MediaPlayer how to stop multiple sounds from playback

Question

i have a button that plays a sound. When i push the button multiple times, it plays the sound multiple times. This is oke, i want this. But when i click the stop button it must stop all sounds currently playing. I used:

   while (mediaPlayer.isPlaying()){mediaPlayer.stop();}

but it is not working, the sounds keep on playing. Can someone help me? Here is my full code:

public class HelloSoundboard extends Activity {
MediaPlayer mediaPlayer;

@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    setContentView(R.layout.main);

    Button item1 = (Button)findViewById(R.id.item1);
    item1.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
       public void onClick(View view) {
           mediaPlayer = MediaPlayer.create(getBaseContext(), R.raw.atyourservice);
           mediaPlayer.start();
       }
    });

    Button stop = (Button)findViewById(R.id.stop);
    stop.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
       public void onClick(View view) {
          while (mediaPlayer.isPlaying()){mediaPlayer.stop();}
        //  mediaPlayer.stop();
       }
     });
 }
}

Answer 1

SoundPool is a much better alternative for this purpose. I would caution strongly against instantiating multiple MediaPlayer instances as most systems do not have the resources to generate many parallel active instances. You wil find on many device that hitting the button upwards of 5 times will cause a memory based crash.

As far as stopping all active streams, there is not baked-in function for this, but it's easy to accomplish in a manner to similar to your existing code. As a side note, there is an autoPause() method, which halts all streams, but it doesn't truly end their playback (as the method name insinuates). Here is a simple example to manage your audio streams:

//SoundPool initialization somewhere
SoundPool pool = new SoundPool(10, AudioManager.STREAM_MUSIC, 0);
//Load your sound effect into the pool
int soundId = pool.load(...); //There are several versions of this, pick which fits your sound

List<Integer> streams = new ArrayList<Integer>();
Button item1 = (Button)findViewById(R.id.item1);
item1.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
   public void onClick(View view) {
       int streamId = pool.play(soundId, 1.0f, 1.0f, 1, 0, 1.0f);
       streams.add(streamId);
   }
});

Button stop = (Button)findViewById(R.id.stop);
stop.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
   public void onClick(View view) {
      for (Integer stream : streams) {
          pool.stop(stream);
      }
      streams.clear();
   }
});

It is much more memory efficient to manage a list of streamID values than MediaPlayer instances, and your users will thank you. Also, note that it is safe to call SoundPool.stop() even if the streamID is no longer valid, so you don't need to check for existing playback.

HTH