Forward and backward is not working when app enter background to foreground during video play in tvOS

Question

I am working on tvOS app using swift. I am using AVPlayerViewController to play video following Apple demo app(UIKit Catalog (tvOS): Creating and customising UIKit Controls). Everything is working fine, but app enter background to foreground during video play then forward and backward not working and same issue is generating if user can goto sleep mode. This issue is also generating in Apple demo app.

I am not understand why this problem is generating. Please suggest me how to resolve it.

    import UIKit
    import Foundation
    import AVKit

    class ViewController: UIViewController ,AVPlayerViewControllerDelegate{
        let playerController = AVPlayerViewController()
        var playerObj:AVPlayer!
        var asset:AVAsset!
        var playerItem:AVPlayerItem!
        override func viewDidLoad() {
            super.viewDidLoad()
            // Do any additional setup after loading the view, typically from a nib.
         self.playVideo("http://p.events-delivery.apple.com.edgesuite.net/1509pijnedfvopihbefvpijlkjb/m3u8/hls_vod_mvp.m3u8")
        }
  override func viewWillAppear(animated: Bool) {
         playerController.delegate = self
    }
        //MARK:- Play Video Method.
        func playVideo(videoURL:String) {
            print("video URL========\(videoURL)")

            self.asset = AVAsset(URL: NSURL(string: videoURL)!) as AVAsset
            self.playerItem = AVPlayerItem(asset: self.asset)
            self.playerObj = AVPlayer(playerItem: self.playerItem)
            self.playerController.player = self.playerObj
            playerController.view.frame = CGRectMake(0.0, 0.0, UIScreen.mainScreen().bounds.width, UIScreen.mainScreen().bounds.height)
            playerController.delegate = self
            self.view.addSubview(playerController.view)
            self.playerController.showsPlaybackControls = true
            self.playerItem.addObserver(self, forKeyPath: "status", options: NSKeyValueObservingOptions.New, context: nil)
            self.playerController.player!.play()
            //self.playerController.player!.play()


        }
        override func observeValueForKeyPath(keyPath: String?, ofObject object: AnyObject?, change: [String : AnyObject]?, context: UnsafeMutablePointer<Void>){

            if object as? NSObject == playerItem && (keyPath! as NSString).isEqualToString("status") {

                if (playerItem?.status == AVPlayerItemStatus.ReadyToPlay) {
                      print("Player Ready to play")
                }
                if (playerItem?.status == AVPlayerItemStatus.Failed) || (playerItem?.status == AVPlayerItemStatus.Unknown) {

                        print("Player getting play error")
                }
            }
        }


        override func didReceiveMemoryWarning() {
            super.didReceiveMemoryWarning()
            // Dispose of any resources that can be recreated.
        }


    }

Answer 1

try this out...probably not the "best" solution but it shows what I'm talking about regarding the view controller life cycle.

Side note, I would suggest that you always call super.viewWillAppear(animated) inside your overridden functions for the view controller.

import UIKit
import Foundation
import AVKit
import AVFoundation

class ViewController: UIViewController ,AVPlayerViewControllerDelegate{
    let playerController = AVPlayerViewController()
    var playerObj:AVPlayer = AVPlayer()
    var asset:AVAsset!
    var playerItem:AVPlayerItem!
    override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()
        // Do any additional setup after loading the view, typically from a nib.
    }
override func viewWillAppear(animated: Bool) {
    super.viewWillAppear(animated) // always call this
    playerController.delegate = self
    NSNotificationCenter.defaultCenter().addObserver(self, selector: #selector(setDelegateOnForground), name: "application_forgrounded", object: nil)
}

override func viewDidAppear(animated: Bool) {
    super.viewDidAppear(animated) // always call this
    // check the player rate if 0 means it's paused / not playing

if playerObj.rate == 0 { playVideo("http://p.events-delivery.apple.com.edgesuite.net/1509pijnedfvopihbefvpijlkjb/m3u8/hls_vod_mvp.m3u8") } } //MARK:- Play Video Method. func playVideo(videoURL:String) { print("video URL========(videoURL)") self.asset = AVAsset(URL: NSURL(string: videoURL)!) as AVAsset self.playerItem = AVPlayerItem(asset: self.asset) self.playerObj = AVPlayer(playerItem: self.playerItem) self.playerController.player = self.playerObj playerController.view.frame = CGRectMake(0.0, 0.0, UIScreen.mainScreen().bounds.width, UIScreen.mainScreen().bounds.height) self.view.addSubview(playerController.view) self.playerController.showsPlaybackControls = true self.playerItem.addObserver(self, forKeyPath: "status", options: NSKeyValueObservingOptions.New, context: nil) self.playerController.player!.play() //self.playerController.player!.play()

}

func setDelegateOnForground() {
    playerController.delegate = self
}
override func observeValueForKeyPath(keyPath: String?, ofObject object: AnyObject?, change: [String : AnyObject]?, context: UnsafeMutablePointer<Void>){

    if object as? NSObject == playerItem && (keyPath! as NSString).isEqualToString("status") {

        if (playerItem?.status == AVPlayerItemStatus.ReadyToPlay) {
            print("Player Ready to play")
        }
        if (playerItem?.status == AVPlayerItemStatus.Failed) || (playerItem?.status == AVPlayerItemStatus.Unknown) {

            print("Player getting play error")
        }
    }
}


override func didReceiveMemoryWarning() {
    super.didReceiveMemoryWarning()
    // Dispose of any resources that can be recreated.
}

}

in your AppDelegate.swift in

    func applicationDidBecomeActive(application: UIApplication) {
    // Restart any tasks that were paused (or not yet started) while the application was inactive. If the application was previously in the background, optionally refresh the user interface.
    NSNotificationCenter.defaultCenter().postNotification(NSNotification(name: "application_forgrounded", object: nil))
}

this will guarantee to set your delegate