I have an app mostly based around Core Bluetooth. When something specific happens, the app is woken up using Core Bluetooth background modes and it fires off an alarm, however I can't get the alarm working when the app is not in the foreground.
I have an Alarm Singleton class which initialises AVAudioPlayer
like this:
NSURL *url = [NSURL fileURLWithPath:[[NSBundle mainBundle]
pathForResource:soundName
ofType:@"caf"]];
self.player = [[AVAudioPlayer alloc] initWithContentsOfURL:url error:nil];
[[AVAudioSession sharedInstance] setCategory:AVAudioSessionCategoryPlayback error:nil];
[[AVAudioSession sharedInstance] setActive: YES error: nil];
[self.player prepareToPlay];
self.player.numberOfLoops = -1;
[self.player setVolume:1.0];
NSLog(@"%@", self.player);
This is the method that is called when my alarm code is called:
-(void)startAlert
{
NSLog(@"%s", __FUNCTION__);
playing = YES;
[self.player play];
NSLog(@"%i", self.player.playing);
if (vibrate) {
[self vibratePattern];
}
}
Now when the app is in the foreground, self.player.playing
returns 1
however when the app is in the background self.player.playing
returns 0
. Why would this be?
All the code is being called, so the app is awake and functioning.
The vibrate works perfectly which uses AudioServicesPlaySystemSound(kSystemSoundID_Vibrate);
Any idea why this sound won't play?
Thanks
Apple has a nice Technical Q&A article about this in its documentation (see also Playing and Recording Background Audio).
I think one big thing missing is that you haven't activated the Audio Background Mode in the Xcode settings:
Maybe also adding [self.player prepareToPlay]
in your alert method is helpful.