AVPlayer plays audio but video freezes

Question

I have two

UIViewControllers

each with an

AVPlayer

that are supposed to play a video file when they are pushed into a

UINavigationController

:

    -(void)viewWillAppear:(BOOL)animated{
  
    videoView = [[UIView alloc]initWithFrame:self.view.frame];
  
    NSString *filepath = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:@"myVideo" ofType:@"mov"];
    NSURL *fileURL = [NSURL fileURLWithPath:filepath];
    self.avPlayer = [AVPlayer playerWithURL:fileURL];
  
    AVPlayerLayer *foregroundLayer = [AVPlayerLayer playerLayerWithPlayer:self.avPlayer];
    self.avPlayer.actionAtItemEnd = AVPlayerActionAtItemEndNone;
    foregroundLayer.frame = self.view.frame;
    foregroundLayer.videoGravity = AVLayerVideoGravityResizeAspectFill;
  
    [videoView.layer addSublayer:foregroundLayer];
  
    [self.view addSubview:videoView];
  
    self.avPlayer.actionAtItemEnd = AVPlayerActionAtItemEndNone;
  
    [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self
    selector:@selector(playerItemDidReachEnd:)
    name:AVPlayerItemDidPlayToEndTimeNotification
    object:[self.avPlayer currentItem]];
    }
  
    -(void)viewDidAppear:(BOOL)animated{
  
    [self.avPlayer play];
    }
  
    -(void)playerItemDidReachEnd:(NSNotification *)notification {
  
    [self.navigationController popViewControllerAnimated:NO]
    }

The first time I push any of the

UIViewControllers

the playback works well. But after that, if I push any of them again the sound plays but the video freezes.

I've tried using a

MPMoviePlayerViewController

but the behavior is the same. Any thoughts?

AVFoundation

11k

Posted by

YoanGJ

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Answer 1

Did you ever find a solution to this? I am struggling with my AVPlayer worling fine,even looping, but when I go back and come back in, only the audio plays. This is happening elsewhere as well in a UICollectionViewCell

Posted by

AppDever

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Answer 2

I'm having this exact same issue. Did either of you have any luck with this?

Posted by

patricksf

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Answer 3

I'm also having the same issue when streaming a remote mp4 file and download it at the same time.

hopely , apple engineer would share a solution.

Posted by

chengfei Xiao

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Answer 4

I recently noticed this issue as well when playing assets downloaded to the device. Playback starts fine, but when i pause and then attempt to resume playback the audio resumes but the video does not and the rest of the UI becomes unresponsive. the effect seems much more pronounced with large files (almost 3Gig), but i also see short freezes on smaller files. in the case of the 3Gig asset the freeze will last upwards of 30 seconds before the UI becomes responsive once again.

iOS 10.3.3

multiple devices

Posted by

elsuperjefe

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Answer 5

Yes this happens for me too, unfortunately in iOS 11 also. Only on poor connections, it will play a bit of the video, and then freeze on the same frame and continue playing the audio. Very annoying!

Posted by

jdtech

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Answer 6

Did anyone find a solution? It happens (as said by jdtech) on iOS 11 too, and it is really annoying! We can't even handle the freez, so I don't know how to do (I live stream an m3u8 streaming). Thanks!

Posted by

gianpierospi

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Answer 7

This issue comes up when in a bad network environment. Because of that, the AVPlayer will try to switch to the low bandwidth manifest which can be an audio one.

You can observe the currentItem.tracks to know when it will happen.

If it happens, it will lose the video track, but remain the audio track. You can detect the issue by this.

The AVPlayer also will try to take back the video stream later. But the issue I have is when the video stream came in, I don't know when the AVPlayer will render it. Or how to force the AVPlayer to render it.

Posted by

Hai Kieu

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Answer 8

Did anyone figure out this issue? I am facing similar issue. When I pause and play video on same AVPlayerLayer, it works perfectly fine. However, when I try to display same AVPlayer item on AVPlayerViewController, only audio plays while video freeazes.

Posted by

thesauce25

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Answer 9

This is not exactly the same issue as the original one, but I'm having the one you are describing. I found a work around but it's very ugly imo.

When you observe that the AVPlayer is getting back to a video enabled track, you can seek to a position that hasn't been buffered yet (I tried 30seconds ahead), and then seek back to your current position, and normaly the images is rendered well.
I guess it has to be about the buffers, but my knowledge in those parts of iOS is too poor to understand what's going on and maybe find a better solution.
Have you ever found a better solution?

Posted by

Saliom

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Answer 10

For some of you this might answer your question.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/36571222/avplayer-stuck-video-but-audio-works/55177203#55177203

Posted by

vaibhav281128

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Answer 11

I'm having the same issue as well. Any updates on an answer?

Posted by

Shredder2794

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Answer 12

I am also having this issue and apparently, WhatsApp has the same issue too. I often encountered that on my iPhone. If anyone fixes this, please reply with a solution here on this post. Thanks!!!

Posted by

singh.karanveer

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Answer 13

I faced the same issue.

Video freezes and audio continues to play

I fixed by adding this line try? AVAudioSession.sharedInstance().setCategory(AVAudioSession.Category.playback)

my code for reference:

                try? AVAudioSession.sharedInstance().setCategory(AVAudioSession.Category.playback)
                if self.playerLayer != nil {
                    self.playerLayer?.removeFromSuperlayer()
                    self.playerLayer = nil
                }
                self.playerLayer = AVPlayerLayer(player: self.player)
                self.playerLayer?.videoGravity = .resize
                self.player = AVPlayer(url: videoUrl)
                self.playerLayer?.frame = self.view.layer.bounds
                addObserversVideoItem(myCustomVideoItem)

Posted by

BalajiU

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AVPlayer plays audio but video freezes

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