Pause audio player on incoming calls or other apps play audio | ios and android

[HasanAlyazidi]

Current behavior

The audio does not pause on incoming calls or other apps play audios

Also onAudioFocusChanged does not get called

I tried setting ignoreSilentSwitch to ignore and obey with no luck

Reproduction steps

      <Video
          ref={(ref) => { _PlayerData.player = ref; }}
          source={{ uri }}
          style={styles.player}
          rate={1}
          volume={1}
          paused={!isAudioPlaying()}
          muted={muted}
          repeat={repeat}
          onLoad={this.onLoad}
          onProgress={this.onProgress}
          onError={this.onError}
          onEnd={this.onEnd}
          onAudioBecomingNoisy={this.onAudioBecomingNoisy}
          onAudioFocusChanged={this.onAudioFocusChanged}
          audioOnly
          playInBackground
          playWhenInactive
        />

Expected behavior

My app to pause the audio that is being played on incoming calls or other apps play an audio such as Instagram.

Platform

Which player are you experiencing the problem on:

• iOS
• Android ExoPlayer

[zhebil]

We have the same problem. Any ideas?

[jeandiasl]

We have the same problem.

[paulrinaldi]

We have the same problem. Observed on Android Pixel 7 API level 34, RNV 6.0.0-beta.6. RN 0.73.6.
Reproducible repo:
https://github.com/paulrinaldi/React-Native-Video-With-Expo/tree/background-audio (uses expo)

[paulrinaldi]

With iOS,

playInBackground
ignoreSilentSwitch='ignore'

And Info.Plist contains:

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

audio does not continue when backgrounding the sample basic app while it is playing video.

onVideoBuffer is logged after the app is backgrounded via dragging the bar on the button upward on iPhone 15 iOS 17.2

[paulrinaldi]

Making a session manager / exposing some abstraction of the iOS category settings may be helpful here.

[KrzysztofMoch]

@paulrinaldi I think this could help #3850