Resume AVPlayer video playback after app become active

Question

I write custom player from AVPlayer for video playback. According to Apple docs set the video layer:

    self.player = [IPLPlayer new];
    self.player.playerLa         


        

Answer 1

This works for me on Swift 3

Add somewhere while setting up the view:

NotificationCenter.default.addObserver(self, 
  selector: #selector(appWillEnterForegroundNotification),
  name: .UIApplicationWillEnterForeground, object: nil)

Grab your player and force it to play:

func appWillEnterForegroundNotification() {
  myPlayer.play()
}

Don't forget to remove the observers when you don't need them:

override func viewWillDisappear(_ animated: Bool) {
  super.viewWillDisappear(animated)
  NotificationCenter.default.removeObserver(self)
}

Answer 2

Use the UIApplicationWillEnterForegroundNotification as well. That way you know your app will be active and visible to the user:

[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter]addObserver:self selector:@selector(appEnteredForeground:) name:UIApplicationWillEnterForegroundNotification object:nil];

Answer 3

And one solution that binds all this information together.

Maybe player status should be handled differently, but I like the recursive way.

Note: If you do not need the exact seek time, you can use [_player seekToTime:<#(CMTime)#> completionHandler:<#^(BOOL finished)completionHandler#>] It's faster but it seeks to the nearest key frame.

- (void)viewDidLoad
{
    [super viewDidLoad];

....

    [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self selector:@selector(appEnteredForeground) name:UIApplicationWillEnterForegroundNotification object:nil];
    [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self selector:@selector(appEnteredBackground) name:UIApplicationDidEnterBackgroundNotification object:nil];
}

-(void)viewWillDisappear:(BOOL)animated
{
    [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] removeObserver:self name:UIApplicationWillEnterForegroundNotification object:nil];
    [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] removeObserver:self name:UIApplicationDidEnterBackgroundNotification object:nil];
}

....

-(void) appEnteredForeground {
    AVPlayerLayer *player = (AVPlayerLayer *)[playerView layer];
    [player setPlayer:NULL];
    [player setPlayer:_player];
    [self playAt:currentTime];
}

-(void) appEnteredBackground {
    [_player pause];
    currentTime = [_player currentTime];
}

-(void)playAt: (CMTime)time {
    if(_player.status == AVPlayerStatusReadyToPlay && _player.currentItem.status == AVPlayerItemStatusReadyToPlay) {
        [_player seekToTime:time toleranceBefore:kCMTimeZero toleranceAfter:kCMTimeZero completionHandler:^(BOOL finished) {
            [_player play];
        }];
    } else {
        dispatch_after(dispatch_time(DISPATCH_TIME_NOW, (int64_t)(0.2 * NSEC_PER_SEC)), dispatch_get_main_queue(), ^{
            [self playAt:time];
        });
    }
}

Answer 4

The trick is to detach all video layers from their players when the app did enter background and reattaching them when the app did become active again.

So in your -applicationDidEnterBackground: you got to trigger a mechanism that results in

avPlayerLayer.player = nil;

and in your -applicationDidBecomeActive: you reattach the player like

avPlayerLayer.player = self.avPlayer;

Also have a look at this Tech Note (QA1668) from Apple.

Answer 5

After some research I've found, that the same bag is in iOS player (WebBrowser, MPMoviePlayerController). May be because distribution type of content is Progressive Download.

So solution is:

• Use below notifications and save current time.
• After app is resumed, recreate AVPlayer and start playing from saved time.

In all other cases image is blocked, or view become black.