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khundaga khurelbaatar

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air sdk 3.3: Android background audio no more?

Jun 26, 2012 1:41 AM

Tags: #air #android #3.3 #air33

I got some Android apps that plays rtmp streams, and they were working fine on background using Air 2.6-2.7 for about a year until now.

So today, I made upgrades using Air 3.3, and the backrgound playback is not working anymore, as soon as the screen shuts off, the audio shuts down in about 1 second.

I am using Windows Flash CS6. Anything changed in that department? I tried googling it, but nothing useful came up.

3647 Views 42 Replies Latest reply: NoopurB, Sep 28, 2012 9:35 AM

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1. Idlemedia,

Jun 27, 2012 4:34 PM in reply to khundaga khurelbaatar

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Same issue here, glad I found this thread. Also using CS6 on windows, also using rtmp (rtmpe actually). If I leave the app and go do other things, audio continues to play, but after about 10 seconds or so, it stops until the app has focus again. Is there a new permission or setting we must set/change?

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2. khundaga khurelbaatar,

Jun 28, 2012 12:32 AM in reply to Idlemedia

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thanks for reply, and now I am glad to know that I was not doing something wrong to cause this.

you are exactly right, sometimes the audio continues a little while, but eventually stops after some time, and continues to play only after the app gets focus back again.

and I test my old app with Air 2.7 and the old app never stops and loses the audio playing at any time..

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3. Idlemedia,

Jun 28, 2012 6:39 AM in reply to khundaga khurelbaatar

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I don't have AIR 2.7 anymore to drop back down to, but even if I did, I'd lose some of the nice things about 3.2+ -- come on Adobe!

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4. khundaga khurelbaatar,

Jun 28, 2012 1:21 PM in reply to Idlemedia

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Some more info:

- I have the same apps on iOS too, and using AIR3.3 I made updates of those apps. I can confirm that on iOS everything is working great as it is supposed to do, without any of the same issues like Android / Air3.3 / rtmp stream stopping when the app goes to background mode.

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5. Idlemedia,

Jul 3, 2012 7:30 AM in reply to khundaga khurelbaatar

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This is madening. It works fine on 2.7 as discussed, but as far as I can tell, ANEs are NOT supported in 2.7, rendering that option useless to me. Adobe?

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6. Idlemedia,

Jul 6, 2012 12:26 PM in reply to khundaga khurelbaatar

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Just pushing this up hoping for an answer. Even just a "we're aware of the problem and are working on it" is better than silence.

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7. khundaga khurelbaatar,

Jul 13, 2012 1:57 PM in reply to Idlemedia

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are we the only 2 people experiencing this issue with android air development?

is there any new settings for the android air (sdk3.3) app's background mode audio/network?

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8. niggeulimann,

Jul 16, 2012 9:22 AM in reply to khundaga khurelbaatar

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no - not only 2 people...

It seems to be a bug!

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9. Idlemedia,

Jul 16, 2012 9:23 AM in reply to niggeulimann

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2 people or 20, they should at least acknowledge it. Developers are your bread and butter -- act like it.

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10. niggeulimann,

Jul 17, 2012 12:45 AM in reply to Idlemedia

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Unfortunalty Air 3.4beta still has the same Issue...

Please fix it, adobe!

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11. khundaga khurelbaatar,

Jul 18, 2012 5:18 PM in reply to niggeulimann

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oh, air 3.4 beta still has the same issue? that's very bad.

are we barking here on wrong tree, wrong place? seems like adobe people are not even looking at this topic.

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12. libflashplayer.so,

Jul 20, 2012 10:25 AM in reply to khundaga khurelbaatar

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hi everyone. bugs should be entered in our external bugbase here: https://bugbase.adobe.com/index.cfm

would you mind to enter a bug there? please vote on the issue if you are experiencing the issue. the more votes, the more traction it receives. anyways, we entered an internal bug(#3226876) that is under investigation. if you let us know the external bug number, we can bug group them so you'll have some insight to the progess.

about he issue: can you point us to a sample app that reproduces the audio problem? i'm sure we have media internally that test the functionaly, but it's always best to test with real world examples. thanks...

