I have a music signal processor app I want to publish and it needs to run in the back ground. I used to Info-plist to do so with UIBackgroundModes. It runs on IOS7 or less, and the problem I am having is once the phone locks and the app goes into the background I can't get it to come out of the background and its keeps running with the red banner at the top. Some of this I have learned as I go, but I have noticed some run on a timer, but I want mine, since its a music processor to keep going until the phone either unlocks or whatever interrupted it stops.
The app is basically a stomp box used with iRig. If that helps.
Thanks
Can you clarify about what you mean when the phone locks, the app goes into the background and yo can't get it to come out of the background? Are you saying like the app is playing music while the app is locked?
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I have an ios app that takes audio from the phone microphone, performs some processing on the mic data in real time and sends the result to headphones
In Project -> Capabilities -> Background modes, I have selected Audio, AirPlay and Picture in Picture
I want the app to continue to read microphone data and send audio to headphones when the app is in background (user presses home button) and when the phone screen is locked using the lock button
All of this is happening, so I don't think there are any problems with the app permissions, but I have noticed that after the app is backgrounded, it suddenly gets killed, usually in less than a minute
I managed to catch an instance of the app getting killed in the background in the xcode console and the message was
Message from Debugger: terminated due to signal 9
Looking around in google indicates that this simply means that the app was destroyed by the OS using SIGKILL
Is there any way to find out why the app was killed? Is it just impossible to keep the app running in background for a long period? Before I enabled Audio, AirPlay and Picture in Picture background mode, the audio used to stop as soon as I pressed the home button or the screen lock button. I am assuming that since the audio keeps running when I press the home button now implies I am indeed able to run mic/speaker in the background if I have to, and there are music players as well as audio recorder apps that work in the background until the user specifically closes them.
How can I find out the exact reason why my app is getting closed automatically, and what can I do to keep it running in the background indefinitely until the user closes it?
After you installed your app through xcode, run it normally (not by run in xcode), Let it crash. Then connect the phone, go to xcode -> Window -> Devices and Simulators -> View Device Logs. Then find the most recent crash.
Your particular problems sounds to me like overuse of CPU. App in background cannot utilize more than 80% (IIRC) of device CPU for extended periods of time (around one minute) or it will be killed by the system. If that is your case you simply need to optimize your code to not hog the CPU.
I'm currently working on an app which reminds the user, when he gets to an certain location. I want this app working in background as well and searched for solutions.
In the AppStore i found the App called Sleep Cycle, which tracks your activities during your sleep. When you set the alarm, and running the App in the Background you get this screen red bar on the top of the Display of your iPhone.
http://i.stack.imgur.com/uEejp.jpg
Does anybody know what kind of Backgroundmode this is, and how i can transfer it to my app?
Thanks
To have such a red bar I use audio background mode and also I record sound in background. Since Sleep Cycle asks user to allow access to microphone I believe it also records audio in background
We've been using the AIR sound API, building for iOS, with no problems till now, the problem is that the sound works until iPad goes to sleep and there's no sound from our app when iPad is woken back up.
Note: we have the app set to exit on suspend, and we don't have this problem when user suspends -- i.e, hits the button and goes back to desktop.
We only have it when iPad goes to sleep (screen goes dark but app is still running). As far as I can tell our app is not receiving any events from iOS when the iPad goes to sleep or wakes back up. Once this has all happened and the game has no sound, but exiting and restarting makes it work again.
We are getting an activate event from the native application object when iPad is woken up, I'm also checking (just because it sounds useful) the value of SoundMixer.areSoundsInaccessible, but that's way off base. I do get a soundchannel object back when I play a sound while the problem is in effect, I just can't hear it.
We were having a similar problem with audio not playing (roughly half the time the device had been asleep), and fixed it with this:
// AudioPlaybackMode.MEDIA is the default value
SoundMixer.audioPlaybackMode = AudioPlaybackMode.AMBIENT;
Once that was done, audio came back immediately after the app woke up.
Note that AMBIENT's behaviour depends on whether the microphone is being used.
I have developed a small music app by using AVPlayer and MPMediaPickerControlLibrary with all the normal required functionalities for a music app. The app is also capable of running in the background when the screen is locked.
Now, what I want is to start the app when the screen is locked through a shake and soon as the app starts the current song should start playing.
I am not able to achieve this from a long time
Any suggestions on this will be highly appreciated or any other workaround apart from shake to turn on the music in the app when the screen is locked in iPhone.
Thanks in advance.
You need to implement the a CMMotionManager object, but keeping it running all the time in background will be a major power consumption issue.
Modifying the updateInterval property to reduce the number of updates will defeat the purpose, given that you may miss a shake in background.
Now, if the app was terminated by the user, then no motionManager object will be available until the user launches the app again.
First of all I hope don't repeat any topic, I have spent a lot of time reading on internet about this before ask.
I'm developing an app for iOS => 5 and I need get the user location, but I don't need always a great accurate position, so when the app goes to background I change the normal location mode to Significant Location Changes and when the app come to foreground I stop the significant location change mode and get back the normal location mode, that's all goes fine,
my problem is when the app goes to background mode or even the user KILL the app the GPS signal (the purple arrow) still appear ALWAYS, even after restart the device, the only way to make disappear it is un-installing the or disabling the significant location changes when the app goes to background, but I need this mode working when the user goes to background mode, maybe not when the app is killed.
I don't know how to stop the service when the user kill the app... because event "applicationWillTerminate" is not called if you have multitask ON.
My main reason because I don't want the purple arrow appear always, even the app is killed is because I don't want the user think the app is drying the battery... so the user won't want the app installed.
First question: Is normal that the purple arrow appear always, even the app is killed if the Significant location change is enabled for the app?
Second question: Is any way to change this, to stop the service at least when the app is killed to hide the purple arrow?
Thank you all.
Sorry for my english if something is wrong.
After few days researching to be sure about this service, seems like there is NO way to use significant locations change in the background without the arrow in the top bar. I have been testing with different apps and reading through internet and nothing to solve this.
The only ""way to solve"" this is disable multitask mode in the app and disable the significant locations change in the event "applicationWillTerminate" but don't make sense... I'm losing the background location always not only when the app is killed... so is not useful.
It's bad... is a really good service to get locations saving battery but as user and developer I don't want an app that make appear this icon ALWAYS even after the app is killed, as developer I don't want that people uninstall the app for this reason and as normal user I don't know what mean this icon if is normal GPS or Significant locations change and what mean this... if my battery is being drain or not.
The other option to get locations in background task but has a big impact over the battery....
I hope apple fix this in future versions... adding at least a new arrow or showing only when a new location arrive instad of always or allowing to stooped when the app is killed.
All this has been researched over iOS - 6.1
Thanks to all.
When you use the significant location change service, the OS keeps your app running. If the app is in the background and is killed, the OS restarts it, so the purple arrow will always show. When a new location is detected, the app is restarted. From the docs:
If you leave this service running and your app is subsequently suspended or terminated, the service automatically wakes up your app when new location data arrives. At wake-up time, your app is put into the background and given a small amount of time to process the location data. ... To stop the significant change location service, call the stopMonitoringSignificantLocationChanges method.
Hmmm, interesting. I've just seen that problem with another app - seeing the arrow still active made me want to disable location updates for that app so the problem is real. Best thing I can think of is to have some kind of timer to disable the location monitoring after a certain amount of time if that is appropriate for your app.