Why won't my MPMoviePlayerController play?

ios, mpmovieplayercontroller

Solution

Assumed precondition: your project is using ARC.

Your `MPMoviePlayerController` instance is local only and ARC has no way of telling that you need to retain that instance. As the controller is not retained by its view, the result is that your `MPMoviePlayerController` instance will be released directly after the execution of your `playMovie` method execution.

To fix that issue, simply add a property for the player instance to your `SRViewController` class and assign the instance towards that property.

Header:

@instance SRViewController

   [...]

   @property (nonatomic,strong) MPMoviePlayerController *player;

   [...]

@end

Implementation:

@implementation SRViewController

   [...]

    -(IBAction)playMovie
    {
        NSString *url = [[NSBundle mainBundle]
                         pathForResource:@"OntheTitle" ofType:@"mov"];
        self.player = [[MPMoviePlayerController alloc]
                                           initWithContentURL: [NSURL fileURLWithPath:url]];

        // Play Partial Screen
        self.player.view.frame = CGRectMake(10, 10, 720, 480);
        [self.view addSubview:self.player.view];

        // Play Movie
        [self.player play];
    }

    [...]

@end

Problem

I'm trying to get a basic .mov video file to play using the code below, but when the button I have assigned the action is pressed, the only thing that shows up is the black frame, but no video is played. Any help is appreciated. Thanks. ``` @implementation SRViewController -(IBAction)playMovie{ NSString *url = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:@"OntheTitle" ofType:@"mov"]; MPMoviePlayerController *player = [[MPMoviePlayerController alloc] initWithContentURL: [NSURL fileURLWithPath:url]]; // Play Partial Screen player.view.frame = CGRectMake(10, 10, 720, 480); [self.view addSubview:player.view]; // Play Movie [player play]; } @end ```

Original source