Play a sound before opening an URL - ios

Explanation
I'm having a problem when calling an action before opening App Store to rate my game. The sound won't be played. I've seen a game in which it worked. Am I doing anything wrong?
Code
func rateGame(){
let appIDString = "375380948"
let reviewsURLString = "itms-apps://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewContentsUserReviews?pageNumber=0&sortOrdering=1&type=Purple+Software&mt=8&id=\(appIDString)"
let reviewsURL = NSURL(string: reviewsURLString)
clickSoundFX()
UIApplication.sharedApplication().openURL(reviewsURL!)
}
func clickSoundFX(){
self.runAction(SKAction.playSoundFileNamed("buttonClick.mp3", waitForCompletion: false))
}
Thanks in advance,
Luiz.

When you launch clickSoundFX() and after you call:
UIApplication.sharedApplication().openURL(reviewsURL!)
your game start to make an action to play a simple sound but right after all the app going in applicationDidEnterBackground due to open an external url: in this exact moment all your game going in paused mode so you can't do any action.
A safe way to do your code is to make a pause sequence after your sound and check the completion like this:
let wait = SKAction.SKAction.waitForDuration(1.0)
let sound = SKAction.playSoundFileNamed("buttonClick.mp3")
let seq = SKAction.sequence([sound,wait])
self.runAction(seq,completion: {
UIApplication.sharedApplication().openURL(reviewsURL!)
})

Related

Cannot play audio file without app crashing on device running ios 13

I have an app being used by people to receive orders with it needing to make a continuous sound until staff attend to it. It was working for two months then just started crashing a lot. For whatever reason, it runs fine on an iPad but not on iPhones running a recent operating system.
When this bit of code gets called it crashes:
guard let path = Bundle.main.path(forResource: "alert.mp3", ofType: nil) else { return }
let url = URL(fileURLWithPath: path)
do {
self.alertSoundEffect = try AVAudioPlayer(contentsOf: url)
} catch let err {
print("err: \(err)")
}
DispatchQueue.main.async {
self.alertSoundEffect.numberOfLoops = -1
self.alertSoundEffect.prepareToPlay()
self.alertSoundEffect.play()
}
The fix online to declare the alertSoundEffect variable like this:
private var alertSoundEffect : AVAudioPlayer!
has not worked at all.
I tried moving everything but the line:
self.alertSoundEffect.play()
to viewDidLoad as I thought maybe that code couldn't get called more than once, but it didn't help.
Specifically, the compiler highlights this line when it crashes:
self.alertSoundEffect = try AVAudioPlayer(contentsOf: url)
I tried using try AVAudioPlayer where it takes a Data object as a parameter or with including the type of audio file to be played, but that did not change anything.
When I try the AVAudioPlayer's delegate and declare it like this:
self.alertSoundEffect.delegate = self
right before the first lines of code I shared above Xcode highlights this line instead when it reliably crashes.
What else should I try?
I suppose your path is wrong.
Try this:
guard let path = Bundle.main.path(forResource: "alert", ofType: "mp3") else { return }
Also, if your audio file is short, like less than 30s, then try not to call self.alertSoundEffect.prepareToPlay(). Just call self.alertSoundEffect.play() right away.
Since iOS 13, this was causing a bug in my app, since I have notification sounds which are 3-10 seconds long.
If you initialise your AVAudioPlayer like var wrongMusicPlayer: AVAudioPlayer = AVAudioPlayer() OR wrongMusicPlayer = AVAudioPlayer() in any method then please remove it and just Declare like var wrongMusicPlayer: AVAudioPlayer!.
iOS 13.1 Crash in AVAudio Player

Play dialler tone on ear-speaker

I'm currently working on a VOIP based application. In which when a user calls another person I need to play a dialler tone on the ear-speaker. I've searched a lot, but couldn't find any solution yet. I've used the following code to play the dialler tone:
// This method plays the ringtone for incoming call
func playRingtone()
{
let path = Bundle.main.path(forResource: "ringing.mp3", ofType:nil)!
let url = URL(fileURLWithPath: path)
do
{
ringtonePlayer = try AVAudioPlayer(contentsOf: url)
ringtonePlayer?.numberOfLoops = 5
ringtonePlayer?.play()
}
catch let error
{
print(error.localizedDescription)
}
}
But it's playing on the loud speaker, not on the ear-speaker.
Additional Info: I'm using TokBox SDK
Can anyone please help me to solve this issue? Thanks in advance.

