iPad Storage Problem & Movie won't Stream!

[SPROINGY]

Hi All
I bought a movie from iTunes. I had been streaming it (tapping the black triangle in the upper left corner of the screen) and watching it that way. Then, when I wanted to see it again, I repeatedly got the message 'Not enough space to download [this movie]'. Yes, there's the cloud with the downward arrow below the black triangle, but I was taking great care not to touch it. Mystified and frustrated!

I thought, well maybe in order to stream, I need more storage space free for the streaming process to temporarily use, so I *deleted my backup* which I think was about 750 MB. This did not solve the problem. I had hoped this would give the movie space to stream, and I could do the backup later. Anyone?

Second, oddly, something seems to be steadily eating up my storage space. I would typically have 2~3 GB of free space. An hour ago, I had only 40 MB free, now I have just 1.5 MB free.

I added up the space my apps were using, they totaled 2,500 MB- that's 2.44 GB by my calculation (2,500 / 1024). Even though my machine is a 16 GB model, I should still have lots of free space.

My iCloud storage looks about normal, of the 5 GB, 3.17 GB is available.

Thank you for reading!

 

[SPROINGY]

Just to follow up: As I mentioned in my op, I tried to stream a movie, instead I got a message saying there wasn't enough space to download it.

Last night, I browsed iTunes (on my desktop) and it said there was one download. I checked what download it was, and it was the same movie I was messaged that there wasn't enough space to download!

I cancelled the download, now my storage is back up (from almost nothing) to 6.78 GB.

Speaking for myself, I didn't expect Apple (or iOS 10.1.1) to do something that makes no real sense...