Videos in welcome screen using AVPlayer causing memory leak?

Question

In my app, there is a welcome screen consist of 3 screens. They all inherit from one super class. The different between them are just texts and video url:

|-SuperWelcomeScreenViewController
|----FirstWelcomeScreenViewController
|----SecondWelcomeScreenViewController
|----ThirdWelcomeScreenViewController

In the super class, I have a view to load view:

private final var player: AVPlayer = AVPlayer()
private final lazy var videoView: UIView = {
    let v = UIView()

    let videoString:String? = Bundle.main.path(forResource: self.videoPath, ofType: "mp4")
    guard let unwrappedVideoPath = videoString else {return v}

    let videoUrl = URL(fileURLWithPath: unwrappedVideoPath)
    let item = AVPlayerItem(url: videoUrl)

    self.player.replaceCurrentItem(with: item)
    let layer: AVPlayerLayer = AVPlayerLayer(player: player)

    //Using the size of the video
    layer.frame = CGRect(x: -125, y: 0, width: 250, height: 541)
    layer.videoGravity = AVLayerVideoGravity.resizeAspectFill
    v.layer.addSublayer(layer)

    return v
}()

Here is the issue: I test the memory usage on Simulator, in the beginning it's about 250MB. Then I swiped to next welcome screen, it became 450MB. Then next for 550MB. My welcome screen has a infinite loop, but the usage stays at maximum after 3 viewcontrollers are all showed.

Then I went to the login screen, and then went back to welcome screen. The initial usage became 750MB. If I keep jumping from the login screen and the welcome screen, the usage will keep raising!

Here are what I want to do:

• First, I want memory usage stay steady when I jumping from the login screen and the welcome screen.

• Second, I want recycle memory between welcome screens. So that in every screen the usage would roughly be 250MB.

Here are what I have tried and failed:

• Change player to static

• Remove AVPlayerLayer from superLayer when view willDisappear

• Set AVPlayer to nil

FYI I ran CFGetRetainCount in viewDidLoad and it's 5. I cannot find the other 4.

Answer 1

Actually doing things below together did the trick

• Remove AVPlayerLayer from superLayer when view willDisappear

• Set AVPlayer to nil