We built our music-oriented app in html5 and javascript with Sencha touch. For distribution we wrapped it in xcode with UIwebView. Everything runs fine except one thing that does not work: audio playing in multitask mode.
I know the general idea: add the UIBackgroundModes in info.plist.
Done. Now we can play the audio even in background mode.
Until we reach the end of the song. To start the next song we have to bring the app to foreground again or we can hit the play or 'next song' button on the iPhone audio controller.
After some research I found a promising workaround at: " Entering background on iOS4 to play audio " where the workaround is to edit AVAudioSessionCategoryPlayback and work with the UIBackgroundTaskIdentifier.
The problem for me is (just like in any other fix I found so far) that those solutions always assume that the audio is played either with AVaudioPlayer or MPMusicPlayerController. But in my case I user neither, our audio is played by our html5 player wrapped in UIwebView.
Anyone has any advice on how to continue playing the audio in iOS multitask mode when the audio player is a html5/javascript player?
My app plays audio via an <audio> tag in html hosted in UIWebView, and it supports background playing.
As you suggest, you need to have the 'App plays audio' background mode defined in your plist.
Try adding this to your applicationDidFinishLaunching: handler:
NSError *setCategoryError = nil;
[[AVAudioSession sharedInstance] setCategory: AVAudioSessionCategoryPlayback error: &setCategoryError];
Thanks, guys, but I ended up simply keeping the app busy in a loop when in background mode. This was enough to bridge the time when connecting to the next song on the playlist.
The code I used is similar to this one:
iPhone - Backgrounding to poll for events
You could try this, adding a function on the onend event.
Related
I checked Google and here as well. Maybe the question hasn't been asked yet or I am just asking it in a very weird way. There are certain apps, one that I've noticed in particular is Snapchat, where when the app opens, the music continues to play even with the camera and even while taking a picture with silent switch turn on or off. The camera sound goes off as well.
So for an example, right now I am listening to music through Soundcloud and when I open my app, the music stops playing, but I can press play and continue to play music while using my app once I put this line of code in my appWillEnterForeground method: [[AVAudioSession sharedInstance] setCategory:AVAudioSessionCategoryAmbient error:nil];
When I do this in Snapchat, the music continues to play. Even when I take a video too!
How?
There has to be some code that uses the AV system for audio in the way. Check for a call like
[session addInput:audioDeviceInput];
where session is an instance of AVCaptureSession.
To demonstrate and research, you can take the Apple example AVCam (https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/samplecode/AVCam/Introduction/Intro.html) and run it from XCode. When music is playing, it will stop playing when the AVCam app starts.
Now open the source file AVCam/AVCamViewController.m and search for the line
[session addInput:audioDeviceInput];
When you delete this line or comment it out, music will continue to play when you run the app.
Off course, there may be other statements that block the sound playing in your app. Check calls to methods from AV objects and look especially for audio input and output.
Im using YouTube Helper Library to play YouTube videos on my iOS application
Here are link of Library
I just need a way to continue audio (or video) playing in background ,
So when user click on home button i need him to be able to hear the voice
of the video ,
even when he lock his device i need to him to be able to control the sound and
click next and back button for audio playing ..
How i can achieve that on YouTube Helper Library ?
NOTE: many application do that and they exist on app-store like iMusic , Video Tube ,MusicTV , MB2
Playing background video (or voice) is against the YouTube TOS. You can not do it with this library for sure, even if you figure out a workaround, your app would be taken down because of TOS violation.
About playing sounds in background:
You have to set the AVAudioSession category to AVAudioSessionCategoryPlayback and add the audio value to the UIBackgroundModes key in your information property list file.
NSError *setCategoryError = nil;
[[AVAudioSession sharedInstance] setCategory: AVAudioSessionCategoryPlayback error: &setCategoryError];
I have tested this code on iOS 7 and up only, so it may not work for earlier versions.
From Apple docs:
AVAudioSessionCategoryPlayback The category for playing recorded music
or other sounds that are central to the successful use of your app.
When using this category, your app audio continues with the Silent
switch set to silent or when the screen locks. (The switch is called
the Ring/Silent switch on iPhone.) To continue playing audio when your
app transitions to the background (for example, when the screen
locks), add the audio value to the UIBackgroundModes key in your
information property list file.
see references here and here
You need to enable it when app enter background. Remember to check your app is in background
func playerView(_ playerView: YTPlayerView, didChangeTo state: YTPlayerState) {
if state == .paused {
playerView.playVideo()
}
}
In my application I have made [audioSession setCategory:AVAudioSessionCategoryPlayback] to play audio in back ground and also to mute other audio play backs while playing song in my application. I am playing the audio using AVPlayer and also I have UIWebView for playing video in same Application. The issue arises when I play both video in web view and audio using AVPlayer. The music mixes in this case. Prior to iOS 6 when I rech same situation one audio pauses automatically and the mixing up does not occur. So kindly suggest some solutions.
