Streaming

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Deep dive into the technical specifications that influence seamless playback for streaming services, including bitrates, codecs, and caching mechanisms.

Streaming Documentation

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MusicKit broken in simulator with current tools? Can't get token.
Just updated my computer, phone, and dev tools to the latest versions of everything. Now when I run my app in a previously-working simulator (iPhone 16 w. iOS 18.5) I get: Failed retrieving MusicKit tokens: fetching the developer token is not supported in the simulator when running on this version of macOS; please upgrade your Mac to macOS Ventura. Also: <ICCloudServiceStatusMonitor: 0x600003320e60>: Invoking 1 completion handler for MusicKit tokens. error=<ICError.DeveloperTokenFetchingFailed (-8200) "Failed to fetch media token from <AMSMediaTokenService: 0x6000029049a0>." { underlyingErrors: [ <AMSErrorDomain.300 "Token request encoding failed The token request encoder finished with an error." { userInfo: { AMSDescription : "Token request encoding failed", AMSFailureReason : "The token request encoder finished with an error." }; underlyingErrors: [ <AMSErrorDomain.5 "Anisette Failed Platform not supported" { userInfo: { AMSDescription : "Anisette Failed", AMSFailureReason : "Platform not supported" }; Anybody know what gives here? The Ventura message is absurd because I'm on Tahoe 26.1. The same code works on a physical phone running iOS 26.
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Feature / Workaround wanted: Seamless, Automated AirPlay Screen Streaming on visionOS for Demos
Hello Apple team and developer community, I am preparing a visionOS app for a fair environment, where we want to automatically stream the current experience to a nearby monitor via AirPlay, without requiring guests or staff to manually interact with the Control Center or AirPlay pickers all the time. The goal is to provide a smooth, frictionless setup so attendees can focus on the demo, not the configuration. Feature Request: A supported API or method to programmatically start/stop AirPlay video streaming (mirroring or external playback) from within a visionOS app, allowing the current experience to be instantly displayed on an external monitor or Apple TV for the audience. Context & Rationale: In a trade fair or exhibition setting, rapid guest turnaround and minimal staff intervention are crucial. Having to manually guide each visitor through AirPlay setup is impractical. As I understood, AVRoutePickerView can be used for this on iOS/macOS, but this is not available in visionOS. Enabling similar automated streaming on visionOS would make the device far more suitable for live demos and public showcases. Questions: Are there any supported workarounds or best practices for enabling automated screen streaming or AirPlay initiation on visionOS in public demo environments that I missed? Is Apple considering adding programmatic AirPlay control or accessibility features to support such use cases in future visionOS releases? Thank you for considering this request! If there are recommended patterns, entitlements, or accessibility solutions we could explore for trade fair scenarios, your guidance would be greatly appreciated. Best regards, Julian Zürn - IPI, HS Kempten
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Email "Updates to FairPlay Streaming Server SDK" makes no sense
Hi, While I don't normally use FairPlay, I got this email that is so strangely worded I am wondering if it makes sense to people who do know it or if it has some typo or what. You can only generate certificates for SDK 4, also SDK 4 is no longer supported? (Also "will not expire" is imprecise phrasing, certificates presumably will expire, I think it meant to say are still valid / are not invalidated.)
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AVPlayer HLS High Bitrate Problem on Apple TV HD (A1625) tvOS 26
Hello, We have Video Stream app. It has HLS VOD Content. We supply 1080p, 4K Contents to users. Users were watching 1080p content before tvOS 26. Users can not watch 1080p content anymore when they update to tvOS 26. We have not changed anything at HLS playlist side and application version. This problem only occurs on Apple TV 4th Gen (A1625) tvOS 26 version. There is no problem with newer Apple TV devices. Would you help to resolve problem? Thanks in advance
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Playing FairPlay encrypted content works fine on ios17 but won't play on ios26
For devices that are still on ios17, playing Fairplay encrypted content still works fine. For devices that I've upgraded to ios26 playing the same content in the same app no longer works. I can advance and see the stream frames by tapping +10 scrubbing so I know that the content is being decrypted but tapping the play button of AVPlayer for an AVPlayerItem now does nothing in ios26. Is this a breaking change or is there a stricter requirement that I now have to implement?
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105
Oct ’25
TV A1625 Using 3× More CPU After tvOS 26 Update
Hi everyone, After updating my Apple TV HD (model A1625) to tvOS 26, I’ve noticed a significant spike in CPU usage—up to 3× higher than before the update. Go from around 40% to 120% Model: Apple TV HD (A1625) tvOS Version: 26 (stable release) and beta version of 26.1, App downgrade stream due to lack of cpu power If anyone else is experiencing this, please share your findings or workarounds. Would love to hear from Apple engineers or other developers if this is a known regression or if there’s a recommended fix. Thanks!
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Oct ’25
Low-Latency HLS stream playback issue on iOS 26
We have a Low-Latency HLS stream, and on iOS 26, even though the bandwidth is sufficient, it still selects a low-bandwidth resolution (e.g., RESOLUTION=640x360) for playback instead of using a higher-bandwidth resolution (e.g., RESOLUTION=1920x1080) when using AVPlayerViewController with AVPlayer. This works fine on iOS version 18 and previous versions. What could be the solution to this issue?
