Cannot pause looping movie because of bugs in MPMoviePlayerController

Question

I set up the movie player like this:

self.moviePlayer = [[MPMoviePlayerController alloc] initWithContentURL:@"whatever.mp4"];
    self.moviePlayer.controlStyle = MPMovieControlStyleNone;
    self.moviePlayer.shouldAutoplay = YES;
    [self.moviePlayer prepareToPlay];
    self.moviePlayer.repeatMode = MPMovieRepeatModeOne;
    self.moviePlayer.view.frame = self.container.bounds;
    self.moviePlayer.view.userInteractionEnabled = NO;
    [self.container addSubview:self.moviePlayer.view];

    [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver: self selector: @selector(moviePlayBackDidFinish:) name: MPMoviePlayerPlaybackStateDidChangeNotification
                                               object: self.moviePlayer];

The notification is necessary to keep the player looping, since repeatMode is pretty much useless (the video will repeat once or twice, maybe a few times depending on the price of rice in China, then stop). So to keep the video looping you have to do this:

- (void)moviePlayBackDidFinish:(NSNotification *)note {
    if (note.object == self.moviePlayer) {
        NSInteger reason = [[note.userInfo objectForKey:MPMoviePlayerPlaybackDidFinishReasonUserInfoKey] integerValue];
        if (reason == MPMovieFinishReasonPlaybackEnded) {
            [self.moviePlayer play];
        }
    }
}

Now the problem is that I need to be able to pause the video. For some reason a call to

    [self.moviePlayer pause];

results in the notification getting fired with reason == MPMovieFinishReasonPlaybackEnded even though the documentation clearly states this:

Constants
MPMovieFinishReasonPlaybackEnded
The end of the movie was reached.
Available in iOS 3.2 and later.
Declared in MPMoviePlayerController.h.

The end of the movie was not reached. I just called pause:. So the notification gets fired and thus the movie gets played again, negating the pause action.

So you can see the problem. How can I successfully pause a looping video?

Answer 1

create a BOOL in your class and initialize it to NO,

@property (nonatomic, assign) BOOL isTriggeredByPause;

before calling

[self.moviePlayer pause];

set its value,

self.isTriggeredByPause = YES;

in your method check for it,

 (void)moviePlayBackDidFinish:(NSNotification *)note {
if (note.object == self.moviePlayer) {
    NSInteger reason = [[note.userInfo objectForKey:MPMoviePlayerPlaybackDidFinishReasonUserInfoKey] integerValue];
    if (reason == MPMovieFinishReasonPlaybackEnded) {
if(!self.isTriggeredByPause)
{
    [self.moviePlayer play];
}
}
}
}

Modify value of self.isTriggeredByPause on manual play too, or loop won't work.