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

🐛 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.

About this issue

Original URL
State: closed
Created 5 years ago
Reactions: 22
Comments: 28 (4 by maintainers)

Most upvoted comments

Is any progress on this issue?

Lyubomyr on Mar 27, 2020

As far as I’m aware, this was due to an issue in expo-av (similar issue was reported here https://github.com/expo/expo/pull/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.

IjzerenHein on Jul 24, 2020

Would love to see this resolved.

alexandermckay on Dec 20, 2019

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

brentvatne on Jun 5, 2020

This is a huge issue

AwesomeZaidi on May 29, 2020

My steps to reproduce:

Use the last version of library.
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"
        ]
      }
}

Play some test video file using the Video from expo-av.
Put application to background. Result: audio plays only on Android, on IOS production, IOS expo app or simulator no sound at all.
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.

Lyubomyr on Apr 22, 2020

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

AlexisChup on Jan 23, 2020

spdaly on Jan 13, 2020

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.

ide on Jul 15, 2021

Same issue

sgvolpe1 on Sep 24, 2020

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)

drsounds on Jul 24, 2020

from our managed workflow limitations docs page

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

brentvatne on May 30, 2020

+1, any idea @ide ?

gwendall on May 13, 2020

same issue

peterkortvel on May 8, 2020

same issue encountered

bbbbighead on Apr 22, 2020

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

wanghoppe on Feb 1, 2020