[iOS][Audio] Can't play an audio when the app is already in background

[gsantiago]

🐛 Bug Report

Environment

  Expo CLI 2.19.5 environment info:
    System:
      OS: Linux 5.0 Ubuntu 19.04 (Disco Dingo)
      Shell: 3.0.2 - /usr/bin/fish
    Binaries:
      Node: 10.15.2 - /tmp/yarn--1567012357926-0.5700793194663918/node
      Yarn: 1.16.0 - /tmp/yarn--1567012357926-0.5700793194663918/yarn
      npm: 5.8.0 - /usr/bin/npm
    npmPackages:
      @types/react: ^16.8.19 => 16.8.19 
      @types/react-native: ^0.57.60 => 0.57.62 
      expo: ^34.0.3 => 34.0.4 
      react: 16.8.3 => 16.8.3 
      react-native: https://github.com/expo/react-native/archive/sdk-34.0.0.tar.gz => 0.59.8 
    npmGlobalPackages:
      expo-cli: 3.0.10

This bug only happens in iOS.

Steps to Reproduce

• Try to play a music when the app is in background. You can check the code in my snack: https://snack.expo.io/@gsantiago/reproducible-bug---failed-to-play-audio-when-the-app-is-in-background

Expected Behavior

• The app should play the audio when it's already in background.

Actual Behavior

• In Android, it works perfectly fine.
• In iOS, I get the following error:

[Error: Play encountered an error: audio session not activated.]

Reproducible Demo

https://snack.expo.io/@gsantiago/reproducible-bug---failed-to-play-audio-when-the-app-is-in-background

And, yes. I have set staysActiveInBackground: true and all other necessary modes to play in background, and also UBackgroundModes: ['audio'] in the app.json.

[vikash-gupta]

Hello @gsantiago , I also faced the same issue that you mentioned. The only workaround I found is to keep the screen awake pro-grammatically, however as soon as user locks the screen, next audio doesn't start.

Did you find any workaround?

[gsantiago]

@vikash-gupta I have disabled the background audio in iOS for now.

[vikash-gupta]

Bumping this up... Can anyone please look into it?

[alexandermckay]

Would love to see this resolved.

[spdaly]

+1

[AlexisChup]

+1

[AlexisChup]

My entire App is about sounds which start when the app is in Background, so it would be wonderful if this feature worked !

[wanghoppe]

My app is a music player... Now you can only play one song in the background. Looking forward updates

[Lyubomyr]

Is any progress on this issue?

[bbbbighead]

same issue encountered

[Lyubomyr]

My steps to reproduce:

1. Use the last version of library.
2. Use background options for the sound:

    Audio.setAudioModeAsync({
      allowsRecordingIOS: false,
      staysActiveInBackground: true,
      interruptionModeIOS: Audio.INTERRUPTION_MODE_IOS_DO_NOT_MIX,
      playsInSilentModeIOS: true,
      shouldDuckAndroid: true,
      interruptionModeAndroid: Audio.INTERRUPTION_MODE_ANDROID_DO_NOT_MIX,
      playThroughEarpieceAndroid: true,
      useNativeControls: false
    })

and for app.json:

"ios": {
      "infoPlist": {
        "UIBackgroundModes": [
          "audio"
        ]
      }
}

3. Play some test video file using the Video from expo-av.

4. Put application to background.
   Result: audio plays only on Android, on IOS production, IOS expo app or simulator no sound at all.

5. Redo the same using the same video file but now Audio from expo-av
   Result: audio plays on Androind and IOS production (not always), IOS expo app, or simulator no sound at all.

[peterkortvel]

same issue

[gwendall]

+1, any idea @ide ?

[ohsik]

+1 same issue. Any updates on this??

[AwesomeZaidi]

This is a huge issue

[AwesomeZaidi]

Any other known audio players that can handle this functionality in React Native?

[AwesomeZaidi]

@sjchmiela @cruzach any thoughts here?

[brentvatne]

from our managed workflow limitations docs page

you may need to eject if you want more complete background audio functionality, for now

[ohsik]

@brentvatne Wondering if there's a plan to work on this in the near future?

[brentvatne]

i wish we had time to but are pretty busy at the moment with bigger infrastructure improvements because that work will unblock users from solving issues like this for themselves.

if anyone here would like to hire someone to work on this feature for you, i would recommend reaching out to https://swmansion.com/ - we are partners with them and they have a lot of experience at the org with expo and react-native. i would highly recommend them

[ohsik]

@brentvatne Thank you for the response. Hope to see that update soon!

[drsounds]

Expo should implement an audio playback service in the native expo runtime, eg run not on react native thread which handles playback in bakgrund per default which is communicated over bridge instead of running audio on the ui layer (as now with expo av)

[IjzerenHein]

As far as I'm aware, this was due to an issue in expo-av (similar issue was reported here #9363)

You should now be able to resume/play audio when in the background when staysActiveInBackground=true is set.

This has not yet landed in the Expo client, but you can try it out in a bare project using:

yarn install expo-av@8.4.0

You can find the changelog here: https://github.com/expo/expo/blob/master/packages/expo-av/CHANGELOG.md

Let us know whether that fixes it for you.

[sgvolpe1]

Same issue

[Jonnathangte68]

same issue. What's the status of this? 👀

[ide]

This closed issue is two years old and new issues with similar symptoms may have different root causes. The best way to help address a problem is to suss out the cause and write it up in a new issue.

[jsdaniell]

With above config my application works fine reproducing on background on iOS simulator:

 Audio.setAudioModeAsync({
      allowsRecordingIOS: false,
      staysActiveInBackground: true,
      playsInSilentModeIOS: true,
    })

"ios": {
      "infoPlist": {
        "UIBackgroundModes": [
          "audio"
        ]
      }
}

[titushartm]

Im facing a simular problem with "expo-av": "^13.2.1". I try to record audio with my app. When interruption by locking the screen the recording stops. The recording time is still going and after unlocking the screen the recording continues.

UIBackgroundModes: ["audio"]

await Audio.setAudioModeAsync({
            allowsRecordingIOS: true,
            staysActiveInBackground: true,
            interruptionModeIOS: InterruptionModeIOS.DuckOthers,
            playsInSilentModeIOS: true,
            shouldDuckAndroid: true,
            interruptionModeAndroid: InterruptionModeAndroid.DuckOthers,
            playThroughEarpieceAndroid: false,
          });

[kiorq]

For those who the background audio works in the background, you may want to check if UIBackgroundModes in both the app.json and Info.plist file. I believe once you have a bare app (you have an ./ios dir) you'll need to update the Info.plist manually as well.