MPMoviePlayerController showing black empty screen - ios

Question

I use MPMoviePlayerController to play a local file in my Application Document folder which have I have downloaded for a server URL:
itemMoviePlayerController = [[MPMoviePlayerController alloc] initWithContentURL:fileURL];
[self.view addSubview:itemMoviePlayerController.view];
itemMoviePlayerController.fullscreen = YES;
itemMoviePlayerController.movieSourceType = MPMovieSourceTypeFile;
itemMoviePlayerController.initialPlaybackTime = -1.0;
[itemMoviePlayerController play];
When I play .mov file just after I downloaded it, It shows up a black empty screen & app UI is unusable.
But if play same local file next time, it plays fine.
I even verified playState & localState for MPMoviePlayerController they seems fine.
What could be reason for black empty screen?

Answer 1

You need to retain your instance of MPMoviePlayerController i.e. as a property or an instance variable. The reference to the movie player is lost if you do not retain it.

Answer 2

You could try to put [itemMoviePlayerController prepareToPlay];
before the [itemMoviePlayerController play];
The way preferred by Apple to display an only full screen video is to present a modal MPMoviePlayerViewController (as Hollance said).
To present it, you should use something like :
moviePlayerViewController = [[MPMoviePlayerViewController alloc] initWithContentURL:fileURL];
[self presentMoviePlayerViewControllerAnimated:moviePlayerViewController];
[itemMoviePlayerController play];
This is documented by Apple here
You can read there that you should keep a reference to your MPMoviePlayerViewController in order to dismiss it later with
[self dismissMoviePlayerViewControllerAnimated:moviePlayerViewController].

Answer 3

I fixed this by putting
#property (strong, nonatomic) MPMoviePlayerController *moviePlayer;
in my .h file, and calling self.moviePlayer in all my code and it worked!

Answer 4

You need to use MPMoviePlayerViewController instead. Notice the word "View" in there.

Answer 5

I hope this will help. I solved this problem in my project
-(void)startPlayingMovie
{
NSLog(#"startPlayingMovie");
NSURL *url = [NSURL fileURLWithPath:[[NSBundle mainBundle]
pathForResource:#"Start_video" ofType:#"mov"]];
moviePlayer = [[MPMoviePlayerViewController alloc]
initWithContentURL:url];
moviePlayer.view.frame = CGRectMake(0, 0, self.view.bounds.size.height, self.view.bounds.size.width);
[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self
selector:#selector(moviePlayBackDidFinish:)
name:MPMoviePlayerPlaybackDidFinishNotification
object:moviePlayer.moviePlayer];
moviePlayer.moviePlayer.controlStyle = MPMovieControlStyleNone;
moviePlayer.moviePlayer.shouldAutoplay = YES;
[self presentMoviePlayerViewControllerAnimated:moviePlayer];
[moviePlayer.moviePlayer setFullscreen:YES animated:NO];
NSLog(#"endPlayingMovie");
}

Answer 6

Same thing happened to me. It turns out, I had tried to play the movie while the UIImagePicker wasn't dismissed yet.
In my UIImagePickerDelegate I had to first dismiss the UIImagePicker Popup and then open the ViewController managing the MPMediaPlayerController:
- (void)imagePickerController:(UIImagePickerController *)picker didFinishPickingMediaWithInfo:(NSDictionary *)infoDict
{
//the first thing to do: dismiss the media picker
if ([ipPop isPopoverVisible])
{
[ipPop dismissPopoverAnimated:ANIMATION_SETTING];
}
myMediaPlayerViewController * playerVC = [[myMediaPlayerViewController alloc] initWithMediaDict:infoDict];
[self.navigationController pushViewController:playerVC animated:ANIMATION_SETTING];
}

Answer 7

I had this same problem and it made me crazy. It would work on one view controller fine (audio and video), but not work on another (black screen with just audio). In the end, all I did was CHANGE THE ORDER of the calls: I simply waited until I was done configuring the movie player before adding it to the view. In other words, I called "addSubview" on the line just before the call to "play".

Answer 8

This is the code I'm using to play a file from URL:
MPMoviePlayerViewController *movieViewController = [[MPMoviePlayerViewController alloc] initWithContentURL:[NSURL URLWithString:contentUrl]];
movieViewController.moviePlayer.movieSourceType = MPMovieSourceTypeFile;
[self presentMoviePlayerViewControllerAnimated:movieViewController];
[movieViewController release];
It seems to work fine for me. Two notes:
Some simulators (like the current iOS 5.0) crash when playing a movie, but it works on a real device
If you leave out the movieSourceType part, a black screen is shown for about a second before the movie starts

Answer 9

I had the same problem, solved it changing the extension of the file being played from .mpg to .mp4. apparently MPMoviePlayerController expects a correct extension, though from the documentation it is not clear to me that this is a requirement:
http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/mediaplayer/reference/MPMoviePlayerController_Class/Reference/Reference.html
Supported Formats This class plays any movie or audio file supported
in iOS. This includes both streamed content and fixed-length files.
For movie files, this typically means files with the extensions .mov,
.mp4, .mpv, and .3gp and using one of the following compression
standards:

Answer 10

This issue seems fixed after updating device iOS to 5.0.
Seems to iOS SDK issue for previous version

Answer 11

you must do like that with CGRectMake(0, 0, 0, 0) in the finished callback!
-(void)playMovieAtURL:(NSURL*)theURL
{
MPMoviePlayerController* theMovie=[[MPMoviePlayerController alloc] initWithContentURL:theURL];
theMovie.scalingMode=MPMovieScalingModeAspectFill;
theMovie.view.frame = CGRectMake(2, 246, 317, 70);
[self.view addSubview:theMovie.view];
// Register for the playback finished notification.
[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self
selector:#selector(myMovieFinishedCallback:)
name:MPMoviePlayerPlaybackDidFinishNotification
object:theMovie];
// Movie playback is asynchronous, so this method returns immediately.
[theMovie play];
}
// When the movie is done,release the controller.
-(void)myMovieFinishedCallback:(NSNotification*)aNotification
{
MPMoviePlayerController* theMovie=[aNotification object];
[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] removeObserver:self
name:MPMoviePlayerPlaybackDidFinishNotification
object:theMovie];
theMovie.view.frame = CGRectMake(0, 0, 0, 0);
// Release the movie instance created in playMovieAtURL
[theMovie release];
}

Answer 12

I was having a similar issue. After playback there comes an empty screen, which prevents me to play video again.
Well here is my work around. That way play button doesn't disappear.
[self.movieController stop];
[self.movieController prepareToPlay];
[self.movieController pause];

Answer 13

Also, If you are using http URLs, make sure you disable App Transport Security in your projects *.plist file. It will also cause a black screen.
Add the following code:
<key>NSAppTransportSecurity</key>
<dict>
<key>NSAllowsArbitraryLoads</key><true/>
</dict>
Here:
[INSERT CODE ABOVE HERE]
</dict>
</plist>
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