How to Enable Autoplay in SwiftUI VideoPlayer Without Memory Leaks

Discover how to implement autoplay functionality in SwiftUI's VideoPlayer while preventing AVPlayer memory leaks. Learn the best practices to manage AVPlayer in your SwiftUI projects.
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This video is based on the question https://stackoverflow.com/q/77872386/ asked by the user 'Lescai Ionel' ( https://stackoverflow.com/u/987300/ ) and on the answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/77872593/ provided by the user 'malhal' ( https://stackoverflow.com/u/259521/ ) at 'Stack Overflow' website. Thanks to these great users and Stackexchange community for their contributions.

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Autoplay VideoPlayer in SwiftUI Without Memory Leaks

When developing iOS applications using SwiftUI, you may encounter the challenge of implementing a VideoPlayer that not only autoplays the video but also avoids memory leaks associated with the AVPlayer. This issue can lead to sound persistently playing even after leaving the view. Let's explore how to achieve seamless autoplay while maintaining efficient memory management in your SwiftUI applications.

The Problem

You want to present a VideoPlayer in a sheet that autoplays the video. A common way to do this is by initializing an AVPlayer with the video URL directly in your view. However, this approach often leads to memory leaks and audio issues upon dismissing the view.

Here's the initial code you might think to implement:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

You then create a simple VideoPlayerView like this:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

The Core Issues

Memory Leak: Monitoring the Memory Graph reveals that the AVPlayer instance remains in memory after the view is dismissed.

Audio Persistence: If you omit the call to pause the player on disappearance, the audio continues playing even after the user navigates away.

The dilemma becomes clear: how can you maintain autoplay functionality without causing these problematic side effects?

The Solution

Instead of initializing the AVPlayer directly in the view's body, which is not ideal due to SwiftUI’s view lifecycle, we can leverage SwiftUI’s @State property wrapper to manage the player instance. This allows us to retain control over the player while ensuring it is appropriately deallocated when the view disappears.

Step-by-Step Implementation

Here’s how you can refactor your VideoPlayerView:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Explanation of the Changes

Using @State: The @State property wrapper allows SwiftUI to keep track of the player's state across view cycles. The same instance of player can be reused without causing leaks.

Conditional View Rendering: The if let player construct ensures that the VideoPlayer is only created when the player instance is available.

Handling URL Changes: The .onChange modifier monitors changes to the video URL. If the URL updates, it initializes a new AVPlayer object, ensuring that each video is managed appropriately.

Memory Management: By allowing SwiftUI to manage the lifecycle of the View in conjunction with the state, the player is released from memory when not in use.

Conclusion

With this approach, you can successfully implement the autoplay feature in a SwiftUI VideoPlayer without enduring memory leaks. By properly managing the AVPlayer instance with @State and monitoring changes diligently, you can create a smooth and efficient user experience.

Feel free to apply these concepts in your SwiftUI projects, ensuring you provide your users with seamless video playback and an overall polished app experience.

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