When playing an audio file in watchOS (using SpriteKit):
run(SKAction.playSoundFileNamed("ready.wav", waitForCompletion:false))
It will works until you background the app (says face the watch outwards) and back, then the audio file cannot be played anymore.
I have tried many workarounds, including setting UIBackgroundModes to audio, but the sound will always stop working after the app is background and back. Any solution?
PS: I think I might have found the answer: use AVAudioPlayer instead of SKAction.
You need to start HKWorkoutSession and in info.plist enable workout background processing. Don't need the audio to play in background, just continue to play once it comes back from background.
Use AVAudioPlayer instead of SKAction. This works.
Only SKAction.playSoundFileNamed has this issue.
Related
I'm playing a silent music with AVAudioPlayer when user locks the screen, so that my timers won't stop.
However, when I play an iPod music with [MPMusicPlayerController applicationMusicPlayer], AVAudioPlayer stops,without receiving any call back.
Is there any way so that I can start [MPMusicPlayerController applicationMusicPlayer] playing without stoping AVAudioPlayer playing?
EDIT:
Thanks guys, this is the app I'm working on:
It is an Alarm app, this app allows user to lock screen while app is running,and when it is the time of the alarm, app can play iPod music to wake the user.Local notification can not use iPod music as alert sound, so I have to keep the app running while screen is locked.
If user quit the app, it will use local notification as alarm, whose sound is limited to files in bundle.
I can't use UILocalNotification as timer since when in screen locked status（in UIApplicationStatusInactive), app can't receive local notification generated by the system.
Apple has architected their backgrounding system to really limit things like this from happening. Essentially, there is no way for the you to keep the application running in the background unless it needs to be there. If you explain what you are trying to accomplish, maybe a better solution can be found but as good practice, never use random backgrounding methods to do other things. I am assuming that you might be using the faint music as a way to show something custom on the main screen, this is not a good idea.
Your app will get rejected if you play a silent audio.
Also as per apple's documentation https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/NetworkingInternet/Conceptual/RemoteNotificationsPG/IPhoneOSClientImp/IPhoneOSClientImp.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40008194-CH103, notifications cannot have sounds (soundName) which play more than 30 seconds.
So you wont be able to release your app in the store.
I figured it out myself.
It is not calling [MPMusicPlayerController +applicationMusicPlayer] that stops AVAudioPlayer, but calling [MPMusicPlayerController -setShuffleMode:], I don't know why calling this would stop AVAudioPlayer, but it is where the problem lies in.
Thanks everyone, I think I should paste my complete code next time.
I have a portion of my app that simply launches a webview linked to an mp3 file- it opens the file and plays the audio. What I'd like to do is allow that audio to continue playing even if the user locks their iPhone. (As a side note, is there any way to replace the default Quicktime logo that appears in the player? Not that big a deal, just thought I'd ask =)
A third question- I also do the same thing (webview) with an .m3u linked file to stream live audio throughout the week- is it also possible to keep it playing when the iPhone is locked?
Thanks!!
Ben
Quick Edit: The same URLs work great in IOS Safari (locking and unlocking doesn't affect the audio. Just not in my app's webviews.
I did find my answer though, in case anyone comes here looking. Easiest thing in the world too- just add a row to the plist file labeled "Required Background Modes" and under that set item 0's value to "App plays audio". Voila!
Since the audio is in a UIWebView, I don't believe that you'd be able to play it in the background.
EDIT: I was wrong, adding "App Plays Audio" to the UIBackgroundModes will make it work even when audio is in a UIWebView.
Have you thought about just streaming the .mp3 file yourself? Should be easy enough and you'd be able to setup background streaming. To get you started, I'd check out Matt Gallagher's AudioStreamer class which easily allows you to stream .mp3 files and other audio files from the net: https://github.com/mattgallagher/AudioStreamer
I'm using MPMoviePlayerViewController to stream an audio from the URL "http://ios-audio.q-music.be/audio.m3u8".
Its playing well.
But when I click "Home" button, the app goes into background and stops streaming.
When I start the app again, it starts streaming again.
How can I make my app stream the audio using MPMoviePlayerController when the app goes to background.
Or do I've to use other frameworks?
Well I use https://github.com/mattgallagher/AudioStreamer for streaming audio, It will work in background.
http://digitaldj.net/2010/08/25/ios4-background-audio-revisited/ points to a fork of Matt Gallagher's original AudioStreamer code at http://github.com/DigitalDJ/AudioStreamer, which I can verify does support background audio. That said the original AudioStreamer has been updated this year so I'd imagine it also has implemented background support by now.
Certainly using MPMoviePlayerController to do background audio would be interesting since it presumably opens up the opportunity to support AirPlay directly in an audio streamer application.
I need to use AVAudioPlayer and MPMoviePlayerController simultaneously i.e play a movie while the background loop is playing is it possible.
My bg music loop stops working when a movie starts playing , so I tried to stop the bg music loop and start the movie and when movie stops, start playing the bg loop again but this is also is not working.
In fact it is achievable from 3.x onwards. I had once done this in one of my applications and its got nothing to do with any backgrounding or any other new iOS features. You just need to configure the audio sessions properly. If you make sure that both your audio player as well as the video player are using the ambient audio session it is possible.
Prior to starting your AVAudioPlayer to play, set the category of audio session to AVAudioSessionCategoryAmbient. This is the system wide common audio session. This allows other sounds to play along such as the sound from the iPod application.
In case you are using the MPMoviePlayerController from iOS 3.2 or above make sure you set the useApplicationAudioSession to NO. This ensures other sounds to play along. It is the default in earlier versions of iOS.
There is a limitation in the current iPhone SDK (2.x and 3.x) that does not allow any background audio playing while a movie is playing in the MPMoviePlayerController API. Unfortunately, it is not possible to do what you are asking at this time within the iPhone SDK.
I would suggest logging an enhancement request to Apple to offer this in a future version of the SDK.
So I have an app which plays many short sound clips. I need to know when the sounds are finished playing, and I need to use mp3s, so I'm using AVFoundation for the sound playback.
When a sound is actively playing, and the user uses the hardware volume buttons, the playback volume changes. Problem is, the app is NOT constantly playing sounds, and when it's not, and the hardware buttons are used, the RINGER volume gets adjusted instead.
How do I set it up so, as long as the app is running, the user can adjust the playback volume?
Thanks!
Turns out this can be accomplished by allocating an AVAudioPlayer with any valid sound file and calling the prepareToPlay method, without ever calling the play method.
Works perfectly.
Start an AudioSession and don't stop it when you're not playing sounds.
so you want to disable ringer playback volume as long as the app is running? therefore the hardware controls will only adjust the app playback sounds?
i dont think this is possible unless you are "always playing sound" for example, many games are always playing background music or what have you.
You might be able to accomplish this by constantly playing a 0 volume sound as long as your app is running. You could then play your sound clips over it.
How do I play multiple sounds simultaneously?