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Broadcast Upload Extension - Screen Sharing Fails to Start After Countdown (No Errors Logged)
Hello everyone, I'm working on implementing a screen sharing feature using RPSystemBroadcastPickerView and a Broadcast Upload Extension to share the entire app screen in an iOS application. The Broadcast Upload Extension is set up following Apple's ReplayKit guidelines. However, I’m encountering an issue during the broadcast startup sequence: ❗ Problem Description The Screen Broadcast UI appears as expected I tap “Start Broadcast” The countdown (3 → 2 → 1) completes Then it immediately reverts to the "Start Broadcast" screen, and screen sharing does not begin No error messages are displayed None of the extension lifecycle methods (broadcastStarted(withSetupInfo:), processSampleBuffer, etc.) are called There are no logs or crash reports, neither in the main app nor in the extension ✅ What Has Been Verified Info.plist of the Broadcast Upload Extension includes: NSExtensionPointIdentifier = com.apple.broadcast-services-upload NSExtensionPrincipalClass set correctly RPBroadcastProcessMode = RPBroadcastProcessModeSampleBuffer preferredExtension is set properly to the extension’s bundle identifier Extension is listed in the main app's build settings under "Frameworks, Libraries, and Embedded Content" ⚠️ Additional Concern We noticed that in Xcode (latest version), the Broadcast Upload Extension is listed under "Embedded Frameworks" with the setting "Embed Without Signing", and there is no option to change it to "Embed & Sign". We're wondering if this could be the reason the extension fails to launch correctly at runtime, despite being detected by the broadcast picker. ❓ Questions Has anyone faced similar issues where the broadcast never starts despite correct setup? Could the "Embed Without Signing" be causing the system to silently cancel or ignore the extension at runtime? Are there any provisioning profile or entitlement requirements specific to Broadcast Upload Extensions that might trigger this behavior silently? Any insights, suggestions, or workarounds would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance!
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329
Jul ’25
Screen recording audio and video out of sync
I use startCaptureWithHandler to record screen and AVAssetWriter appendSampleBuffer: to save audio and video ,but when played the saved file audio and video are out of sync. I don t know if it s a AVAssetWriterInputr setup problem,here is my code NSDictionary *audioCompressionSettings = @{ AVEncoderBitRatePerChannelKey : @(64000), AVFormatIDKey : @(kAudioFormatMPEG4AAC), AVNumberOfChannelsKey : @(2), AVSampleRateKey : @(44100) }; AVAssetWriterInput *audioAssetWriterInput = [AVAssetWriterInput assetWriterInputWithMediaType:AVMediaTypeAudio outputSettings:audioCompressionSettings]; audioAssetWriterInput.expectsMediaDataInRealTime = YES; [_assetWriter addInput:audioAssetWriterInput]; NSDictionary *videoCompressSetting = @{AVVideoAverageBitRateKey:@(screenWidth*screenHeight*5), AVVideoMaxKeyFrameIntervalKey:@(30), AVVideoProfileLevelKey : AVVideoProfileLevelH264MainAutoLevel}; NSDictionary *codecSetting = @{AVVideoCodecKey:AVVideoCodecTypeH264, AVVideoScalingModeKey : AVVideoScalingModeResize, AVVideoWidthKey:@(screenWidth*2), AVVideoHeightKey:@(screenHeight*2), AVVideoCompressionPropertiesKey:videoCompressSetting }; AVAssetWriterInput* videoAssetWriterInput = [AVAssetWriterInput assetWriterInputWithMediaType:AVMediaTypeVideo outputSettings:codecSetting]; videoAssetWriterInput.expectsMediaDataInRealTime = YES; [_assetWriter addInput:videoAssetWriterInput];
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139
Apr ’25
PHPickerViewController Not Offering public.hevc UTI for a Known HEVC Video
I'm working on an app where a user needs to select a video from their Photos library, and I need to get the original, unmodified HEVC (H.265) data stream to preserve its encoding. The Problem I have confirmed that my source videos are HEVC. I can record a new video with my iPhone 15 Pro Max camera set to "High Efficiency," export the "Unmodified Original" from Photos on my Mac, and verify that the codec is MPEG-H Part2/HEVC (H.265). However, when I select that exact same video in my app using PHPickerViewController, the itemProvider does not list public.hevc as an available type identifier. This forces me to fall back to a generic movie type, which results in the system providing me with a transcoded H.264 version of the video. Here is the debug output from my app after selecting a known HEVC video: ⚠️ 'public.hevc' not found. Falling back to generic movie type (likely H.264). What I've Tried My code explicitly checks for the public.hevc identifier in the registeredTypeIdentifiers array. Since it's not found, my HEVC-specific logic is never triggered. Here is a minimal version of my PHPickerViewControllerDelegate implementation: import UniformTypeIdentifiers // ... inside the Coordinator class ... func picker(_ picker: PHPickerViewController, didFinishPicking results: [PHPickerResult]) { picker.dismiss(animated: true) guard let result = results.first else { return } let itemProvider = result.itemProvider let hevcIdentifier = "public.hevc" let identifiers = itemProvider.registeredTypeIdentifiers print("Available formats from itemProvider: \(identifiers)") if identifiers.contains(hevcIdentifier) { print("✅ HEVC format found, requesting raw data...") itemProvider.loadDataRepresentation(forTypeIdentifier: hevcIdentifier) { (data, error) in // ... process H.265 data ... } } else { print("⚠️ 'public.hevc' not found. Falling back to generic movie type (likely H.264).") itemProvider.loadFileRepresentation(forTypeIdentifier: UTType.movie.identifier) { url, error in // ... process H.264 fallback ... } } } My Environment Device: iPhone 15 Pro Max iOS Version: iOS 18.5 Xcode Version: 16.2 My Questions Are there specific conditions (e.g., the video being HDR/Dolby Vision, Cinematic, or stored in iCloud) under which PHPickerViewController's itemProvider would intentionally not offer the public.hevc type identifier, even for an HEVC video? What is the definitive, recommended API sequence to guarantee that I receive the original, unmodified data stream for a video asset, ensuring that no transcoding to H.264 occurs during the process? Any insight into why public.hevc might be missing from the registeredTypeIdentifiers for a known HEVC asset would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
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188
Jul ’25
Prevent iOS from Switching Between Back Camera Lenses in getUserMedia (Safari/WebView, iOS 18)
I’m developing a hybrid app (WebView / Turbo Native) that uses getUserMedia to access the back camera for a PPG/heart rate measurement feature (the user places their finger on the camera). Problem: Even when I specify constraints like: { video: { deviceId: '...', facingMode: { exact: 'environment' }, advanced: [{ zoom: 1.0 }] }, audio: false } On iPhone 15 (iOS 18), iOS unexpectedly switches between the wide, ultra-wide, and telephoto lenses during the measurement. This breaks the heart rate detection, and it forces the user to move their finger in the middle of the measurement. Question: Is there any way, via getUserMedia/WebRTC, to force iOS to use only the wide-angle lens and prevent automatic lens switching? I know that with AVFoundation (Swift) you can pick .builtInWideAngleCamera, but I’m hoping to avoid building a custom native layer and would prefer to stick with WebView/JavaScript if possible to save time and complexity. Any suggestions, workarounds, or updates from Apple would be greatly appreciated! Thanks a lot!
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440
Mar ’25
occasional glitches and empty buffers when using AudioFileStream + AVAudioConverter
I'm streaming mp3 audio data using URLSession/AudioFileStream/AVAudioConverter and getting occasional silent buffers and glitches (little bleeps and whoops as opposed to clicks). The issues are present in an offline test, so this isn't an issue of underruns. Doing some buffering on the input coming from the URLSession (URLSessionDataTask) reduces the glitches/silent buffers to rather infrequent, but they do still happen occasionally. var bufferedData = Data() func parseBytes(data: Data) { bufferedData.append(data) // XXX: this buffering reduces glitching // to rather infrequent. But why? if bufferedData.count > 32768 { bufferedData.withUnsafeBytes { (bytes: UnsafeRawBufferPointer) in guard let baseAddress = bytes.baseAddress else { return } let result = AudioFileStreamParseBytes(audioStream!, UInt32(bufferedData.count), baseAddress, []) if result != noErr { print("❌ error parsing stream: \(result)") } } bufferedData = Data() } } No errors are returned by AudioFileStream or AVAudioConverter. func handlePackets(data: Data, packetDescriptions: [AudioStreamPacketDescription]) { guard let audioConverter else { return } var maxPacketSize: UInt32 = 0 for packetDescription in packetDescriptions { maxPacketSize = max(maxPacketSize, packetDescription.mDataByteSize) if packetDescription.mDataByteSize == 0 { print("EMPTY PACKET") } if Int(packetDescription.mStartOffset) + Int(packetDescription.mDataByteSize) > data.count { print("❌ Invalid packet: offset \(packetDescription.mStartOffset) + size \(packetDescription.mDataByteSize) > data.count \(data.count)") } } let bufferIn = AVAudioCompressedBuffer(format: inFormat!, packetCapacity: AVAudioPacketCount(packetDescriptions.count), maximumPacketSize: Int(maxPacketSize)) bufferIn.byteLength = UInt32(data.count) for i in 0 ..