SoFunction
Updated on 2025-04-03

How to deal with iOS video interruption background music playback

Question (App Store user comment feedback):

  • The music player is paused when the background music player is played, and it can only be manually restored.
  • There is no sound in the video playback in silent mode of the mobile phone

Solution:

Mute other programs while playing audio, or play audio over other programs' audio.

The AVAudioSession class is introduced by the AVFoundation framework. Each iOS app has an audio session. This session can be accessed by the sharedInstance class method of the AVAudioSession class, as follows:

AVAudioSession *audioSession = [AVAudioSession sharedInstance];

After you get an instance of the AVAudioSession class, you can choose from the different categories available to your iOS app by calling the setCategory:error: instance method of the audio session object.

The audio session categories available are listed below:

AVAudioSessionCategoryAmbient

This category does not stop the sound of other apps, but instead allows your audio to play on the sound of other apps, such as the iPod. The main UI thread of your application will work fine. Calling AVAPlayer's prepareToPlay and play methods both return YES.

AVAudioSessionCategorySoloAmbient

This one looks very much like the AVAudioSessionCategoryAmbient category, except that it will stop audio playback of other programs, such as iPod programs. When the device is set to mute mode, your audio playback will stop.

AVAudioSessionCategoryRecord

This stops the sound of other apps (such as iPod) and makes your app unable to initialize audio playback (such as AVAudioPlayer). In this mode, you can only record. Using this category, calling prepareToPlay of AVAudioPlayer will return YES, but calling the play method will return NO. The main UI interface will work as usual. At this time, even if your device screen is locked by the user, the recording of the application will continue.

AVAudioSessionCategoryPlayback

This category prohibits audio playback from other applications (such as audio playback from iPod applications). You can use the prepareToPlay and play methods of AVAudioPlayer to play sounds in your application. The main UI interface will work as usual. At this time, even if the screen is locked or the device is in silent mode, the audio playback will continue.

AVAudioSessionCategoryPlayAndRecord

This category allows you to play and record sounds simultaneously in your app. When your sound recording or playback begins, the sound playback of other applications will stop. The main UI interface will work as usual. At this time, even if the screen is locked or the device is in silent mode, audio playback and recording will continue.

AVAudioSessionCategoryAudioProcessing

This category is used in cases where audio processing is performed in applications, rather than audio playback or recording. With this mode set, you cannot play and record any sound in the app. Calling the prepareToPlay and play methods of AVAPlayer will both return NO. Audio playback of other applications, such as iPod, will also stop in this mode.

Solution: When the application we developed ourselves plays, pause the play of other applications. When our application plays, continue the play of other applications. The core code is as follows:

Specific implementation

Background music playback pauses and continues

// Continue to play background music in the background and deactivate the audio session of the current application+ (void)resumeBackgroundSoundWithError:(NSError **)error {
  [[AVAudioSession sharedInstance] setActive:NO withOptions:AVAudioSessionSetActiveOptionNotifyOthersOnDeactivation error:error];
}
 
//Pause the playback of background music in the background and activate the audio of the current application+ (void)pauseBackgroundSoundWithError:(NSError **)error {
  
  AVAudioSession *session = [AVAudioSession sharedInstance];
  [session setCategory:AVAudioSessionCategoryPlayback withOptions: AVAudioSessionCategoryOptionAllowBluetooth error:error];
  [session setActive:YES error:error];
}
 
+ (void)pauseBackgroundSoundWithCategoryRecord {
  AVAudioSession *session = [AVAudioSession sharedInstance];
  [session setCategory:AVAudioSessionCategoryRecord error:nil];
  [session setActive:YES error:nil];
}

Note:

  • The choice of Category depends on whether to record or play when the audio session of the application is activated. If recording, be sure to set category to AVAudioSessionCategoryRecord
  • If it is playback, set AVAudioSessionCategoryPlayback
  • If you are ready to record and set to AVAudioSessionCategoryPlayback, you may get an unexpected result Unexpected error or warning

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