apache / apache/cordova-plugin-media

Android: play & seekTo => error (-38, 0), start called in state 4

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Dominant language
JavaScript
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Description

# Bug Report

## Problem

Calling `.play()` and `.seekTo()` immediately one after the other causes an error on Android.

### What is expected to happen?

It should start playing from the given position.

### What does actually happen?

It doesn't play, and produces the following error via the error callback:

```
{"code":-38,"message":"AudioPlayer.onError(-38, 0)"}
```

This is also logged:

```
E/MediaPlayerNative: start called in state 4, mPlayer(0xb400007c64c690b0)
E/MediaPlayerNative: error (-38, 0)
```

## Information

I searched for this error code, and it appears that the problem is that `player.start()` is called before the `onPrepared` callback is fired.

After digging into the implementation (`AudioPlayer.java`), I found that both the `startPlaying` and `seekToPlaying` call `readyPlayer()` and only do stuff immediately if `readyPlayer()` returns true, otherwise will set some values to do it in the callback once the player is ready.

`readyPlayer()` creates the player if it doesn't exist yet, and it looks like it is meant to return false if the player is not ready; however it seems to return true in the `MEDIA_STARTING` as well.

```java
switch (this.state) {
case MEDIA_NONE:
if (this.player == null) {
this.player = new MediaPlayer();
this.player.setOnErrorListener(this);
}
// ...
return false;
case MEDIA_LOADING:
// ...
return false;
case MEDIA_STARTING: // <---
case MEDIA_RUNNING:
case MEDIA_PAUSED:
return true; // <---
case MEDIA_STOPPED:
```

I'm wondering if there is any reason for it to return true while `MEDIA_STARTING`?

### Command or Code

```typescript
this.media = new Media(
src,
successCallback,
failureCallback,
statusCallback,
durationUpdateCallback
);

// The order of the following two doesn't matter
this.media.seekTo(seconds * 1000);
this.media.play();
```

I managed to get it working with this workaround:

```typescript
if (this._mediaStatus === null || this._mediaStatus < MEDIA_RUNNING) {
// The media is not ready yet, seek as soon as we get a MEDIA_RUNNING status
this._seekToSecondsWhenReady = seconds;
} else {
this.media.seekTo(seconds * 1000);
}
```

### Environment, Platform, Device

- Capacitor
- Android

### Version information

```
@capacitor/android": "4.6.1",
@capacitor/assets": "2.0.4",
@capacitor/camera": "4.1.4",
@capacitor/core": "4.6.1",
@capacitor/ios": "4.6.1",
@capacitor/splash-screen": "4.1.2",
cordova-plugin-file": "7.0.0",
cordova-plugin-media": "6.1.0"
```

Android version: 11

## Checklist

- [x] I searched for existing GitHub issues
- [x] I updated all Cordova tooling to most recent version
- [x] I included all the necessary information above

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Research direction

Start with AudioPlayer.java and inspect readyPlayer(), especially the MEDIA_STARTING branch, then reproduce the immediate seekTo() and play() sequence on Android. Done means the sequence produces no MediaPlayer error and starts playback from the requested position, including when preparation has not completed.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
android, java, javascript
Domain
mobile-dev
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Clearly specified
Newbie friendliness
38/100

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