< Int(packetDescriptions.count) { bufferIn.packetDescriptions![i] = packetDescriptions[i] } bufferIn.packetCount = AVAudioPacketCount(packetDescriptions.count) _ = data.withUnsafeBytes { ptr in memcpy(bufferIn.data, ptr.baseAddress, data.count) } if verbose { print("handlePackets: \(data.count) bytes") } // Setup input provider closure var inputProvided = false let inputBlock: AVAudioConverterInputBlock = { packetCount, statusPtr in if !inputProvided { inputProvided = true statusPtr.pointee = .haveData return bufferIn } else { statusPtr.pointee = .noDataNow return nil } } // Loop until converter runs dry or is done while true { let bufferOut = AVAudioPCMBuffer(pcmFormat: outFormat, frameCapacity: 4096)! bufferOut.frameLength = 0 var error: NSError? let status = audioConverter.convert(to: bufferOut, error: &error, withInputFrom: inputBlock) switch status { case .haveData: if verbose { print("✅ convert returned haveData: \(bufferOut.frameLength) frames") } if bufferOut.frameLength > 0 { if bufferOut.isSilent { print("(haveData) SILENT BUFFER at frame \(totalFrames), pending: \(pendingFrames), inputPackets=\(bufferIn.packetCount), outputFrames=\(bufferOut.frameLength)") } outBuffers.append(bufferOut) totalFrames += Int(bufferOut.frameLength) } case .inputRanDry: if verbose { print("🔁 convert returned inputRanDry: \(bufferOut.frameLength) frames") } if bufferOut.frameLength > 0 { if bufferOut.isSilent { print("(inputRanDry) SILENT BUFFER at frame \(totalFrames), pending: \(pendingFrames), inputPackets=\(bufferIn.packetCount), outputFrames=\(bufferOut.frameLength)") } outBuffers.append(bufferOut) totalFrames += Int(bufferOut.frameLength) } return // wait for next handlePackets case .endOfStream: if verbose { print("✅ convert returned endOfStream") } return case .error: if verbose { print("❌ convert returned error") } if let error = error { print("error converting: \(error.localizedDescription)") } return @unknown default: fatalError() } } }
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560
Jul ’25
About the built-in instrument sound of Apple devices
Does anyone know how to pronounce the sound of a specific instrument when you tap a button on the screen on your iPhone or iPad? Now, in the middle of creating a music learning app, I'm thinking of assigning monotones or chords to the button-like frames on the keyboard and fingerboard on the screen. Can it be achieved with SwiftUI chords alone? Once upon a time, MIDI level 1 I remember that there was a pronunciation function of the instrument, but I don't think about implementing the same function in the current OS. Please lend me your wisdom.
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59
May ’25
AVCaptureSession startRunning is slow
AVCaptureSession's startRunning method is thread blocking and seems to be slow. What is this method doing behind the scenes? For context: I'm working on Simulator Camera support and I have a 'fake' AVCaptureDevice that might be causing this. My hypothesis is that AVCaptureSession tries to connect to the device and waits for a notification to be posted back. I'd love to find a way to let my fake device message AVCaptureSession that it's connected.
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294
Jul ’25
Lightning to HDMI mirrors
I am developing a VOD playback app, but when I stream video to an external monitor connected via HDMI with Lightning on iOS 18 or later, the screen goes dark and I cannot confirm playback. The app I am developing does not detect the HDMI and display the Player separately, but simply mirrors the video. We have confirmed that the same phenomenon occurs with other services, but we were able to confirm playback with some services such as Apple TV. Please let us know if there are any other necessary settings such as video certificates required for video playback. We would also like to know if the problem occurs with iOS 18 or later.
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283
Mar ’25
AVPlayer handle 403 error
Hello, Is there a way to handle 403 error returned by the server, eg token expired ? Cannot find any information about this and everything that I tried wasn't working (addObserver, NotificationCenter with .AVPlayerItemNewErrorLogEntry, AVPlayerItemPlaybackStalled, ...) Thank you very much.
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152
Mar ’25
How can I find the user's "Favorite Songs" playlist?
It sounds simple but searching for the name "Favorite Songs" is a non-starter because it's called different names in different countries, even if I specify "&l=en_us" on the query. So is there another property, relationship or combination thereof which I can use to tell me when I've found the right playlist? Properties I've looked at so far: canEdit: will always be false so narrows things down a little inFavorites: not helpful as it depends on whether the user has favourite the favourites playlist, so not relevant hasCatalog: seems always true so again may narrow things down a bit isPublic: doesn't help Adding the catalog relationship doesn't seem to show anything immediately useful either. Can anyone help? Ideally I'd like to see this as a "kind" or "type" as it has different properties to other playlists, but frankly I'll take anything at this point.
