I am would like to look at AVMetricEvent data during video playback, so I have added this code to a test video player app: let playerItem: AVPlayerItem = ... let allMetrics = playerItem.allMetrics() Task.init { print("metrics task started") do { for try await metricEvent in allMetrics { print("metric event: \(metricEvent.description)") } } catch { print("unexpected metric iterator error \(error)") } } Running this in Simulator on iPhone 16 Pro (18.0) does not result in any "metric event" diagnostic messages being printed when the video associated with this AVPlayerItem is playing. Only the "metric task started" diagnostic message is seen. What am I doing wrong that prevents metric data being received?

FairPlay-Protected HLS Files Not Transferred via Quick Start I have an iOS app that downloads HLS files, which are protected by FairPlay. These files are stored locally, and their locations are managed using Core Data. When playing these tracks, I use AVURLAsset to access the stored file paths. Recently, a client upgraded to a new iPhone and used Quick Start to transfer data from his old device. While all other app data was successfully transferred, including Core Data records and UserDefaults, the actual HLS files were missing. As a result, the app retained metadata about the downloaded content, but the files themselves were gone, causing playback failures. Does Quick Start exclude certain types of locally stored files, especially DRM-protected HLS downloads, or is the issue related to how FairPlay-protected content is handled during the transfer of locally stored files?

Since iOS and tvOS 18, CMCD can now be automatically sent by AVPlayer (https://developer.apple.com/streaming/Whats-new-HLS.pdf). However, after enabling CMCD, our streams occasionally fail with the following error: CoreMediaErrorDomain Error -17383 This issue appears to affect only DRM-protected (FairPlay) streams so far. We activate CMCD via the resource loader of an AVURLAsset, before assigning the item to an AVPlayer. Unfortunately, we haven’t found a reliable way to reproduce the issue, and we’ve been unable to gather any useful diagnostic information. Has anyone else observed this behavior when enabling CMCD on FairPlay streams?

The app registers a periodic time observer to the AVPlayer when the playback starts and it works fine. When switching to AirPlay during playback, the periodic time observation continues working as expected. However, when switching back to local playback, the periodic time observer does not fire anymore until a seek is performed. The app removes the periodic time observer only when the playback stops. I can see that when switching back to local playback, the timeControlStatus successively changes to .waitingToPlayAtSpecifiedRate (reason: .evaluatingBufferingRate) then to .waitingToPlayAtSpecifiedRate (reason: .toMinimizeStalls) and finally to .playing But the time observation does not work anymore. Also, the issue is systematic with Live and VOD streams providing a program date (with HLS property #EXT-X-PROGRAM-DATE-TIME), with or without any DRM, and is never reproduced with other VOD streams.

the problem is when using HLS live stream with AVPlayer on iOS/ tvOS the player chooses first highest bandwidth then slowly steps down to lowest (within 1-3min) and eventually steps up again then repeats to step down. the AVPlayer error log sends events: errorStatusCode: -12888, errorDomain: Optional("CoreMediaErrorDomain"), errorComment: Optional("The operation couldn't be completed. (CoreMediaErrorDomain error -12888 - Playlist File unchanged for longer than 1.5 * target duration we use standard segments in CMAF format, 2sec duration #EXTM3U #EXT-X-VERSION:6 #EXT-X-TARGETDURATION:2 #EXT-X-MEDIA-SEQUENCE:147065903 #EXT-X-MAP:URI="video_1_4660000_init.mp4?device_profile=cmaf_cbcs_verimatrix_cei%26seg_size=2%26cmaf=2" #EXT-X-PROGRAM-DATE-TIME:2025-04-30T12:51:07 #EXTINF:2.000, video_1_4660000_t17460174670001555.mp4?device_profile=cmaf_cbcs_verimatrix_cei%26seg_size=2%26cmaf=2 #EXTINF:2.000, video_1_4660000_t17460174690001555.mp4?device_profile=cmaf_cbcs_verimatrix_cei%26seg_size=2%26cmaf=2 #EXTINF:2.000, video_1_4660000_t17460174710001555.mp4?device_profile=cmaf_cbcs_verimatrix_cei%26seg_size=2%26cmaf=2 when using 6sec segments the player stays stable at highest bandwidth. is there a way to avoid this error? in AVPlayer or HLS configuration?

