AVPlayer does not fire playbackBufferEmpty but does not play either

Question

I use AVPlayer to play an audio livestream via internet. I like to recover playback if it was paused for longer than 1 minute.

I call player.rate = 1.0

Answer 1

Use the timeControlStatus of the AVPlayer instance which "indicates whether playback is currently in progress, paused indefinitely, or suspended while waiting for appropriate network conditions."

let status = player.timeControlStatus

switch status {
case .paused:
    print("timeControlStatus.paused")

case .playing:
    print("timeControlStatus.playing")

case .waitingToPlayAtSpecifiedRate:
    print("timeControlStatus.waitingToPlayAtSpecifiedRate")
    if let reason = player.reasonForWaitingToPlay {

        switch reason {
        case .evaluatingBufferingRate:
            print("reasonForWaitingToPlay.evaluatingBufferingRate")

        case .toMinimizeStalls:
            print("reasonForWaitingToPlay.toMinimizeStalls")

        case .noItemToPlay:
            print("reasonForWaitingToPlay.noItemToPlay")

        default:
            print("Unknown \(reason)")
        }
    }

}

I have the same issue but in my case, it occurs if I go into background while in the paused state. When I come back to forground .play() does not work. It gets stuck the waitingToPlayAtSpecifiedRate.evaluatingBufferingRate mode. At that point the AVPlayerItem.status instance is readToPlay.

At this time of writing whenever a startCommand is received I reset the AVplayer to be sure. But this seems clunky. Looking for a smoother solution.