AVQueuePlayer is taking lot of time to play first song - ios

Question

Below is my code to play AVQueueplayer with some web URL, but it takes almost 10-20 seconds to play first song. I have 10 songs, but for reference and to make it small, I have just kept one song here.
arrSongs = ["http://radiotaj.com/music/1/1836.mp3"]
let index = 0
let strSong = (arrSongs.object(at: index)) as? String
playerItem = AVPlayerItem(url: URL(string:strSong!)!
let playerItems = [playerItem]
player = AVQueuePlayer(items : playerItems as! [AVPlayerItem])
player.play()
Below are the solutions I have already tried
Adding CMTime
Making it pause and play again
It works perfectly fine if file is local.
Any help is greatly appreciated.
Thank you!

Answer 1

You can try the following code, it works for me. Here is the version without Alamofire (replace yourURL with the actual link):
override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
downloadFileFromURL(url: URL(string: yourURL)!)
}
func play(url: URL) {
do {
let songData = try Data(contentsOf: url, options: NSData.ReadingOptions.mappedIfSafe)
try AVAudioSession.sharedInstance().setCategory(AVAudioSessionCategoryPlayback)
try AVAudioSession.sharedInstance().setActive(true)
player = try AVAudioPlayer(data: songData, fileTypeHint: AVFileTypeAppleM4A)
player!.prepareToPlay()
player!.play()
} catch {
print(error)
}
}
func downloadFileFromURL(url: URL) {
var downloadTask = URLSessionDownloadTask()
downloadTask = URLSession.shared.downloadTask(with: url, completionHandler: {
customURL, response, error in
self.play(url: customURL!)
})
downloadTask.resume()
}
Using Alamofire is faster, it basically downloads the file into the Documents folder and plays it from here (don't forget to install Alamofire and type outside the class import Alamofire:
func play(url: URL) {
do {
let songData = try Data(contentsOf: url, options: NSData.ReadingOptions.mappedIfSafe)
try AVAudioSession.sharedInstance().setCategory(AVAudioSessionCategoryPlayback)
try AVAudioSession.sharedInstance().setActive(true)
player = try AVAudioPlayer(data: songData, fileTypeHint: AVFileTypeAppleM4A)
player!.prepareToPlay()
player!.play()
} catch {
print(error)
}
}
override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
let destination: DownloadRequest.DownloadFileDestination = { _, _ in
var documentsURL = FileManager.default.urls(for: .documentDirectory, in: .userDomainMask)[0]
documentsURL.appendPathComponent("song."+"mp3")
return (documentsURL, [.removePreviousFile])
}
Alamofire.download(yourURL, to: destination).response { response in
if response.destinationURL != nil {
songURL = response.destinationURL!
self.play(url: songURL!)
}
}
}