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Oct ’25
Getting CoreMediaErrorDomain -15628 playback failure in iOS 26 (AVPlayer, HLS stream)
Hi, After updating to iOS 26, our app is experiencing playback failures with AVPlayer. The same code and streams work fine on iOS 18 and earlier. Error: Domain [CoreMediaErrorDomain] Code [-15628] Description [The operation couldn’t be completed.] Underlying Error Domain [(null)] Code [0] Description [(null)] Environment: iOS version: iOS 26 Stream type: HLS (m3u8) with segment (.ts) files Observed behaviour: We don’t have concrete steps to reproduce the issue, but so far, we have observed that this error tends to occur under low network conditions.
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177
Sep ’25
CoreMediaErrorDomain -15628 playback failure in iOS 26 (React Native / AVPlayer, HLS stream)
Hi, After updating to iOS 26, our app is facing playback failures with AVPlayer. The same code and streams work fine on iOS 18 and earlier. Error - Domain[CoreMediaErrorDomain]:Code[-15628]:Desc[The operation couldn’t be completed.]:Underlying Error Domain[(null)]:Code[0]:Desc[(null)] Environment: iOS version: ios 26 React Native: 0.69 Video library: react-native-video (AVPlayer under the hood) Stream type: HLS (m3u8) with segment (.ts) files Observed behaviour: Playback works initially on iOS 26. On iOS 26, the stream fails at runtime after a few seconds/minutes (not on first load). Network logs show 307 redirects on some segment requests. After this, AVPlayer throws the above error. Playback fails intermittently on slow/unstable networks.
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Sep ’25
-46250 error when calling `makeSecureTokenForExpirationDateOfPersistableContentKey`
Hi there, We're working on offline playback of DRM tracks. The persistent keys (also known as track licenses) for offline playback are stored locally on the device and are served from cache when a user initiates playback of a downloaded track. Our persistent keys have a limited validity time and need to be refreshed when they expire. To prevent a situation where a persistent key expires while the user is offline, we've decided to eagerly refresh these keys one week before their expiration date. To make that happen we need to be able to obtain the expiration date of the given track license. We've been attempting to use the makeSecureTokenForExpirationDateOfPersistableContentKey API to facilitate this process. The documentation states that this API returns a secret token representing the persistent key, which we can then exchange with our license server for the expiration date: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/avfoundation/avcontentkeysession/makesecuretokenforexpirationdate(ofpersistablecontentkey:completionhandler:)?language=objc However, every time we call makeSecureTokenForExpirationDateOfPersistableContentKey, we receive an error with code -46250. We haven't been able to find any public references or documentation for this specific error code, which is preventing us from troubleshooting the issue. We are conducting our tests on a physical device, as the simulator does not support FairPlay playback. We don't use dual expiry approach. Is our understanding of how to obtain the expiration timestamp correct? Are we using the makeSecureTokenForExpirationDateOfPersistableContentKey API as it was intended? What does the -46250 error code mean, and what steps should we take to fix our FairPlay implementation to make this work? Thanks in advance for your assistance.
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Sep ’25
Crash iOS 26.0: [__NSSingleObjectArrayI selectedMediaOptionInMediaSelectionGroup:]: unrecognized selector sent to instance
I'm having a crash on an app that plays videos when the users activates close captions. I was able to replicate the issue on an empty project. The crash happens when the AVPlayerLayer is used to instantiate an AVPictureInPictureController These are the example project where I tested the crash: struct ContentView: View { var body: some View { VStack { VideoPlaylistView() } .frame(maxWidth: .infinity, maxHeight: .infinity) .background(Color.black.ignoresSafeArea()) } } class VideoPlaylistViewModel: ObservableObject { // Test with other videos var player: AVPlayer? = AVPlayer(url: URL(string:"https://d2ufudlfb4rsg4.cloudfront.net/newsnation/WIpkLz23h/adaptive/WIpkLz23h_master.m3u8")!) } struct VideoPlaylistView: View { @StateObject var viewModel = VideoPlaylistViewModel() var body: some View { ScrollView { VideoCellView(player: viewModel.player) .onAppear { viewModel.player?.play() } } .scrollTargetBehavior(.paging) .ignoresSafeArea() } } struct VideoCellView: View { let player: AVPlayer? @State var isCCEnabled: Bool = false var body: some View { ZStack { PlayerView(player: player) .accessibilityIdentifier("Player View") } .containerRelativeFrame([.horizontal, .vertical]) .overlay(alignment: .bottom) { Button { player?.currentItem?.asset.loadMediaSelectionGroup(for: .legible) { group,error in if let group { let option = !isCCEnabled ? group.options.first : nil player?.currentItem?.select(option, in: group) isCCEnabled.toggle() } } } label: { Text("Close Captions") .font(.subheadline) .foregroundStyle(isCCEnabled ? .red : .primary) .buttonStyle(.bordered) .padding(8) .background(Color.blue.opacity(0.75)) } .padding(.bottom, 48) .accessibilityIdentifier("Button Close Captions") } } } import