Limit audio duration when played

I'm trying to build an iOS application using Swift 4 that would play different sounds. Part of what I need to do is to limit the duration of the sound file played depending on some settings.
What I'd like to know is if it's possible to set the duration of the sound prior to playing it so it can stop after the set duration. If so, how?
I'm currently using Swift's AVAudioPlayer but I don't know if it can do it. My current code is shown below:
// resName set depending on settings
url = Bundle.main.url(forResource: resName, withExtension: "mp3")
do{
audioPlayer = try AVAudioPlayer(contentsOf: url!)
audioPlayer.prepareToPlay()
audioPlayer.currentTime = 0
} catch let error as NSError{
print(error.debugDescription)
}
audioPlayer.play()
Thanks in advance for the help :)
Well, since you are in control of playing the sounds, one way how to deal with it would be running a Timer when you start playing that would after the given time period stop playing:
let timeLimit = 1.6 // get it from settings
player.play()
Timer.scheduledTimer(withTimeInterval: timeLimit, repeats: false) { (timer) in
player.stop()
}
And in case you need to cancel it, you can keep a reference to the timer and cancel it using timer.invalidate().
As an audio engineer, I recommend editing your audio to be exactly how you want it to avoid any unwanted artifacts that can happen from coding.

Playing scheduled audio in the background

I am having a really difficult time with playing audio in the background of my app. The app is a timer that is counting down and plays bells, and everything worked using the timer originally. Since you cannot run a timer over 3 minutes in the background, I need to play the bells another way.
The user has the ability to choose bells and set the time for these bells to play (e.g. play bell immediately, after 5 minutes, repeat another bell every 10 minutes, etc).
So far I have tried using notifications using DispatchQueue.main and this will work fine if the user does not pause the timer. If they re-enter the app though and pause, I cannot seem to cancel this queue or pause it in anyway.
Next I tried using AVAudioEngine, and created a set of nodes. These will play while the app is in the foreground but seem to stop upon backgrounding. Additionally when I pause the engine and resume later, it won't pause the sequence properly. It will squish the bells into playing one after the other or not at all.
If anyone has any ideas of how to solve my issue that would be great. Technically I could try remove everything from the engine and recreate it from the paused time when the user pauses/resumes, but this seems quite costly. It also doesn't solve the problem of the audio stopping in the background. I have the required background mode 'App plays audio or streams audio/video using Airplay', and it is also checked under the background modes in capabilities.
Below is a sample of how I tried to set up the audio engine. The registerAndPlaySound method is called several other times to create the chain of nodes (or is this done incorrectly?). The code is kinda messy at the moment because I have been trying many ways trying to get this to work.
func setupSounds{
if (attached){
engine.detach(player)
}
engine.attach(player)
attached = true
let mixer = engine.mainMixerNode
engine.connect(player, to: mixer, format: mixer.outputFormat(forBus: 0))
var bell = ""
do {
try engine.start()
} catch {
return
}
if (currentSession.bellObject?.startBell != nil){
bell = (currentSession.bellObject?.startBell)!
guard let url = Bundle.main.url(forResource: bell, withExtension: "mp3") else {
return
}
registerAndPlaySound(url: url, delay: warmUpTime)
}
}
func registerAndPlaySound(url: URL, delay: Double) {
do {
let file = try AVAudioFile(forReading: url)
let format = file.processingFormat
let capacity = file.length
let buffer = AVAudioPCMBuffer(pcmFormat: format, frameCapacity: AVAudioFrameCount(capacity))
do {
try file.read(into: buffer)
}catch {
return
}
let sampleRate = buffer.format.sampleRate
let sampleTime = sampleRate*delay
let futureTime = AVAudioTime(sampleTime: AVAudioFramePosition(sampleTime), atRate: sampleRate)
player.scheduleBuffer(buffer, at: futureTime, options: AVAudioPlayerNodeBufferOptions(rawValue: 0), completionHandler: nil)
player.play()
} catch {
return
}
}