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289
Jul ’25
AirDropped Videos from Photos Save to Files Instead of Photos on Receiving Device
My app allows users to capture and save videos to the Photos app using the following Swift code: PHPhotoLibrary.shared().performChanges { PHAssetChangeRequest.creationRequestForAssetFromVideo(atFileURL: fileURL) } completionHandler: { success, error in Videos are successfully saved to Photos and play correctly. However, users report that when they AirDrop these videos from the Photos app to another device (e.g., iPad to iPhone), the videos are saved in the Files app on the receiving device instead of the Photos app. This issue is more common with higher-resolution videos, such as 2K, recorded in HEVC format at 30 fps. I wasn't able to reproduce the issue locally. I've found a thread in public apple forum: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255276865?sortBy=rank but I wonder maybe there are some special flags that I should clear or add to my videos (e.g. PHAssetChangeRequest)? Thank you!
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140
May ’25
Background recording app getting killed by watch dog.. how to avoid?
We have the necessary background recording entitlements, and for many users... do not run into any issues. However, there is a subset of users that routinely get recordings ending.. we have narrowed this down and believe it to be the work of the watch dog. First we removed the entire view hierarchy when app is backgrounded. There is just 'Text("Recording")' This got the CPU usage in profiler down to 0%. We saw massive improvements to recording success rate. We walked away assuming that was enough. However we are still seeing the same sort of crashes. All in the background. We're using Observation to drive audio state changes to a Live Activity. Are those Observations causing the problem? Why doesn't apple provide a better API to background audio? The internet is full of weird issues https://stackoverflow.com/questions/76010213/why-is-my-react-native-app-sometimes-terminated-in-the-background-while-tracking https://stackoverflow.com/questions/71656047/why-is-my-react-native-app-terminating-in-the-background-while-recording-ios-r https://github.com/expo/expo/issues/16807 This is such a terrible user experience. And we have very little visibility into what is happening and why. No where in apple documentation states that in order for background recording to work, the app can only be 'Text("Recording")' It does not outline a CPU or memory threshold. It just kills us.
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426
Mar ’25
ScaleTimeRange will cause noise in sound
I'm using AVFoundation to make a multi-track editor app, which can insert multiple track and clip, including scale some clip to change the speed of the clip, (also I'm not sure whether AVFoundation the best choice for me) but after making the scale with scaleTimeRange API, there is some short noise sound in play back. Also, sometimes it's fine when play AVMutableCompostion using AVPlayer with AVPlayerItem, but after exporting with AVAssetReader, will catch some short noise sounds in result file.... Not sure why. Here is the example project, which can build and run directly. https://github.com/luckysmg/daily_images/raw/refs/heads/main/TestDemo.zip
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136
Jul ’25
401 Authorization error for Music Feed API
I've established proper authorization for general music api calls, but when I use that same authorization to retrieve metadata for the latest music feeds (see https://developer.apple.com/documentation/applemusicfeed/requesting-a-feed-export), I get a 401 Unauthorized error. As per the documentation, I'm simply issuing a GET against https://api.media.apple.com/v1/feed/album/latest. Are there different entitlements needed for the Music Feed API?
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104
May ’25
PHFetchOptions: Full List of Supported Predicate Keys
Hi, Could anybody share the full list of supported Predicate keys for the PHFetchOptions? I'm aware of the list that is posted in the documentation: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/photos/phfetchoptions However I have reason to believe that this is not an exhaustive list and there also seem to be mistakes in this doc. i.e. isFavorite does not work but favorite does. Through some experimentation I also found that this works: NSPredicate(format: "adjustmentFormatIdentifier == 'com.pixelmatorteam.touch.x.photo.PhotosAdjustmentData.EmbeddedSlimSidecarFileInfo.compressed'") even though adjustmentFormatIdentifier is not listed as a supported key. Are there other secret keys that you are aware of? Specifically I want to filter a fetch result for edited items. Something like this: NSPredicate(format: "hasAdjustments == true") (I tried this, doesn't work) The native Photos app has such a filter which leads me to believe that there probably is a key for this: If one of the Framework Developers reads this: Could you please update the documentation page with this information? Finally if there really aren't any more secret keys, is there a way to achieve this with adjustmentFormatIdentifier? I have tried a bunch of stuff already like adjustmentFormatIdentifier != nil but for some reason that gives me the exact opposite of what I want: all the photos without edits. 🫠 Any tips on the correct syntax here would be much appreciated.
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137
Jun ’25
how to enumerate build-in media devices?
Hello, I need to enumerate built-in media devices (cameras, microphones, etc.). For this purpose, I am using the CoreAudio and CoreMediaIO frameworks. According to the table 'Daemon-Safe Frameworks' in Apple’s TN2083, CoreAudio is daemon-safe. However, the documentation does not mention CoreMediaIO. Can CoreMediaIO be used in a daemon? If not, are there any documented alternatives to detect built-in cameras in a daemon (e.g., via device classes in IOKit)? Thank you in advance, Pavel
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156
May ’25