TL;DR How to solve possible racing issue of EXT-X-SESSION-KEY request and encrypted media segment request? I'm having trouble using custom AVAssetResourceLoaderDelegate with video manifest containing VideoProtectionKey(VPK). My master manifest contains rendition manifest url and VPK url. When not using custom resource delegate, everything works fine. My custom resource delegate is implemented in way where it first append prefix to scheme of the master manifest url before creating the asset. And during handling master manifest, it puts back original scheme, make the request, modify the scheme for rendition manifest url in the response content by appending the same prefix again, so that rendition manifest request also goes into custom resource loader delegate. Same goes for VPK request. The AES-128 key is stored in memory within custom resource loader delegate object. So far so good. The VPK is requested before segment request. But the problem comes where the media segment requests happen. The media segment request url from rendition manifest goes into custom resource loader as well and those are encrypted. I can see segment request finish first then the related VPK requests kick in after a few seconds. The previous VPK value is cached in memory so it is not network causing the delay but some mechanism that I'm not aware of causing this. So could anyone tell me what would be the proper way of handling this situation? The native library is handling it well so I just want to know how. Thanks in advance!

The documentation for the Apple Music API indicates that the genreNames field for a given artist (see https://developer.apple.com/documentation/applemusicapi/artists/attributes-data.dictionary) is an array of strings. However, it only appears as though you return ONE SINGLE GENRE per Artist, regardless of how many genres might be attached to that artist's albums. Am I missing something? Is there an artist where multiple genres may be returned, or is this a bug in the documentation?

Hi everyone, I noticed that Apple recently added a few new beta sample codes related to video encoding: Encoding video for low-latency conferencing Encoding video for live streaming While experimenting with H.264 encoding, I came across some questions regarding certain configurations: When I enable kVTVideoEncoderSpecification_EnableLowLatencyRateControl, is it still possible to use kVTCompressionPropertyKey_VariableBitRate? In my tests, I get an error. It also seems that kVTVideoEncoderSpecification_EnableLowLatencyRateControl cannot be used together with kVTCompressionPropertyKey_ConstantBitRate when encoding H264. Is that expected? When using kVTCompressionPropertyKey_ConstantBitRate with kVTCompressionPropertyKey_MaxKeyFrameInterval set to 2, the encoder outputs only keyframes, and the frame size keeps increasing, which doesn’t seem like the intended behavior. Regarding the following code from the sample: let byteLimit = (Double(bitrate) / 8) * 1.5 as CFNumber let secLimit = Double(1.0) as CFNumber let limitsArray = [ byteLimit, secLimit ] as CFArray // Each 1 second limit byte as bitrate err = VTSessionSetProperty(session, key: kVTCompressionPropertyKey_DataRateLimits, value: limitsArray) This DataRateLimits setting doesn’t seem to have any effect in my tests. Whether I set it or not, the values remain unchanged. Since the documentation on developer.apple.com/documentation doesn’t clearly explain these cases, I’d like to ask if anyone has insights or recommendations about the proper usage of these settings. Thanks in advance!

I have an HDR10+ encoded video that if loaded as a mov plays back on the Apple Vision Pro but when that video is encoded using the latest (1.23b) Apple HLS tools to generate an fMP4 - the resulting m3u8 cannot be played back in the Apple Vision Pro and I only get back a "Cannot Open" error. To generate the m3u8, I'm just calling mediafilesegmenter (with -iso-fragmented) and then variantplaylistcreator. This completes with no errors but the m3u8 will playback on the Mac using VLC but not on the Apple Vision Pro. The relevant part of the m3u8 is: #EXT-X-STREAM-INF:AVERAGE-BANDWIDTH=40022507,BANDWIDTH=48883974,VIDEO-RANGE=PQ,CODECS="ec-3,hvc1.1.60000000.L180.B0",RESOLUTION=4096x4096,FRAME-RATE=24.000,CLOSED-CAPTIONS=NONE,AUDIO="audio1",REQ-VIDEO-LAYOUT="CH-STEREO" {{url}} Has anyone been able to use the HLS tools to generate fMP4s of MV-HEVC videos with HDR10?

After the update on iOS 18, FairPlay content does not play. We get an error: CoreMediaErrorDomain Code=-12891. this error occurs after sending a ckc message. What does this error mean? Everything works fine on iOS < 18.

Hi there, After upgrading to iOS 18, I noticed that ApplicationMusicPlayer.Queue behavior has broken if at least one song that is added to the queue is also in to the Apple Music Library on the device. The resulting behavior is that the queue does not accept all the items, and only items that are in the Library are playable in the queue. The expected behavior and the previous behavior on iOS 17 was that all the items would be added to the queue successfully. I confirmed this behavior on a separate test device running iOS 17.7. The items added are all being fetched via MusicCatalogResourceRequest<Song> so I would expect that a requested song being present in the library would have no effect.

We move to another streaming service and need to deliver a ASK, .PEM &amp;key, and CRT to enable DRM. Now the issue is that we don't have that information anymore. Most logical would be to revoke the current certificate and create a new one. Unfortunately for Fairplay Streaming Certificates there is no revoke button. We asked developer support who isn't able to help. We then did a request to revoke as described in article 2.7 of the Apple Developer Program License Agreement. They can only do this when the certificate is compromised. So now we are stuck. Anyone out there who had the same issue and found a solution? Your help is much appreciated.