Try to set
Required background modes -> App plays audio
in Info.plist.
I have done several apps with buzztouch for Iphone and Ipads, here is a free one as an example :
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lr-basics-free-edition/id497563707?mt=8
I do not know code very much, I have very little basics that is why I designed my app using Buzztouch, which by the way is amazing !
The only one problem that I have is that the default behavior when you play a video (which was most of my apps are doing, playing tutorials) and if the silent mode is on either on Ipad or Iphone, there is no audio, even thought the volume slider is active, given the impressions to users that there is a bug, and I got some bad reviews due to that, I have also people writing me about it. I Then tell them all they have to do is to turn off the silent mode and they the audio is back, works everytime, but in the meantime I get complaits !
So here is my questions, is there a simple way I can located in the Buzztouch generated code a property that can easely be changed so that when a video is played, audio stays, despiste the silent mode being active.
I actually checked 4 or 5 other Iphones similar applications including the default youtube apple app, the default is that the audio plays even if the silent mode is turn on, giving my customer the impression that my app is bugged.
I'm not a programmer so please but as simple as possible in your answer.
Tku so much for the help.
Serge
What you are describing is the default behavior in iOS - when the ring/silent switch is in silent mode all audio from your app will be suppressed.
I don't know about implementing this from BuzzTouch, but here is a native solution I used to get around this for one of my apps that plays video:
MPMoviePlayerViewController *mpvc = [[MPMoviePlayerViewController alloc] initWithContentURL:myVidURL];
... set up player ...
// prevent mute switch from switching off audio from movie player
NSError *_error = nil;
[[AVAudioSession sharedInstance] setCategory: AVAudioSessionCategoryPlayback error: &_error];
[self presentMoviePlayerViewControllerAnimated:mpvc];
You will also need to include the AVFoundation framework for this to work.
Here's the link where I first found this tip:
http://www.24100.net/2011/05/ignore-ringtone-mute-switch-during-mpmovieplayer-video-playback-ios/
Right from documentation - iOS has 6 audio session categories out of that 3 affects the behavior of Slient switch:
AVAudioSessionCategoryAmbient or the equivalent kAudioSessionCategory_AmbientSound— Using this category, your audio is silenced by the Ring/Silent switch and when the screen locks. Used when we want our app audio with built-in app audio
AVAudioSessionCategorySoloAmbient or the equivalent kAudioSessionCategory_SoloAmbientSound—Use this category for an application whose audio you want silenced when the user switches the Ring/Silent switch to the “silent” position and when the screen locks. This is the default category
AVAudioSessionCategoryPlayback or the equivalent kAudioSessionCategory_MediaPlayback—Use this category for an application whose audio playback is of primary importance. Your audio plays even with the screen locked and with the Ring/Silent switch set to silent.
Hint: Upload the audio file to your buzztouch account files. This is the only way Buzztouch will recognize the audio. next, add the audio file to your xcode bttouch sound folder and add all references. You should be fine!
I am doing audio playback using the AVPlayer class from a remote URL.
It plays fine if I just play to the headphones/built in speaker, but I am seeing some oddities with AirPlay.
When I change to use an AppleTV for AirPlay, it will stream the audio, but on my iphone the audio playback indicator (the small 'play' triangle in the top menu bar) disappears, and when I lock the phone instead of continuing in the background, it stops. (When playing normally, it plays in the background fine).
Why is the AVPlayer not working in the background for audio over AirPlay?
Is this what other see? Is there a way around it?
Ok - I dug through the apple dev forums and found a hint.
If you are using AVPlayer for audio only, and want it to work in the background while doing airplay, you need to disable the allowsAirPlayVideo setting.
Apparently AVPlayer on iOS 5+ assumes that it is playing back video via AirPlay, and so does not allow backgrounding, unless you explicitly disable video AirPlay.
Once you disable this (i.e. self.player.allowsAirPlayVideo = FALSE;) then your audio will still play via AirPlay, but now it will not be treated as video, only as audio, and so will allow the backgrounding to work.
Have you enable the 'Background Audio' mutlitasking setting in the app plist?