MPNowPlayingInfoCenter not showing details - ios

Question

today I spent hours trying to figure out why MPNowPlayingInfoCenter is not working, but without success. I want it to show info in control center and lockscreen, the media is a video.
Here is the problem:
I have a singleton class called GlobalAVPlayer that holds an AVPlayerViewController. It is a singleton because there must be only one, and I need to access it globally.
class GlobalAVPlayer: NSObject {
static let sharedInstance = GlobalAVPlayer()
private var _currentVideo: Video?
var playerViewController = AVPlayerViewController()
var isPlaying: Bool = false
var almostPlaying: Bool = false
var hasItemToPlay: Bool = false
var currentVideo: Video?
{
set {
_currentVideo = newValue
notify_VideoChanged()
}
get {
return _currentVideo
}
}
private var player: AVPlayer!
override init()
{
super.init()
player = AVPlayer()
playerViewController.player = player
player.addObserver(self, forKeyPath: "rate", options: NSKeyValueObservingOptions.New, context: nil)
NSNotificationCenter.defaultCenter().addObserver(self, selector: #selector(didPlayToEnd), name: "AVPlayerItemDidPlayToEndTimeNotification", object: nil)
}
func itemToPlay(item: AVPlayerItem)
{
if let player = player {
almostPlaying = true
hasItemToPlay = true
player.replaceCurrentItemWithPlayerItem(item)
}
}
func didPlayToEnd()
{
print("[GlobalAVPlayer] End video notification")
let time = CMTimeMakeWithSeconds(0, 1)
player.seekToTime(time)
}
func play()
{
if player.rate == 0
{
player.play()
if player.rate != 0 && player.error == nil
{
isPlaying = true
print("[GlobalAVPlayer] Playing video without errors")
}
}
}
func pause()
{
if player.rate == 1
{
player.pause()
if player.rate == 0 && player.error == nil
{
isPlaying = false
print("[GlobalAVPlayer] Pausing video without errors")
}
}
}
func notify_PlaybackChanged()
{
NSNotificationCenter.defaultCenter().postNotificationName("globalAVPlayerPlaybackChanged", object: self)
}
func notify_VideoChanged()
{
NSNotificationCenter.defaultCenter().postNotificationName("globalAVPlayerVideoChanged", object: self)
}
override func observeValueForKeyPath(keyPath: String?, ofObject object: AnyObject?, change: [String : AnyObject]?, context: UnsafeMutablePointer<Void>) {
if keyPath == "rate" {
let newRate = change!["new"] as! Int
//rate = 0 (il player è fermo) rate = 1 (il player sta andando)
self.isPlaying = newRate == 1 ? true : false
notify_PlaybackChanged()
}
}
deinit
{
player.removeObserver(self, forKeyPath: "rate", context: nil)
}
}
The init is called one time when app starts, after that I use "itemToPlay" method to change the video.
I have also correctly (I think) configured the audio session in AppDelegate:
do
{
let session = AVAudioSession.sharedInstance()
try session.setCategory(AVAudioSessionCategoryPlayback)
try session.setActive(true)
}
catch
{
print("[AppDelegate] Something went wrong")
}
I tried to put MPNowPlayingInfoCenter.defaultCenter().nowPlayingInfo = something everywhere, but at max I could see the video title in the control center for 1 second when I put it into the play() method. After that it disappeared and the playback controls went gray. Information is correctly stored, because when i print nowPlayingInfo content into the console everything is as expected.
I tried using becomeFirstResponder and UIApplication.beginReceivingRemoteControlEvents in different places without success.
Thanks

Answer 1

Starting with iOS 10 there is a BOOL property in AVPlayerViewController called updatesNowPlayingInfoCenter, that has the default value: YES. Just change it to NO:
//playerController is an instance of AVPlayerViewController
if ([self.playerController respondsToSelector:#selector(setUpdatesNowPlayingInfoCenter:)])
{
self.playerController.updatesNowPlayingInfoCenter = NO;
}