I have an SCStreamDelegate for capturing frames from applications. On recent point releases of macOS Sonoma, I've noticed that the stream is being cancelled with no user action being taken. I started trying to debug it and when my on error method is called, the error parameter being passed is null: func stream(_ stream: SCStream, didStopWithError error: Error) { /*debugger shows this and segfaults if I try to print "\(error)" error (Error) > error = (Builtin.RawPointer) 0x0 */ From what I can tell, error should be a valid NSError so I can check the error code, based on similar code I've seen in, for example OBS (https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio/blob/265239d4174f8d291b0de437088c5b78f8e27687/plugins/mac-capture/mac-sck-common.m#L29) Usually when this happens, the menubar icon for screen sharing (where I would click to change sharing window, etc) stays there even after my app has closed an no apps are doing sharing stuff. Has anyone come across this before? Am I misinterpreting what the debugger is saying about the error parameter? I'm running macos 14.7.3, but I just updated from 14.7.2 earlier and had basically the same issue on both macos versions

Is it possible to stream video from a UVC (USB Video Class) camera on an iPhone 15? If so, are there any specific hardware or software requirements to enable this functionality?

We're integrating a web based group calling application within a native iOS application and finding that every time a CallKit session gets fully established the web based media streams break, rendering as gray with no audio. Up to iOS 18 we worked around it by not fulfilling the call start action but that's no longer an option as the audio stopped getting automatically redirected to the speakers. We would now need the CXProvider's didActivateAudioSession callback but that would break the video. The sample project loads up a simple webpage in a WKWebView which contains a video tag streaming the media from the device's camera. At the same time it sets up a new CallKit session by requesting and fulfilling a CXStartCallAction transaction. You will notice that the media doesn't render and, if you are to follow the warnings we left, you will find that not fulfilling the CXStartCallAction fixes it. Unfortunately that's not a workaround we can use as we need the CXProvider delegate to inform us about audio session changes so we can redirect the audio to the speaker (so the proximity sensor doesn't activate and locking the screen doesn't end the call) Any insights or workarounds would be greatly appreciated.

Case-ID: 9391388 Our application uses timed Metadata as part of a rating control system. We noticed a problem in production and diagnosis shows that we stop receiving timed Metadata on iOS18 only Our live streams are primed with metadata at least once per second but we are seeing extended gaps in receiving this content, in excess of 10 minutes. We have also observed that this happens more as the player climbs the bitrate ladder, and doesn't happen if we cap to a low resolution i.e. a preferredMaximumResolution of 768x432. Furthermore, if we throttle network conditions after we stop receiving metadata the we start receiving them again. Following is a simple example that demonstrates the above behaviour, unfortunately I cannot share the live stream endpoint which is primed with metadata publicly, but can provide privately to Apple to reproduce the problem. import UIKit import AVKit class ViewController: UIViewController, AVPlayerItemMetadataOutputPushDelegate { var player: AVPlayer? var itemMetadataOutput: AVPlayerItemMetadataOutput? override func viewDidAppear(_ animated: Bool) { guard let url = URL(string: "endpoint redacted") else { return } let player = AVPlayer(url: url) let controller = AVPlayerViewController() controller.player = player self.player = player present(controller, animated: true) { player.play() let currentItem = player.currentItem let itemMetadataOutput = AVPlayerItemMetadataOutput(identifiers: nil) self.itemMetadataOutput = itemMetadataOutput self.itemMetadataOutput?.setDelegate(self, queue: .main) currentItem?.add(itemMetadataOutput) } } public func metadataOutput(_ output: AVPlayerItemMetadataOutput, didOutputTimedMetadataGroups groups: [AVTimedMetadataGroup], from track: AVPlayerItemTrack?) { print("received metadata \(Date())") } }

In our Apple TV application, we use the native AVPlayer for live playback functionality. Until tvOS 17.6 and during the tvOS 18 beta, the Pause/Resume feature worked as expected, allowing us to pause live playback. However, after updating to tvOS 18.1, the pause functionality no longer works. The same app still works fine on tvOS 17, but on tvOS 18, attempting to pause live playback has no effect. We reviewed the tvOS 18 release notes but couldn't find any relevant changes or deprecations related to AVPlayer or live playback behavior. Has there been any change in the handling of live playback or the Pause/Resume functionality in tvOS 18.1? Any guidance or suggestions to address this issue would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

We are getting reports from customers that they are not able to play videos in our app after updating their phones to iOS18.3.1. (Further checking indicates that it happens on all iOS18 versions. It suddenly started occurring from February 18th, 2025) When checking logs we see that playback is failing due to CoreMediaErrorDomain error -42709. This is an undocumented error code and hence we do not know the cause of the playback issue. Does anyone know what this error code means and how the app should handle it? Reported as FB16638501.