Why won't my MPMoviePlayerController play?

Question

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

Answer 1

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