Disney+ Downloads Won't Pause or Rewind: 19 Reviews (2026)

If you downloaded a Disney+ episode on your Android phone and now the pause button, the 10 second skip buttons and the progress bar do nothing, you are not alone. Since 21 October, Google Play reviews in four languages have described the same thing, and most of them came from the same app version, 26.19.0.

We read every negative review since then, in English, German, French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, to see what stopped working, whether streaming is affected, and what has helped.

Quick Answer: Why Can't I Pause or Rewind Disney+ Downloads?

Since 21 October 2026, 19 negative Google Play reviews say the playback controls stopped working on downloaded Disney+ content: no pause, no rewind, no fast forward, no dragging the progress bar. 14 of them are one star. 9 more describe the same dead controls without saying whether they were watching a download, which makes 28 in all, and 21 of the 28 were written from version 26.19.0. 4 reviewers say the same title plays normally when streamed. Two say reinstalling did not help, and one says reinstalling is the only fix but it deletes all your downloads. Disney+ replied to 11 of the 28 with a link to its Help Center.

How We Counted

We pulled the 12,000 most recent US English-language Google Play reviews of Disney+, plus the 3,000 most recent from each of the German, French, Spanish, Italian and Brazilian Portuguese stores, 27,000 different reviews in all. The UK store returned exactly the same 3,000 reviews as the US one, so it added nothing. Disney+ holds 4.30 stars from 5,163,501 ratings on Google Play and 4.59 from 1,977,682 on the App Store. Every review below is from the Android app.

The first report came at 20:46 UTC on 21 October. From then to the newest review Google Play returned, at 05:17 UTC on 24 October, there were 364 reviews of 1 to 3 stars across these stores. We read every one that mentions downloads, offline viewing, playback controls or buttons, and kept the ones that say the controls stopped responding during playback. We grouped them by the language of the review text, not the store it came from.

Of the 28, 21 are in English, 5 in Spanish, 1 in German and 1 in Portuguese. There was 1 on 21 October, 3 on 22 October, 17 on 23 October and 7 in the first five hours of 24 October.

This Is New

Our sample has 8,884 negative reviews from 1 August to 20 October in the same stores. We searched them for downloads mentioned together with pause, rewind, fast forward, skip or controls, in all six languages, and read the 34 that came back. One, on 20 August, asked Disney+ to fix the seek bar on downloads. None said the pause and skip buttons had stopped working. Version 26.19.0 first appears in reviews at 02:26 UTC on 21 October, and the first report came that evening.

What Reviewers See

The download starts, but the on-screen controls don't respond. Four reviewers say the same title works fine when they stream it.

All controls when watching have gone since latest update on downloaded content! unusable unless you stream only!

When playing a movie direct of the internet i can pause anytime, move 10 seconds backwards or forward. But when i download the same movie i can't do anything no pause or backwards or forward not even moving the movie direct to a different position in the movie I have cleared the cache several times and also delete the app several times and still the same result why bring out an update when nothing works anymore

it used to be perfectly fine. but now for some reason I can't skip forward or pause on my downloads. what happened?

A Portuguese reviewer describes exactly what the buttons look like, and says the next episode button still works:

Portuguese

Todos os conteúdos descarregados apresentam um problema de reprodução: os botões de pausa e avanço/recuo de 10 segundos ficam transparentes e não respondem ao toque. O botão para passar ao episódio seguinte continua a funcionar.

Another reviewer says the controls are greyed out:

Terrible app. Won't play downloaded videos without refreshing licences every time you open the app, so completely useless in areas with no reception, and video controls keep glitching and won't let you navigate (controls are completely greyed out during playback).

The same reports come in Spanish, including from people who don't say they were watching a download:

Spanish

El contenido descargado no se puede reproducir normalmente, no se puede adelantar ni saltar intros, deberían arreglar eso, es muy feo que salgas de lo que estás viendo y luego cuando quieras reanudar lo tengas que volver a ver desde el principio, francamente es horrible y es algo que uno no espera de una App como lo es Disney Plus y menos en su plan Premiun, revisen eso por favor.

Spanish

Muy mala experiencia. No me permite utilizar ninguno de los controles durante la reproducción: no puedo adelantar, retroceder ni pausar el contenido.

Restarting From the Beginning Makes It Worse

8 of the 28 reviewers say Disney+ also forgot where they were, so the episode started again from the beginning. With the seek bar dead, there is no way to get back to where you stopped.

Isn't the new app supposed to be better? When exiting the app, and then opening it again, the previously watched episode (download) restarts from the beginnig. It would be nice to watch from where you left it. Since yesterdays update, none op the episodes I watch can be paused. Wish I could give no stars, as these issues are annoying. oh fantastic! Just went back to the episode I was watching, not only did it restart but now I cannot forward it. ZERO stars!

This part isn't new. In August and September, reviewers were already complaining that downloaded episodes started over after a pause. What is new is that you can no longer skip forward to fix it.

Downloads Still Need the Internet, Too

5 of the 19 download reviewers also say the app wouldn't play downloads, or wouldn't open, without a connection. That is a separate problem Disney+ reviewers have reported for months, and we covered it in Disney+ downloads not working offline. If the new app also cost you your profiles or on-screen brightness and volume controls, see Disney+ new app lost your profiles.

What Disney+ Says

Disney+ replied to 11 of the 28 reviews. All seven English replies point to the Help Center at help.disneyplus.com and to support by phone or chat. The four Spanish replies link to a contact page or to two guides, disneyplus.link/PlaybackTrouble and disneyplus.link/PowerCycle. None of the replies mentions downloads, the update or a fix.

The newest version on Google Play is still 26.19.0, the one most of these reviews came from.

What You Can Do

Stream it if you can. Four reviewers say the same title plays with working controls when streamed. If you have a connection, that is the way to watch with pause and rewind.

Use the next episode button. One reviewer says it still works on downloads when the other buttons don't.

Think twice before reinstalling. Two reviewers reinstalled, and one also tried another phone, and the controls were still dead. A third says reinstalling is the only fix, but it deletes all your downloads, which is no help if you are already offline.

Contact Disney+ support. Disney+ is pointing reviewers to its Help Center, phone and chat. Saying that the problem is only on downloaded content, and which version you are on, gives them more to go on than the reviews did.

Disney+ reviewers also complained this month about ads on plans that were supposed to be ad-free, see Disney+ ads on the ad-free plan.

Read the Full Breakdown

You can read the full negative review breakdown for Disney+ on Android and Disney+ on iOS, or go to the Disney+ trust check, how to cancel Disney+ and apps like Disney+.