Android: Keep Mediaplayer Running During Activity Screen Orientation Update

I use a MediaPlayer to play an MP3. Currently I disabled screen orientation changes by using android:screenOrientation='portrait' android:configChanges='keyboardHidden|orientation'

Solution 1:

Have you looked at using the onConfigurationChanged() callback to handle some of this logic?

Solution 2:

Regarding your question how you can reliably determine whether your Activity is destroyed due to a configuration change, see my answer here: How to save/restore(update) ref to the dialog during screen rotation?(I need ref in onCreate method of activity.)

With this, the answer to your second question should be easy.

Solution 3:

Try running MediaPlayer in different Thread.

You can add to this thread a more complex API to which you can call from onCreate/onStop/on*

Solution 4:

If you are using fragments (and you should :P), then calling setRetainInstance(true) inside your fragments onCreate() call will make this problem go completely go away.

Solution 5:

Please see the following answer: https://stackoverflow.com/a/31466602/994021

It is a POC I've created for this purpose. Tired of solving this issue over and over again for different projects. I hope it helps.

I really recommend to switch to a third party player like ExoPlayer from google guys: https://github.com/google/ExoPlayer