[android] Streaming Audio from A URL in Android using MediaPlayer?

I've been trying to stream mp3's over http using Android's built in MediaPlayer class. The documentation would suggest to me that this should be as easy as :

MediaPlayer mp = new MediaPlayer();
mp.setDataSource(URL_OF_FILE);
mp.prepare();
mp.start();

However I am getting the following repeatedly. I have tried different URLs as well. Please don't tell me that streaming doesn't work on mp3's.

E/PlayerDriver(   31): Command PLAYER_SET_DATA_SOURCE completed with an error or info PVMFErrNotSupported
W/PlayerDriver(   31): PVMFInfoErrorHandlingComplete
E/MediaPlayer(  198): error (1, -4)
E/MediaPlayer(  198): start called in state 0
E/MediaPlayer(  198): error (-38, 0)
E/MediaPlayer(  198): Error (1,-4)
E/MediaPlayer(  198): Error (-38,0)

Any help much appreciated, thanks S

Android MediaPlayer doesn't support streaming of MP3 natively until 2.2. In older versions of the OS it appears to only stream 3GP natively. You can try the pocketjourney code, although it's old (there's a new version here) and I had trouble making it sticky — it would stutter whenever it refilled the buffer.

The NPR News app for Android is open source and uses a local proxy server to handle MP3 streaming in versions of the OS before 2.2. You can see the relevant code in lines 199-216 (r94) here: http://code.google.com/p/npr-android-app/source/browse/Npr/src/org/npr/android/news/PlaybackService.java?r=7cf2352b5c3c0fbcdc18a5a8c67d836577e7e8e3

And this is the StreamProxy class: http://code.google.com/p/npr-android-app/source/browse/Npr/src/org/npr/android/news/StreamProxy.java?r=e4984187f45c39a54ea6c88f71197762dbe10e72

The NPR app is also still getting the "error (-38, 0)" sometimes while streaming. This may be a threading issue or a network change issue. Check the issue tracker for updates.

simple Media Player with streaming example.For xml part you need one button with id button1 and two images in your drawable folder with name button_pause and button_play and please don't forget to add the internet permission in your manifest.

public class MainActivity extends Activity {
private Button btn;
/**
 * help to toggle between play and pause.
 */
private boolean playPause;
private MediaPlayer mediaPlayer;
/**
 * remain false till media is not completed, inside OnCompletionListener make it true.
 */
private boolean intialStage = true;


@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
    btn = (Button) findViewById(R.id.button1);
    mediaPlayer = new MediaPlayer();
    mediaPlayer.setAudioStreamType(AudioManager.STREAM_MUSIC);
    btn.setOnClickListener(pausePlay);

}

@Override
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
    // Inflate the menu; this adds items to the action bar if it is present.
    getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.activity_main, menu);
    return true;
}

private OnClickListener pausePlay = new OnClickListener() {

    @Override
    public void onClick(View v) {
        // TODO Auto-generated method stub
        // TODO Auto-generated method stub

        if (!playPause) {
            btn.setBackgroundResource(R.drawable.button_pause);
            if (intialStage)
                new Player()
                        .execute("http://www.virginmegastore.me/Library/Music/CD_001214/Tracks/Track1.mp3");
            else {
                if (!mediaPlayer.isPlaying())
                    mediaPlayer.start();
            }
            playPause = true;
        } else {
            btn.setBackgroundResource(R.drawable.button_play);
            if (mediaPlayer.isPlaying())
                mediaPlayer.pause();
            playPause = false;
        }
    }
};
/**
 * preparing mediaplayer will take sometime to buffer the content so prepare it inside the background thread and starting it on UI thread.
 * @author piyush
 *
 */

class Player extends AsyncTask<String, Void, Boolean> {
    private ProgressDialog progress;

    @Override
    protected Boolean doInBackground(String... params) {
        // TODO Auto-generated method stub
        Boolean prepared;
        try {

            mediaPlayer.setDataSource(params[0]);

            mediaPlayer.setOnCompletionListener(new OnCompletionListener() {

                @Override
                public void onCompletion(MediaPlayer mp) {
                    // TODO Auto-generated method stub
                    intialStage = true;
                    playPause=false;
                    btn.setBackgroundResource(R.drawable.button_play);
                    mediaPlayer.stop();
                    mediaPlayer.reset();
                }
            });
            mediaPlayer.prepare();
            prepared = true;
        } catch (IllegalArgumentException e) {
            // TODO Auto-generated catch block
            Log.d("IllegarArgument", e.getMessage());
            prepared = false;
            e.printStackTrace();
        } catch (SecurityException e) {
            // TODO Auto-generated catch block
            prepared = false;
            e.printStackTrace();
        } catch (IllegalStateException e) {
            // TODO Auto-generated catch block
            prepared = false;
            e.printStackTrace();
        } catch (IOException e) {
            // TODO Auto-generated catch block
            prepared = false;
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
        return prepared;
    }

    @Override
    protected void onPostExecute(Boolean result) {
        // TODO Auto-generated method stub
        super.onPostExecute(result);
        if (progress.isShowing()) {
            progress.cancel();
        }
        Log.d("Prepared", "//" + result);
        mediaPlayer.start();

        intialStage = false;
    }

    public Player() {
        progress = new ProgressDialog(MainActivity.this);
    }

    @Override
    protected void onPreExecute() {
        // TODO Auto-generated method stub
        super.onPreExecute();
        this.progress.setMessage("Buffering...");
        this.progress.show();

    }
}

@Override
protected void onPause() {
    // TODO Auto-generated method stub
    super.onPause();
    if (mediaPlayer != null) {
        mediaPlayer.reset();
        mediaPlayer.release();
        mediaPlayer = null;
    }
}

No call mp.start with an OnPreparedListener to avoid the zero state i the log..

I guess that you are trying to play an .pls directly or something similar.

try this out:

1: the code

mediaPlayer = MediaPlayer.create(this, Uri.parse("http://vprbbc.streamguys.net:80/vprbbc24.mp3"));
mediaPlayer.start();

2: the .pls file

This URL is from BBC just as an example. It was an .pls file that on linux i downloaded with

wget http://foo.bar/file.pls

and then i opened with vim (use your favorite editor ;) and i've seen the real URLs inside this file. Unfortunately not all of the .pls are plain text like that.

I've read that 1.6 would not support streaming mp3 over http, but, i've just tested the obove code with android 1.6 and 2.2 and didn't have any issue.

good luck!

Looking my projects:

1. https://github.com/master255/ImmortalPlayer http/FTP support, One thread to read, send and save to cache data. Most simplest way and most fastest work. Complex logic - best way!
2. https://github.com/master255/VideoViewCache Simple Videoview with cache. Two threads for play and save data. Bad logic, but if you need then use this.

I've had the same error as you have and it turned out that there was nothing wrong with the code. The problem was that the webserver was sending the wrong Content-Type header.

Try wireshark or something similar to see what content-type the webserver is sending.

Use

 mediaplayer.setAudioStreamType(AudioManager.STREAM_MUSIC);
 mediaplayer.prepareAsync();
 mediaplayer.setOnPreparedListener(new MediaPlayer.OnPreparedListener() {
      @Override
      public void onPrepared(MediaPlayer mp) {
          mediaplayer.start();
      }
 });