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13. libflashplayer.so,

Jul 20, 2012 10:28 AM in reply to libflashplayer.so

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mistakenly pasted the incorrect internal bug. the correct number is #3292642. thanks...

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14. khundaga khurelbaatar,

Jul 20, 2012 10:45 AM in reply to libflashplayer.so

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ok I created a bug, please vote on it.
Adobe AIR 3.3 - Bug 3292656
https://bugbase.adobe.com/index.cfm?event=bug&id=3292656

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15. wMan,

Jul 20, 2012 11:14 AM in reply to khundaga khurelbaatar

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Voted on it

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16. niggeulimann,

Jul 20, 2012 11:15 AM in reply to wMan

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Dear sender,

I am out of the office from Friday, 20th of August, until Friday, 3rd of July.

Your email will automatically be forwarded to Matthias Wiggermann (matthias@jumero.de) and Jan Würdemann (jan@jumero.de) - they will be pleased to assist you.

Thank you very much.

Kind regards,
Uli Niggemann

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17. Idlemedia,

Jul 20, 2012 6:03 PM in reply to niggeulimann

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Voted as well, thanks

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18. tomato67h654g,

Jul 23, 2012 10:04 PM in reply to khundaga khurelbaatar

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Thank you for opening the bug.
I have voted for it as well.
Unfortunately adobe has closed the bug, saying this is expected behavior on ANDROID devices. I am not sure what this means, since background process functionality had been added to air 3.3 for IOS.
Any suggestions on what to do next will be really appreciated, since the music app I'm developing at the moment had lost a major functionality.

Thanks

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19. khundaga khurelbaatar,

Jul 23, 2012 10:47 PM in reply to tomato67h654g

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ok, I see. This MUST BE A JOKE! The official response from Adobe is:

Notes (2)
Jing Chen6:45:56 PM PDT Jul 23, 2012Hello,
After discussion with the developers, we decided that this should be a expected behavior. We want to have consistent behavior across all ICS and pre-ICS devices. The content playback will pause if the app is in background so other application can use the hardware.
If it impact your business and work, feel free to give it a vote, and comment on how it effects.
Thank you,
Jing
Jing Chen2:49:47 AM PDT Jul 23, 2012Hello,
Thank you very much for reporting, this issue is tracking internally, and I'll add notes here as soon as I get any updates.
Thanks,
Jing

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20. libflashplayer.so,

Jul 25, 2012 2:49 PM in reply to khundaga khurelbaatar

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was able to speak to someone on the issue... the bigger picture was some devices would lock the audio hardware preventing phone use or the like. to prevent this from happening, a decision was made to release the hardware when going into the background.

there does seem to be a feasible work around that he pointed out here:
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/reference/actionscript/3/fla sh/media/Sound.html

This code plays audio even when the app is in background
channel = new SoundChannel();
                soundPlay = new Sound();
                urlReq=new URLRequest;
                urlReq.url="urlOfStream";
                soundPlay.load(urlReq);
                channel = soundPlay.play();

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21. Idlemedia,

Jul 25, 2012 2:51 PM in reply to libflashplayer.so

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Thanks for that. I assume for those of us using FMS/RTMP there's no solution?

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22. libflashplayer.so,

Jul 25, 2012 3:26 PM in reply to Idlemedia

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unfortunately, you are correct. from what i am told, there is no solution when using FMS/RTMP. only http with soundPlay would be the option to use.

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23. Idlemedia,

Jul 25, 2012 4:19 PM in reply to libflashplayer.so

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And sadly Flash CS6 does NOT allow you to add earlier SDKs via the "manage" menu

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24. tomato67h654g,

Jul 26, 2012 9:41 AM in reply to libflashplayer.so

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Thank you very much for your answer. However, your solution only points the inconsistency of AIR behavior. If a decision was made to disable background audio in ANDROID, how come one method of playing sound in the background works fine, yet another one doesn't? In my app for example I'm using video streamed from YouTube, and the background behavior of the app changes from ANDROID version to a another, and it's also strangely affected by the quality I set to the played video.

It's also weird since the latest AIR version added background music functionality on IOS, yet Adobe didn't inform it's developers of the new decision made regarding ANDROID background behavior.

