Windows phone 7 - unable to play audio under lock screen

Question

I am developing an app for windows phone 7. There is a media element which plays video from a url. When i lock the phone, the audio and video stops playing. I have tried disabling ApplicationIdleDetetction and i have handled Rootframe Obscured and Unobscured. I just couldn't figure out how to continue playing the audio when the phone is locked.

Any help on this is greatly appreciated !!

thanks graham

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 11 '12 at 14:42

0

Use the AudioPlayerAgent to keep the music playing even when the phone gets locked!

Check the "Background Audio Player Sample" on the Windows Phone Code Samples.

answered Apr 11 '12 at 14:42

Pedro Lamas

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That worked !! Actually all i had to do was to call a BackgroundPlayer instance. Thanks ! – jgraham Apr 11 '12 at 18:30

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 11 '12 at 16:14

Video will automatically stop playing when the screen is locked - that is a built-in system feature. Think of it as a fail-safe for applications that will drain the device battery by playing video in the background, which is an unnecessary task anyway - who watches the content? ApplicationIdleDetection won't help with this task at all.

If you have a separate audio stream, you could use AudioPlayerAgent, that can be used to play both local and remote audio streams.

Read this:

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 31 '13 at 22:45

You can do this with a dispatcher timer. Here is an example of how I do it in my app Searchler (This feature not yet in marketplace, update coming very soon!) using the MMP Player Framework available @ http://smf.codeplex.com/

namespace Searchler.Views
{
    public partial class PlayerView : PhoneApplicationPage
    {
        bool appUnderLock = false;
        DispatcherTimer dispatcherTimer = new DispatcherTimer();
    }

     public PlayerView()
    {

        InitializeComponent();

        //Hack to enable play under lock screen
        UIThread.Invoke(() => VideoPlayer.PlayStateChanged += VideoPlayer_PlayStateChanged);
        UIThread.Invoke(() => (Application.Current as App).RootFrame.Obscured += RootFrame_Obscured);
        UIThread.Invoke(() => (Application.Current as App).RootFrame.Unobscured += RootFrame_Unobscured);
        dispatcherTimer.Tick += dispatcherTimer_Tick;
        dispatcherTimer.Interval = new TimeSpan(0, 0, 3); 
    }

    void dispatcherTimer_Tick(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        if( VideoPlayer.PlaybackPosition == VideoPlayer.EndPosition)
            ((PlayerViewModel)DataContext).Next();  //Custom GetNext Video Method
    }

    void RootFrame_Unobscured(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        dispatcherTimer.Stop();
        appUnderLock = false;
    }

    void RootFrame_Obscured(object sender, ObscuredEventArgs e)
    {
        dispatcherTimer.Start();
        appUnderLock = true;
    }
}

Windows phone 7 - unable to play audio under lock screen

3 Answers3