OSStatus error -50 (invalid parameters) AudioQueueNewInput recording audio on iOS

Question

I've been trawling the internet for ages trying to find the cause of this error but I'm stuck. I've been following the Apple Developer documentation for using Audio Services to record audio and I keep getting this error whatever I do.

I can record audio fine using AVAudioRecorder into any format but my end game is to obtain a normalised array of floats from the input data in order to apply an FFT to it (sorry for the noob phrasing I'm very new to audio programming).

Here's my code:

- (void)beginRecording
{
    // Initialise session
    [[AVAudioSession sharedInstance] setCategory:AVAudioSessionCategoryPlayAndRecord error:nil];
    [[AVAudioSession sharedInstance] setActive:YES error:nil];

    state.dataFormat.mFormatID = kAudioFormatLinearPCM;
    state.dataFormat.mSampleRate = 8000.0f;
    state.dataFormat.mChannelsPerFrame = 1;
    state.dataFormat.mBitsPerChannel = 16;
    state.dataFormat.mBytesPerPacket = state.dataFormat.mChannelsPerFrame * sizeof(SInt16);
    state.dataFormat.mFramesPerPacket = 1;

    //AudioFileTypeID fileID = kAudioFileAIFFType;

    state.dataFormat.mFormatFlags = kLinearPCMFormatFlagIsBigEndian | kLinearPCMFormatFlagIsSignedInteger | kLinearPCMFormatFlagIsPacked;

    OSStatus err = AudioQueueNewInput(&state.dataFormat, handleInputBuffer, &state, CFRunLoopGetMain(), kCFRunLoopCommonModes, 0, &state.queue);
    printf("%i", err); // this is always -50 i.e. invalid parameters error

    deriveBufferSize(state.queue, state.dataFormat, 0.5, &state.bufferByteState);

    for (int i = 0; i < kNumberOfBuffers; i++) {
        AudioQueueAllocateBuffer(state.queue, state.bufferByteState, &state.buffers[i]);
        AudioQueueEnqueueBuffer(state.queue, state.buffers[i], 0, NULL);
    }

    state.currentPacket = 0;
    state.isRunning = YES;

    AudioQueueStart(state.queue, NULL);
}

- (void)endRecording
{
    AudioQueueStop(state.queue, YES);
    state.isRunning = NO;

    AudioQueueDispose(state.queue, YES);

    // Close the audio file here...
}

#pragma mark - CoreAudio

// Core Audio Callback Function
static void handleInputBuffer(void *agData, AudioQueueRef inAQ, AudioQueueBufferRef inBuffer, const AudioTimeStamp *inStartTime, UInt32 inNumPackets, const AudioStreamPacketDescription *inPacketDesc) {

    AQRecorderState *state = (AQRecorderState *)agData;

    if (inNumPackets == 0 && state->dataFormat.mBytesPerPacket != 0) {
        inNumPackets = inBuffer->mAudioDataByteSize / state->dataFormat.mBytesPerPacket;
    }

    printf("Called");

    /*
    if (AudioFileWritePackets(state->audioFile, false, inBuffer->mAudioDataByteSize, inPacketDesc, state->currentPacket, &inNumPackets, inBuffer->mAudioData) == noErr) {
        state->currentPacket += inNumPackets;
    }
     */

    if (state->isRunning) {
        AudioQueueEnqueueBuffer(state->queue, inBuffer, 0, NULL);
    }
}

void deriveBufferSize(AudioQueueRef audioQueue, AudioStreamBasicDescription ABSDescription, Float64 secs, UInt32 *outBufferSize) {

    static const int maxBufferSize = 0x50000;

    int maxPacketSize = ABSDescription.mBytesPerPacket;
    if (maxPacketSize == 0) {
        UInt32 maxVBRPacketSize = sizeof(maxPacketSize);
        AudioQueueGetProperty(audioQueue, kAudioConverterPropertyMaximumOutputPacketSize, &maxPacketSize, &maxVBRPacketSize);
    }

    Float64 numBytesForTime = ABSDescription.mSampleRate * maxPacketSize * secs;
    UInt32 x = (numBytesForTime < maxBufferSize ? numBytesForTime : maxBufferSize);
    *outBufferSize = x;
}

If anyone knows what's going on here I'd be very grateful. Here is the apple docs for the error

Answer 1

You are getting a -50 (kAudio_ParamError) because you haven't initialised AudioStreamBasicDescription's mBytesPerFrame field:

asbd.mBytesPerFrame = asbd.mFramesPerPacket*asbd.mBytesPerPacket;

where asbd is short for state.dataFormat. In your case mBytesPerFrame = 2.

I also wouldn't specify the kLinearPCMFormatFlagIsBigEndian, let the recorder return you native byte order samples.