocked API could cover the app's side of this, but not how the real server behaves. That wasn't tried.

Generated by Claude Code

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Unable to upload large videos #15032

Expected behavior

Actual behavior

Steps to reproduce the behavior

Scenario 1

Scenario 2

Reported by user on an iPhone 11 Pro Max, iOS 13.6.1, WPiOS 15.5 (15.5.0.3)

Additional info

Video upload tests

Tests using the WordPress for iOS app

Environment

Tests

Observations

Tests using WordPress.com on different web browsers

Environment

Tests

Debugging the WordPress for iOS app via Xcode

Environment

Next steps

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Unable to upload large videos #15032

Description

Expected behavior

Actual behavior

Steps to reproduce the behavior

Scenario 1

Scenario 2

Reported by user on an iPhone 11 Pro Max, iOS 13.6.1, WPiOS 15.5 (15.5.0.3)

Additional info

Activity

guarani commented on Oct 22, 2020

guarani commented on Feb 26, 2021

guarani commented on Feb 18, 2022

Video upload tests

Tests using the WordPress for iOS app

Environment

Tests

Observations

Tests using WordPress.com on different web browsers

Environment

Tests

Debugging the WordPress for iOS app via Xcode

Environment

Next steps

guarani commented on Feb 21, 2022

twstokes commented on Jul 8, 2022

dangermattic commented on Mar 5, 2026

jkmassel commented on Oct 31, 2026

jkmassel commented on Oct 31, 2026

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