Audio re-routes to earpiece after Recording: workaround does not play well with other libraries (iOS)

[taylorkangbeck]

Summary

Issues with Recording causing audio to permanently reroute to the earpiece only (not the speakers) has been worked around, and the docs were updated:
#19220

However, this approach does not play well with other audio libraries. I am using react-native-track-player, and the provided workaround of setting allowsRecordingIOS: false after recording has no impact. After recording with Expo, all subsequent audio played via react-native-track-player is routed through the earpiece.

I did find a (non-ideal) workaround: after recording with Expo, if I then play a sound with Expo, audio will route back to the speakers, and subsequent plays with react-native-track-player also go through the speakers as expected. I tried playing an empty wav file (no audio frames), but it seems that it requires actual sound to be played.

If this is not a bug and is an intended side effect, then I think more explicit APIs to reset the audio routing to a previous state are necessary (maybe just an option to stopRecording).

What platform(s) does this occur on?

iOS

Environment

expo-env-info 1.0.5 environment info:
System:
OS: macOS 12.6
Shell: 5.8.1 - /bin/zsh
Binaries:
Node: 16.17.0 - /usr/local/bin/node
Yarn: 1.22.19 - /usr/local/bin/yarn
npm: 8.15.0 - /usr/local/bin/npm
Managers:
CocoaPods: 1.11.3 - /usr/local/bin/pod
SDKs:
iOS SDK:
Platforms: DriverKit 22.2, iOS 16.2, macOS 13.1, tvOS 16.1, watchOS 9.1
IDEs:
Xcode: 14.2/14C18 - /usr/bin/xcodebuild
npmPackages:
expo: ^46.0.16 => 46.0.16
react: 18.0.0 => 18.0.0
react-dom: 18.0.0 => 18.0.0
react-native: 0.69.6 => 0.69.6
react-native-web: ~0.18.7 => 0.18.9
npmGlobalPackages:
eas-cli: 3.0.0
expo-cli: 6.0.8
Expo Workflow: managed

Minimal reproducible example

expo-env-info 1.0.5 environment info:
    System:
      OS: macOS 12.6
      Shell: 5.8.1 - /bin/zsh
    Binaries:
      Node: 16.17.0 - /usr/local/bin/node
      Yarn: 1.22.19 - /usr/local/bin/yarn
      npm: 8.15.0 - /usr/local/bin/npm
    Managers:
      CocoaPods: 1.11.3 - /usr/local/bin/pod
    SDKs:
      iOS SDK:
        Platforms: DriverKit 22.2, iOS 16.2, macOS 13.1, tvOS 16.1, watchOS 9.1
    IDEs:
      Xcode: 14.2/14C18 - /usr/bin/xcodebuild
    npmPackages:
      expo: ^46.0.16 => 46.0.16 
      react: 18.0.0 => 18.0.0 
      react-dom: 18.0.0 => 18.0.0 
      react-native: 0.69.6 => 0.69.6 
      react-native-web: ~0.18.7 => 0.18.9 
    npmGlobalPackages:
      eas-cli: 3.0.0
      expo-cli: 6.0.8
    Expo Workflow: managed

[FRCassarino]

Same issue here.

[jacklj]

Same issue with recording audio using expo-av and then playback with react-native-track-player.

I've partially fixed it by calling await Audio.setAudioModeAsync({ allowsRecordingIOS: false }) before calling stopAndUnloadAsync() when ending the recording. This means subsequent audio playback with react-native-track-player does go through the phone speakers, not just the earpiece.

However, there's still a problem - the playback controls in the Control Centre and Lock Screen still don't appear.

[github-actions]

This issue is stale because it has been open for 60 days with no activity. If there is no activity in the next 7 days, the issue will be closed.

[github-actions]

This issue was closed because it has been inactive for 7 days since being marked as stale. Please open a new issue if you believe you are encountering a related problem.