How to fix issues playing audio in xcode? - ios

Question

I have the following code in my viewcontroller. When I run, the audio doesn't play in the xcode simulator. Any advice on what I should do?
Also, I've saved anomaly.mp3 in the same directory (no sub-folders) as ViewController.m.
#import <AVFoundation/AVFoundation.h> //before viewDidLoad
NSError * error = nil;
NSURL *url = [NSURL fileURLWithPath:[[NSBundle mainBundle]
pathForResource:#"anomaly"
ofType:#"mp3"]];
AVAudioPlayer *audioPlayer = [[AVAudioPlayer alloc]
initWithContentsOfURL:url
error:&error];
if (error){
NSLog(#"error: %#", [error localizedDescription]);
}
NSLog(#"test");
[audioPlayer play];

Answer 1

Try setting the audio player's volume. You can also check the results of the "play" function, to see if things worked correctly. The play function implicitly calls prepareToPlay. This function can fail out for a number of reasons, irritatingly without any error object or message...
NSError * error = nil;
NSURL *url = [NSURL fileURLWithPath:[[NSBundle mainBundle]
pathForResource:#"anomaly"
ofType:#"mp3"]];
AVAudioPlayer *audioPlayer = [[AVAudioPlayer alloc]
initWithContentsOfURL:url
error:&error];
if (error){
NSLog(#"error: %#", [error localizedDescription]);
} else {
audioPlayer.volume = 50;
if([audioPlayer play]) NSLog(#"Should be playing");
else NSLog(#"Something weird happened"); //usually related to unavailable hardware
}

Answer 2

Keep a strong reference to the audioPlayer by declaring it as:
#property (nonatomic) AVAudioPlayer *audioPlayer;
and then use self.audioPlayer wherever you have used audioPlayer.
The problem with your code is that because your audioPlayer is just a local variable to the method, it gets deallocated by ARC as soon as your method is completed. Keeping a strong reference to it will keep the audioPlayer object and memory and your sound will keep playing as long as you don't call
[self.audioPlayer stop];