Set MPNowPlayingInfoCenter with other background audio playing

I am trying to play a video using MPMoviePlayerController for an iOS app in Swift.
My goal is to be able to play system music with something like apple music, then open my app and have the audio mix in, but I want my app to be able to take control of MPNowPlayingInfoCenter.
How can I use AVAudioSession.sharedInstance().setCategory(AVAudioSessionCategoryPlayback, withOptions: .MixWithOthers) while still set the MPNowPlayingInfoCenter?
Google Maps mixes in audio while taking setting MPNowPlayingInfoCenter. Below is how I am trying to set the MPNowPlayingInfoCenter:
func setMeta(){
UIApplication.sharedApplication().beginReceivingRemoteControlEvents()
self.becomeFirstResponder()
if let player = PlayWorkoutViewController.player{
let coverArt = MPMediaItemArtwork(image: UIImage(named: "AlbumArt")!)
let dict: [String: AnyObject] = [
MPMediaItemPropertyArtwork: coverArt,
MPMediaItemPropertyTitle:workout.title,
MPMediaItemPropertyArtist:"Alex",
MPMediaItemPropertyAlbumTitle:workout.program.title,
MPNowPlayingInfoPropertyPlaybackRate: player.currentPlaybackRate,
MPNowPlayingInfoPropertyElapsedPlaybackTime: player.currentPlaybackTime,
MPMediaItemPropertyPlaybackDuration: player.playableDuration
]
MPNowPlayingInfoCenter.defaultCenter().nowPlayingInfo = dict
}
}
The above function works when I am not trying to play outside music with an option (.MixWithOthers) at the same time, but while I am trying to play outside music with the option (.MixWithOthers) the info center does not update.
Edit 1: Just to make things super clear, I already having video playing properly I am trying to play video with other background audio while being able to set MPNowPlayingInfoCenter.
This isn't currently possible in iOS. Even just changing your category options to .MixWithOthers causes your nowPlayingInfo to be ignored.
My guess is iOS only considers non-mixing apps for inclusion in MPNowPlayingInfoCenter, because there is uncertainty as to which app would show up in (e.g.) Control Center if there are multiple mixing apps playing at the same time.
I'd very much like it if iOS used a best-effort approach for choosing the "now playing app", something like this:
If there's a non-mixing app playing, pick that. Else..
If there's only one mixing app playing, pick that. Else..
If there are multiple mixing apps playing, just pick one :) Or pick none, I'm fine with either.
If you'd like this behavior as well, I'd encourage you to file a bug with Apple.
Have you tried implementing your own custom function to update the MPNowPlayingInfoCenter? Recently I was using an AVAudioPlayer to play music and needed to do the updating manually.
This is basically the function I called upon a new song being loaded.
func updateNowPlayingCenter() {
let center = MPNowPlayingInfoCenter.defaultCenter()
if nowPlayingItem == nil {
center.nowPlayingInfo = nil
} else {
var songInfo = [String: AnyObject]()
// Add item to dictionary if it exists
if let artist = nowPlayingItem?.artist {
songInfo[MPMediaItemPropertyArtist] = artist
}
if let title = nowPlayingItem?.title {
songInfo[MPMediaItemPropertyTitle] = title
}
if let albumTitle = nowPlayingItem?.albumTitle {
songInfo[MPMediaItemPropertyAlbumTitle] = albumTitle
}
if let playbackDuration = nowPlayingItem?.playbackDuration {
songInfo[MPMediaItemPropertyPlaybackDuration] = playbackDuration
}
if let artwork = nowPlayingItem?.artwork {
songInfo[MPMediaItemPropertyArtwork] = artwork
}
center.nowPlayingInfo = songInfo
}
}
I am not sure if doing this upon a movie being loaded will override the MPMoviePlayerController, but it seems worth a shot.
Additionally, they have depreciated MPMoviePlayerController and replaced it with AVPlayerViewController, so thats also worth looking into.
Edit: Also I would check to make sure that you are properly receiving remote control events, as this impacts the data being displayed by the info center.
To play the video in swift use this:-
func playVideoEffect() {
let path = NSBundle.mainBundle().pathForResource("egg_grabberAnmi", ofType:"mp4")
let url = NSURL.fileURLWithPath(path!)
self.moviePlayer = MPMoviePlayerController(contentURL: url)
if let player = moviePlayer {
let screenSize: CGRect = UIScreen.mainScreen().bounds
player.view.frame = CGRect(x: frame.size.width*0.10,y: frame.size.width/2, width:screenSize.width * 0.80, height: screenSize.width * 0.80)
player.view.sizeToFit()
player.scalingMode = MPMovieScalingMode.Fill
player.fullscreen = true
player.controlStyle = MPMovieControlStyle.None
player.movieSourceType = MPMovieSourceType.File
player.play()
self.view?.addSubview(player.view)
var timer = NSTimer.scheduledTimerWithTimeInterval(6.0, target: self, selector: Selector("update"), userInfo: nil, repeats: false)
}
}
// And Use the function to play Video
playVideoEffect()

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