AVPlayer stops playing and doesn't resume again

Question

In my application I have to play audio files stored on a web server. I\'m using AVPlayer for it. I have all the play/pause controls and all delegates and observ

Answer 1

I also ran into this issue as described here

I tested this answer below multiple times and it worked every time so far.

Here is what I came up with for the Swift 5 version of @wallace's answer.

1- instead of observing the keyPath "playbackLikelyToKeepUp" I use the .AVPlayerItemPlaybackStalled Notification and inside there I check to see if the buffer is full or not via if !playerItem.isPlaybackLikelyToKeepUp {...}

2- instead of using his PlayerHangingNotification I use a function named playerIsHanging()

3- instead of using his PlayerContinueNotification I use a function named checkPlayerTryCount()

4- and inside checkPlayerTryCount() I do everything the same as his (void)playerContinue function except when I ran into } else if playerTryCount == 0 { nothing would happen. To avoid that I added 2 lines of code above the return statement

5- like @PranoyC suggested under @wallace's comments I set the playerTryCount to a max of 20 instead of 10. I also set it as a class property let playerTryCountMaxLimit = 20

You have to add/remove your activity indicator/spinner where the comment suggests to do so

code:

NotificationCenter.default.addObserver(self, selector: #selector(self.playerItemPlaybackStalled(_:)),
                                       name: NSNotification.Name.AVPlayerItemPlaybackStalled,
                                       object: playerItem)

@objc func playerItemPlaybackStalled(_ notification: Notification) {
// The system may post this notification on a thread other than the one used to registered the observer: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/foundation/nsnotification/name/1387661-avplayeritemplaybackstalled

    guard let playerItem = notification.object as? AVPlayerItem else { return }
    
    // playerItem.isPlaybackLikelyToKeepUp == false && if the player's current time is greater than zero && the player's current time is not equal to the player's duration
    if (!playerItem.isPlaybackLikelyToKeepUp) && (CMTimeCompare(playerItem.currentTime(), .zero) == 1) && (CMTimeCompare(playerItem.currentTime(), playerItem.duration) != 0) {
        
        DispatchQueue.main.async { [weak self] in
            self?.playerIsHanging()
        }
    }
}

var playerTryCount = -1 // this should get set to 0 when the AVPlayer starts playing
let playerTryCountMaxLimit = 20

func playerIsHanging() {
    
    if playerTryCount <= playerTryCountMaxLimit {
        
        playerTryCount += 1

        // show spinner

        checkPlayerTryCount()

    } else {
        // show spinner, show alert, or possibly use player?.replaceCurrentItem(with: playerItem) to start over ***BE SURE TO RESET playerTryCount = 0 ***
        print("1.-----> PROBLEM")
    }
}

func checkPlayerTryCount() {
    
    guard let player = player, let playerItem = player.currentItem else { return }
    
    // if the player's current time is equal to the player's duration
    if CMTimeCompare(playerItem.currentTime(), playerItem.duration) == 0 {
        
        // show spinner or better yet remove spinner and show a replayButton or auto rewind to the beginning ***BE SURE TO RESET playerTryCount = 0 ***
        
    } else if playerTryCount > playerTryCountMaxLimit {
        
        // show spinner, show alert, or possibly use player?.replaceCurrentItem(with: playerItem) to start over ***BE SURE TO RESET playerTryCount = 0 ***
        print("2.-----> PROBLEM")

    } else if playerTryCount == 0 {

        // *** in his answer he has nothing but a return statement here but when it would hit this condition nothing would happen. I had to add these 2 lines of code for it to continue ***
        playerTryCount += 1
        retryCheckPlayerTryCountAgain()
        return // protects against a race condition
        
    } else if playerItem.isPlaybackLikelyToKeepUp {
        
        // remove spinner and reset playerTryCount to zero
        playerTryCount = 0
        player?.play()

    } else { // still hanging, not at end
        
        playerTryCount += 1
        
        /*
          create a 0.5-second delay using .asyncAfter to see if buffering catches up
          then call retryCheckPlayerTryCountAgain() in a manner that attempts to avoid any recursion or threading nightmares
        */

        DispatchQueue.main.asyncAfter(deadline: .now() + 0.5) {
            DispatchQueue.main.async { [weak self] in

                // test playerTryCount again to protect against changes that might have happened during the 0.5 second delay
                if self!.playerTryCount > 0 {
                    
                    if self!.playerTryCount <= self!.playerTryCountMaxLimit {
                        
                      self!.retryCheckPlayerTryCountAgain()
                        
                    } else {
                        
                      // show spinner, show alert, or possibly use player?.replaceCurrentItem(with: playerItem) to start over ***BE SURE TO RESET playerTryCount = 0 ***
                      print("3.-----> PROBLEM")
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

func retryCheckPlayerTryCountAgain() {
    checkPlayerTryCount()
}