react-native-sound: Sound does not play in background on iOS 11

expected: with Required background modes set to App plays audio or streams audio/video using AirPlay App downloads content from the network

and the following in the code:

Sound.setActive(true)
Sound.enableInSilenceMode(true)
Sound.setCategory('Playback', true)


const sound = new Sound('https://s3.amazonaws.com/data.monstercat.com/blobs/21e6e0336ac16963b063b0ccba5797e1a44fcdf4', undefined, error => {
  if (error) {
    console.log('error loading sound', error)
    return
  }
  sound.play(() => { })
})

When playing sound, and sending the app to the background, the audio should still play.

I’ve created a minimal setup which reproduces the issue: https://github.com/joshbalfour/rn-sound-issue

About this issue

Original URL
State: open
Created 7 years ago
Comments: 18

Most upvoted comments

I found a solution. The docs seem to be incomplete. You have to add the following to ios/Info.plist (just before the closing </dict>):

<key>UIBackgroundModes</key>
<array>
    <string>audio</string>
</array>

Also don’t forget Sound.setCategory('Playback'). Thats enough to get it working.

After rebuilding/restarting the simulator it works fine for me.

Edit: This is indeed mentioned in the docs. You guys might have overlooked it as I have.

+37

lgraubner on Nov 13, 2017

If anyone is still seeing this issue, one reason is because iOS11 requires background audio capabilities to be enabled.

@lgraubner proposed one fix for this, another way is to select your project in Xcode, enter the Capabilities tab, and set background modes ‘on’, then toggle Audio, AirPlay, and Picture in Picture.

After rebuilding, the audio should work in the background.

dlipeles on May 28, 2018

It’s just a simulator issue, it works if you run your application on your phone.

tfaieta on Nov 5, 2017

@ShayanAhmad if I recall correctly, it should work out of the box for Android. Nothing special in code or the AndroidManifest to enable background audio. The Sound.setCategory call is only implemented (and needed) for iOS. We currently switched to a different library though because we needed streaming audio. React Native Sounds needs to download the entire file before it can play.

frenkie on Jan 5, 2018