MPMoviePlayerController: Seek Button tap freezes video - black screen

Question

I am playing a video using MPMoviePlayerController. I am getting a black screen that does not respond to taps on controls in the following scenarios:

1. User taps on fast-forward button
2. User taps on rewind button
3. User long-holds, and fast-forwards to the end of the video

All the other controls work as expected.

Note that a long-hold on fast-forward and rewind does work as expected.

I did look at the documentation at the link below. There are notifications for when the user is seeking forward and backward (e.g., long holding); respectively, MPMoviePlaybackStateSeekingForward and MPMoviePlaybackStateSeekingBackward. That being said, there are no notifications for a simple_tap_ on the seek buttons.

Link is "Here".

For completeness, here is the code that I'm using to call the player. Nothing really out of the ordinary; when video ends (observing MPMoviePlayerPlaybackDidFinishNotification), I rewind to the beginning.

NSString *path = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:@"catSleeping" ofType:@mp4"];
_videoPlayer =  [[MPMoviePlayerController alloc]
                 initWithContentURL:[NSURL fileURLWithPath:path]];
[_videoPlayer prepareToPlay];
[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self
                                         selector:@selector(moviePlayBackDidFinish:)
                                         name:MPMoviePlayerPlaybackDidFinishNotification
                                           object:_videoPlayer];
_videoPlayer.controlStyle = MPMovieControlStyleFullscreen;
_videoPlayer.shouldAutoplay = YES;
[self.view addSubview:_videoPlayer.view];
[_videoPlayer setFullscreen:YES animated:YES];
[_videoPlayer play];
}

- (void) moviePlayBackDidFinish:(NSNotification*)notification {
    MPMoviePlayerController *player = [notification object];
    player.currentPlaybackTime = 0.1;
    [player stop];
    [player play];
    [player pause];
}

Any ideas?

tyvm Keith :)

Answer 1

When your fast-forward or rewind buttons are single tapped, the players load state is unknown. You need to handle the MPMoviePlayerLoadStateDidChangeNotification and reload the path to the video and prepareToPlay again.

[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self
                                         selector:@selector(playerLoadStateChanged:)
                                             name:MPMoviePlayerLoadStateDidChangeNotification
                                           object:nil];

- (void)playerLoadStateChanged:(NSNotification *)notification {

    MPMovieLoadState loadState = _videoPlayer.loadState;

    if(loadState == MPMovieLoadStateUnknown) {
        _videoPlayer.contentURL = [NSURL fileURLWithPath:self.path]
        [_videoPlayer prepareToPlay];
    }
}

Answer 2

... getting a black screen that does not respond to taps on controls in the following scenarios:

1. User taps on fast-forward button

• Single tap on Fast-Forward behaves as Next

---

2. User taps on rewind button

• Single tap on Rewind behaves as Previous

So... in both cases above, your player is no longer referring to the video you are expecting and has moved on.

---

3. User long-holds, and fast-forwards to the end of the video

• Long Press till end of video should not give you a black screen.
  Check this scenario once again.

---

I don't know if there's a way to modify the default behavior of the MPMoviePlayerController controls but if you want a single tap on fast-forward/rewind to go ahead/behind in the video by some X seconds, then you can create your own custom view with buttons and assign MPMoviePlayerController's instance methods like:

• -play / -stop
• -setCurrentPlaybackTime:
• -beginSeekingForward / -beginSeekingBackward

---

I'd use the methods above and utilize an NSTimer for the fastfoward/rewind buttons and handle this timer on control events like UIControlEventTouchDown & UIControlEventTouchUpInside to determine whether to increment/decrement the currentPlaybackTime by X seconds or to -beginSeekingForward / -beginSeekingBackward.