diff --git a/static/app.js b/static/app.js
index 94de47a..0d63bb4 100644
--- a/static/app.js
+++ b/static/app.js
@@ -67,10 +67,10 @@ function toast(msg, action) {
   setTimeout(() => t.remove(), action ? 6000 : 2600);
 }
 
-function showStreamError(msg) {
-  const p = el("p", "error", "Stream error: " + msg);
-  const player = document.getElementById("player");
-  if (player) player.append(p); else fail(new Error(msg));
+function showStreamError(msg, retry) {
+  // visible overlay + Retry — never leave a silent spinner (this is what
+  // an unplayable browser used to hit: 'HLS not supported' under the overlay)
+  playerOverlay("Stream error: " + msg, retry || (() => { if (currentEp) play(currentEp.ep_id, currentEp.ep_no); }), "Retry");
 }
 
 // ---------- history (server-persisted, incl. watch position) ----------
@@ -862,7 +862,14 @@ async function play(ep_id, ep_no) {
     playerOverlay("Loading\u2026", null, null, true);
     bufferGauge();
     cdnChip();
-    if (!window.Hls || !Hls.isSupported()) throw new Error("HLS not supported in this browser");
+    if (!window.Hls || !Hls.isSupported()) {
+      // No MSE (e.g. iOS < 17): fall back to the browser's NATIVE HLS player.
+      // iOS Safari plays standard m3u8 in <video> directly — same proxied URL,
+      // same-origin, so no CORS needed.
+      if (!v.canPlayType("application/vnd.apple.mpegurl"))
+        throw new Error("this browser can't play HLS (no MSE support) — use a recent Chrome, Safari or Firefox");
+      v.src = "/stream/" + s.token;
+    } else {
     // the upstream CDN occasionally stalls on segment bytes (0 bytes for
     // 10s+). hls.js's default 5s time-to-first-byte abort would drop the XHR
     // before our proxy's 12s upstream attempt (+300ms retry) can answer with
@@ -893,6 +900,7 @@ async function play(ep_id, ep_no) {
     });
     hls.loadSource("/stream/" + s.token);
     hls.attachMedia(v);
+    }
     currentEp = {ep_id, ep_no, v};
     lastSavedPos = 0;
     if (nextCta) { nextCta.remove(); nextCta = null; }
@@ -933,7 +941,7 @@ async function play(ep_id, ep_no) {
     postHistory({...meta(v), title: detail.name, slug_id: detail.slug_id, season_id: seasonId,
                  ep_id, lang, ep: ep_no, pos: saved?.pos || 0});
   } catch (e) {
-    showStreamError(e.message);
+    showStreamError(e.message, () => play(ep_id, ep_no));
   }
   document.title = `${detail.name} E${ep_no} — ani-web`;
 }
diff --git a/static/index.html b/static/index.html
index bd7ece8..4aa27d6 100644
--- a/static/index.html
+++ b/static/index.html
@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@
 <title>ani-web</title>
 <link rel="icon" href="data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' viewBox='0 0 64 64'%3E%3Crect width='64' height='64' rx='14' fill='%23f97316'/%3E%3Ctext x='32' y='45' font-family='sans-serif' font-size='42' font-weight='700' text-anchor='middle' fill='%230e0f13'%3Ea%3C/text%3E%3C/svg%3E">
 
-<link rel="stylesheet" href="style.css?v=5">
+<link rel="stylesheet" href="style.css?v=6">
 </head>
 <body>
 <header>
@@ -30,6 +30,6 @@
      max-age=300 in browser AND possibly in your HTTPS proxy, and a stale
      copy is exactly how users keep seeing an old UI after a deploy -->
 <script src="hls.min.js"></script>
-<script src="app.js?v=5"></script>
+<script src="app.js?v=6"></script>
 </body>
 </html>