Playing a video with Xamarin for iOS broken after latest update - ios

Question

The following code in Xamarin for iOS was working fine prior to the Xamarin for iOS update to v2.0.50727
This is the code in a custom renderer in a Xamarin Forms app
class WatchVideoRenderer : PageRenderer
{
MPMoviePlayerController moviePlayer;
protected override void OnElementChanged(VisualElementChangedEventArgs e)
{
base.OnElementChanged(e);
var url = new NSUrl("http://192.168.12.4:8085/MediaUploads/1/211/520140731170618/DPM202.mp4");
moviePlayer = new MPMoviePlayerController();
moviePlayer.ContentUrl = url;
moviePlayer.View.Frame = new CGRect((float)((NativeView.Bounds.Width - 600) / 2), (float)((NativeView.Bounds.Height - 450) / 2), 600, 400);
MPMoviePlayerController.Notifications.ObserveLoadStateDidChange(OnLoadStateChanged);
MPMoviePlayerController.Notifications.ObservePlaybackDidFinish(OnPlaybackComplete);
View.AddSubview(moviePlayer.View);
moviePlayer.PrepareToPlay();
moviePlayer.ShouldAutoplay = true;
moviePlayer.Play();
}
private void OnLoadStateChanged(object sender, NSNotificationEventArgs e)
{
if (moviePlayer.LoadState == MPMovieLoadState.Playable)
{
}
}
private void OnPlaybackComplete(object sender, MPMoviePlayerFinishedEventArgs e)
{
}
}
As i said this was working till day before yesterday, after which I installed 2 updates on Xamarin. iOS & this is now failing. All i see is a black canvas & the video never loads.
No notifications from the MPMoviePlayerController are ever raised.
There is a release of this app scheduled for next week & this last minute bug is causing me headaches. Any help is really appreciated.

Answer 1

I resolved a similar issue by pushing a new image context and that did the trick. I modified the code to include the BeginImageContext() and EndImageContext().
UIGraphics.BeginImageContext(new CGSize(1,1));
var url = new NSUrl("http://192.168.12.4:8085/MediaUploads/1/211/520140731170618/DPM202.mp4");
moviePlayer = new MPMoviePlayerController();
moviePlayer.ContentUrl = url;
moviePlayer.View.Frame = new CGRect((float)((NativeView.Bounds.Width - 600) / 2), (float)((NativeView.Bounds.Height - 450) / 2), 600, 400);
UIGraphics.EndImageContext();

Answer 2

Try switching to AVPlayerViewController instead of MPMoviePlayerController. Throw this code inside your OnElementChanged method.
My renderer was a view renderer and not a page renderer so you might have to tweak it a bit.
if(Control == null)
{
AVPlayerViewController avpvc;
AVPlayer avp;
var url = NSUrl.FromString("SOME URL HERE"); //or NSUrl.FromFile
avp = new AVPlayer(url);
avpvc = new AVPlayerViewController();
avpvc.Player = avp;
avpvc.ShowsPlaybackControls = true;
avp.Play();
this.SetNativeControl(avpvc.View);
}