iOS Share Extension - Sending Large Video - ios

Question

So I am trying send a large video file (over 100 mb), and whenever I access the video file with dataWithContentsOfURL, the extension terminates. This works fine with smaller files.
How am I supposed to work around it?
if ([itemProvider hasItemConformingToTypeIdentifier:(NSString *)kUTTypeMovie]){
[itemProvider loadItemForTypeIdentifier:(NSString *)kUTTypeMovie options:nil completionHandler:urlHandler];
}
NSItemProviderCompletionHandler urlHandler = ^(NSURL *item, NSError *error) {
if ([itemProvider hasItemConformingToTypeIdentifier:(NSString *)kUTTypeVideo] | [itemProvider hasItemConformingToTypeIdentifier:(NSString *)kUTTypeMovie])
{
NSData *fileData = [NSData dataWithContentsOfURL:item]
// ----> fileData WORKS for small files.
// ----> for large files, extension QUITS - without any trace - and control does not proceed after this. This may be due to memory pressure?
[_shareExtensionActionsManager sendTextMessage:contentText attachmentData:fileData attachmentName:#"video-1" toChatEntity:_selectedItem completion:^(BOOL success)
{
[self.extensionContext completeRequestReturningItems:nil completionHandler:^(BOOL expired) {
exit(0);
}];
}];
}
};

Answer 1

From the app extension docs:
Users tend to return to the host app immediately after they finish their task in your app extension. If the task involves a potentially lengthy upload or download, you need to ensure that it can finish after your extension gets terminated.
and
After your app extension calls completeRequestReturningItems:completionHandler: to tell the host app that its request is complete, the system can terminate your extension at any time.
You will need to use NSURLSession to create a URL session that initiates a background task.
If your extension isn’t running when the background task completes, the system will launch your containing app in the background and call application:handleEventsForBackgroundURLSession:completionHandler: in your AppDelegate.
You'll also need to setup a shared container that both your extension and the containing app can access. For this, you'll want to use NSURLSessionConfiguration's sharedContainerIdentifier property to specify an identifier for the container so you can access it later.
Here's a sample from the docs that shows how you can achieve this:
NSURLSession *mySession = [self configureMySession];
NSURL *url = [NSURL URLWithString:#"http://www.example.com/LargeFile.zip"];
NSURLSessionTask *myTask = [mySession downloadTaskWithURL:url];
[myTask resume];
- (NSURLSession *) configureMySession {
if (!mySession) {
NSURLSessionConfiguration* config = [NSURLSessionConfiguration backgroundSessionConfigurationWithIdentifier:#“com.mycompany.myapp.backgroundsession”];
// To access the shared container you set up, use the sharedContainerIdentifier property on your configuration object.
config.sharedContainerIdentifier = #“com.mycompany.myappgroupidentifier”;
mySession = [NSURLSession sessionWithConfiguration:config delegate:self delegateQueue:nil];
}
return mySession;
}
Here's a related resource that might help further.

Answer 2

App extensions may not have the memory capacity for this task.
Memory limits for running app extensions are significantly lower than the memory limits imposed on a foreground app. On both platforms, the system may aggressively terminate extensions because users want to return to their main goal in the host app. Some extensions may have lower memory limits than others: For example, widgets must be especially efficient because users are likely to have several widgets open at the same time.
https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/General/Conceptual/ExtensibilityPG/ExtensionCreation.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40014214-CH5-SW1