As a flash developer I am confused, since there is no documentation pointing what to expect from background behavior.

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25. wMan,

Jul 30, 2012 12:41 AM in reply to tomato67h654g

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Background Audio for android was enabled in AIR prior 3.3 and now they removed it silently?
especially for rtmp. how can this be true?

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26. libflashplayer.so,

Jul 31, 2012 9:08 AM in reply to tomato67h654g

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let's see if we can get a product manager to key in on the issue. they would have the most insight into why the decision was made. stay tuned...

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27. Idlemedia,

Jul 31, 2012 9:11 AM in reply to libflashplayer.so

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Thank you for that

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28. tomato67h654g,

Aug 1, 2012 11:23 AM in reply to khundaga khurelbaatar

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check this out: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=air.com.radioloyalty.rad ioloyalty&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsImFpci5jb20ucmFkaW9 sb3lhbHR5LnJhZGlvbG95YWx0eSJd

seams like it's stremaed audio. i don't know how they have managed to keep the audio playing in the background.

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29. Idlemedia,

Aug 1, 2012 1:16 PM in reply to tomato67h654g

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Older version of AIR?

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30. libflashplayer.so,

Aug 1, 2012 2:34 PM in reply to libflashplayer.so

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fyi, our product manager is looking into the details... we hope to have a response soon. thanks.

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31. tomato67h654g,

Aug 2, 2012 10:18 AM in reply to libflashplayer.so

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Thank you very much.
Could you please ask him about playing audio in the background using an embedded youtube player or using stageWebView? These two options don't play in the background either. Is it possible to make them play in the background?

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32. Idlemedia,

Aug 2, 2012 10:20 AM in reply to tomato67h654g

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I personally wouldn't complicate the matter with yet another situation (which seems more of a fringe case than anything else). Let's get core, expected functionality working, then worry about other feature requests (I don't even think the browser keeps playing content after you close it BTW)

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33. tomato67h654g,

Aug 2, 2012 10:33 AM in reply to Idlemedia

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The problem again is, that I don't have any documentation regarding the background behaviour of different classes. I don't know if stageWebView is supposed to keep running in the background or not, the same about embedding the YouTube player using the actionscript API (like I've said - it has different behaviour on my phone using ANDOID 2.3 and on my tablet using ANDROID 4, and on my phone it's also strangely affected by the video quality).
So, If I don't know what behaviour to expect I can't tell if it's a bug or a request for a new feature...

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34. NoopurB,

Aug 2, 2012 3:54 PM in reply to khundaga khurelbaatar

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Hi,
I am the product manager for AIR at Adobe. We are currently investigating the audio playback bug and will provide a update on fix schedule shortly.
Thanks!

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35. wMan,

Aug 21, 2012 2:09 AM in reply to NoopurB

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any news on that issue?

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36. NoopurB,

Aug 21, 2012 12:51 PM in reply to wMan

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Hello,
We have been working on the fix but were unable to include it in the 3.4 release that happened earlier today. This fix is slated to be included in our next scheduled release for Q4.
Thanks!

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37. khundaga khurelbaatar,

Aug 21, 2012 12:54 PM in reply to NoopurB

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thanks for good news, i guess it's gonna be around Oct-Nov.

at last some positive light at the end of the tunnel!

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38. khundaga khurelbaatar,

Sep 1, 2012 1:43 PM in reply to khundaga khurelbaatar

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while waiting for air sdk 3.5, I downgraded air sdk to 3.0 and published some app updates, of course lacking many of the newer features, expecially the cool ANE stuffs.

if you google old air sdks, there is adobe page with downloadable links all the old air sdks all the down to 1.5 .

the link is currently: http://helpx.adobe.com/air/kb/archived-air-sdk-version.html

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39. wMan,

Sep 1, 2012 6:39 PM in reply to khundaga khurelbaatar

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Dear sender,

I am out of the office from Friday, 31st of August, until Friday, 17th of September.

Your email will automatically be forwarded to Matthias Wiggermann (matthias@jumero.de) and Uli Niggemann (uli@jumero.de) - they will be pleased to assist you.

Thank you very much.

Kind regards,
Jan Würdemann

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