Foundation import UIKit import SwiftUI import AVFoundation import AVKit struct PlayerView: UIViewRepresentable { let player: AVPlayer? func updateUIView(_ uiView: UIView, context: UIViewRepresentableContext<PlayerView>) { } func makeUIView(context: Context) -> UIView { let view = PlayerUIView() view.playerLayer.player = player view.layer.addSublayer(view.playerLayer) view.layer.backgroundColor = UIColor.red.cgColor view.pipController = AVPictureInPictureController(playerLayer: view.playerLayer) view.pipController?.requiresLinearPlayback = true view.pipController?.canStartPictureInPictureAutomaticallyFromInline = true view.pipController?.delegate = view return view } } class PlayerUIView: UIView, AVPictureInPictureControllerDelegate { let playerLayer = AVPlayerLayer() var pipController: AVPictureInPictureController? override init(frame: CGRect) { super.init(frame: frame) } required init?(coder: NSCoder) { fatalError("init(coder:) has not been implemented") } override func layoutSubviews() { super.layoutSubviews() playerLayer.frame = bounds playerLayer.backgroundColor = UIColor.green.cgColor } func pictureInPictureController(_ pictureInPictureController: AVPictureInPictureController, failedToStartPictureInPictureWithError error: any Error) { print("Error starting Picture in Picture: \(error.localizedDescription)") } } class AppDelegate: NSObject, UIApplicationDelegate { func application(_ application: UIApplication, didFinishLaunchingWithOptions launchOptions: [UIApplication.LaunchOptionsKey : Any]? = nil) -> Bool { let audioSession = AVAudioSession.sharedInstance() do { try audioSession.setCategory(.playback, mode: .moviePlayback) try audioSession.setActive(true) } catch { print("ERR: \(error.localizedDescription)") } return true } } UITest to make the app crash: final class VideoPlaylistSampleUITests: XCTestCase { func testCrashiOS26ToggleCloseCaptions() throws { let app = XCUIApplication() app.launch() let videoPlayer = app.otherElements["Player View"] XCTAssertTrue(videoPlayer.waitForExistence(timeout: 30)) let closeCaptionButton = app.buttons["Button Close Captions"] for _ in 0..<2000 { closeCaptionButton.tap() } } }
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Sep ’25
Questions about H.264 encoding settings with low-latency rate control
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!
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Sep ’25
New FairPlay Keys
Hello, My company has an in-store app with FPS SDK 4.x (1024) keys. We've handed those keys over to a trusted third-party and we do not have them. We've been in-store for several years. The person that created the keys in our organization mistakenly stored them encrypted to our third-party's PGP keys, so we cannot decrypt them, and the third party also has no mechanism to provide us with the keys even though it is in their runtime environment. They only have secure mechanisms for us to upload keys onto their servers. We are trying to migrate to a different third-party DRM provider, and would like to obtain new keys. Unfortunately, the developer portal won't let me create new keys, saying that we have exceeded the number of keys allowed, which I assume is one. Additionally, the new DRM provider can only support SDK 4.x keys, and it appears that we can only request SDK 5.x keys on the Apple Developer portal, as the SDK 4.0 option is grayed out. Regardless, it seems that we are not able to request any keys. We've submitted a request to the support e-mail address and received an automated e-mail that the response should take a few days, but may take longer on occasion. It's now been a month. The e-mail says that the reply address is not monitored. Is there any way we can accelerate this? Thank you, Carlos
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Aug ’25
AVAssetResourceLoaderDelegate and CoreMediaErrorDomain -12881 When Playing HLS Audio
I am developing an app that plays HLS audio. When using AVPlayerItem with AVURLAsset, can AVAssetResourceLoaderDelegate correctly handle HLS segments? My goal is to use AVAssetResourceLoaderDelegate to add authentication HTTP headers when accessing HLS .m3u8 and .ts files. I can successfully download the files, but playback fails with errors. Specifically, I am observing the following cases: A. AVAssetResourceLoaderDelegate is canceled, and CoreMediaErrorDomain -12881 occurs In NSURLConnectionDataDelegate’s didReceiveResponse method, set contentInformationRequest In didReceiveData, call dataRequest respondWithData resourceLoader didCancelLoadingRequest is called CoreMediaErrorDomain -12881 occurs B. CoreMediaErrorDomain -12881 occurs In NSURLConnectionDataDelegate’s didReceiveResponse method, set contentInformationRequest In connection didReceiveData, buffer all received data until the end In connectionDidFinishLoading, pass the buffered data to respondWithData Call loadingRequest finishLoading CoreMediaErrorDomain -12881 occurs In both cases, dataRequest.requestsAllDataToEndOfResource is YES. For this use case, I am not using AVURLAssetHTTPHeaderFieldsKey because I need to apply the most up-to-date authentication data at the moment each file is accessed. I would appreciate any advice or suggestions you might have. Thank you in advance!
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128
Aug ’25
Apple Music Artist - genres
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?
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Jul ’25