Unable to use 'Spatial Scene mode' on iPhone 13 after iOS 26 update

Are you seeing exactly the same error message as in the original post?

In that case - if you are also using iCloud Photos - you have to ensure two things:

• You need to check the free storage on your iPhone and to make sure, that there is enough free storage for the iPhone to download the photo from iCloud.
• And make sure you are having a reliable Wi-Fi connection or cellular connection.

I found it best to open the photo I want to use on the lock screen first in Photos, then view it there enlarged and try to add some adjustments to force the download from iCloud. And only then use the Share button to add the photo to the lock screen. After the forced download the button to enable the depth effect is usually working well.

If you are seeing a different error message you may want to start a new thread.

That message has been explained several times in this thread that you apparently didn’t read before posting, but here is what it means:

1. You have Optimize iPhone Storage enabled in Settings/[your name]/iCloud/Photos
2. This means that the photos on your phone are smaller, and lower resolution than they were when they were taken
3. However, the full sized photos are still in iCloud
4. To use Spatial Scene features the full size photo must first be downloaded to the phone from iCloud
5. But the full size photo could not be downloaded from iCloud, because there was a problem with your Internet connection, or you had no connection
6. It’s also possible that you have VPN installed, which can also prevent your iPhone from connecting to iCloud

Had the same issue on my iPhone 13 even though my photos were downloaded and available I kept getting the same stuck loading at 0% but issue got resolved after I connected to a WiFi network

Pierre, you wrote "I don’t use iCloud Photos,", but still you are getting the error message "unable to load photo". Just to be sure - have you checked, if iCloud Photos is still turned off? On some versions of iOS a system upgrade would turn it on by default, without you being aware of it, if you are having an iCloud subscription.

• If iCloud is really not the problem, check the free storage. Spatial photos need more storage than 2D photos. Lack of local storage can prevent the creation of spatitial photos.
• One possible problem, that has not been yet mentioned in this discussion is the image format. Spatial scenes are not supported for all kinds of photos. The user guide is just stating "If you’ve added a photo that supports spatial", but not telling us, which formats are supporting spatial. We have to experiment to find out.

Try to take a new photo (a still photo, not a Live Photo) with the iPhone camera, save it to Photos and try to add the new, saved photo your wallpaper. Can you turn it into a spatial scene?

Have the photos on your iPhone been synced to the iPhone from a computer? The user guide does not say, if synced photos can be used for spatial scenes. Try to use photo that you have saved tp Photos directly from the iPhone camera instead of a synced photo.

It works for me. Do you see the Spatial Scene icon on the photo? It will only appear if there is a clear subject in the photo such as a person or animal.

Do you have Optimize Storage enabled? If so, the full size image must be downloaded from iCloud for it to work. From the dialog it looks like you don’t have a connection to iCloud.

Hi Léonie, yes yes, everything is definitely disabled… iCloud is not the issue. I still have 80 GB of local storage available, so that’s not the problem either. Regarding the format, I’ve tried taking photos in JPEG and HEIF — nothing works. Live Photo doesn’t change anything. I also tried going through the wallpaper settings and got a similar message: “Failed to load spatial scene. Unable to download the model. Check your network connection and try again.”

And finally, I’ve tested everything I could regarding the photos, but absolutely nothing works… As I said earlier, this is clearly just a bug in iOS 26, and a possible solution would be to restore from an iCloud backup, or if necessary, do a clean install — but I really don’t feel like going through all that just for one buggy feature.

The answer has been posted in the thread you added to. Just read the Top Rated Reply at the top of this page.

It should work on iPhone 13. HOWEVER, if Optimized Storage is enabled, the photo must first be downloaded, and the message you are seeing says it could not connect to iCloud to download the original. So the problem you need to solve is why can’t your iPhone connect to iCloud. This has nothing to do with the feature in the Photos app.

Please read the rest of the thread you added to for possible reasons.

The "unable to load model" message could mean, that your iPhone still needs to download parts of the Apple Intelligence software.

• Open the Settings, then Apple Intelligence and Siri’. Is the toggle switch enabled?
• Look below the on/off toggle switch. Is there a "Download" message? If yes, wait for the download to complete.

Perhaps Apple's servers are very busy right now. The System Status has been showing problems with the Appstore performance.

It does not really matter, which adjustments you are using, you just need to force the iPhone to download the original from iCloud by using it in any way, that needs the original to be downloaded. Revert any changes afterwards.

Hi….am very confused at the moment, I had the Spatial scene running on my 12 promax but when I updated to the iOS 26.1.1 it stopped working. It remains loading at 0% and eventually stops, responding unable to load….meanwhile I still have an old wallpaper from the iOS 26.0 that’s still having the spatial scene running….

In Settings > Apps > Photos> go all the way down to the bottom of the page and check to see if Control for Creating Spatial Photos is turned on. Your screenshot indicates your trying to download a photo. This works with photos already in your photo library and you tap the Spatial Scenes icon at the top right of the photo.