AVPlayerLayer says always nil - ios

Question

I don't understand why it is not working. I pass a videoURL trough a segue to a another ViewController. This works fine.
In the other ViewController I want to play the video. But for some reason it is not working.
I unwrap the URL with optional binding. But playerLayer does not accept the URL. It says always nil.
This is the URL: VideoURL Optional(file:///var/mobile/Containers/Data/Application/517BA864-F5CB-4E2C-BE54-D42555569266/Documents/3d.mov)
My code:
var player: AVPlayer?
var playerLayer: AVPlayerLayer?
var videoURL: URL?
func playVideo() {
if let _videoURL = videoURL {
player = AVPlayer(url: _videoURL)
playerLayer = AVPlayerLayer(layer: player!)
playerLayer?.frame = contentView.layer.bounds
playerLayer?.videoGravity = AVLayerVideoGravity.resizeAspectFill
self.contentView.layer.addSublayer(playerLayer!)
player?.play()
}

Answer 1

Try creating an AVURLAsset and an AVPlayerItem. Then pass that AVPlayerItem into the AVPlayer rather than trying to use the URL init.
I tested this with a sample video I downloaded from here. Note there is no sound in this video.
import UIKit
import AVFoundation
class ViewController: UIViewController {
private let videoUrl = Bundle.main.url(forResource: "file_example_MOV_1920_2_2MB", withExtension: "mov")!
private var videoPlayer: AVPlayer?
private var playerLayer: AVPlayerLayer?
override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
playVideo()
}
func playVideo() {
let asset = AVURLAsset(url: videoUrl)
let primaryPlayerItem = AVPlayerItem(asset: asset)
let player = AVPlayer(playerItem: primaryPlayerItem)
let videoLayer = AVPlayerLayer(player: player)
videoLayer.videoGravity = AVLayerVideoGravity.resizeAspectFill
videoLayer.frame = view.bounds
view.layer.addSublayer(videoLayer)
videoPlayer = player
playerLayer = videoLayer
videoPlayer?.play()
}
}

Answer 2

Try the below code. It's working.
var player: AVPlayer!
var playerLayer: AVPlayerLayer!
func playVideo() {
if let url = videoURL {
do {
let item:AVPlayerItem = AVPlayerItem(url: url)
player = AVPlayer(playerItem: item)
playerLayer = AVPlayerLayer(player: player)
playerLayer.frame = contentView.bounds
playerLayer.videoGravity = AVLayerVideoGravity.resizeAspectFill
self.contentView.layer.addSublayer(playerLayer)
player.play()
} catch {
print("Error1", error.localizedDescription)
}
}
}