Android Question Android 5.0 media player behaviour

[Arf]

I updated my nexus7 to Android 5.0 last night, and checked my app still worked.
It does, but not 100%. the app usually plays a series of clicks when something spins, and that's not working any more.

My code for playing the tick looks like this below - what I want to know is, would my Do While loop (that waits for the tick to finish playing) have any effect? I thought maybe since it blocks execution it may be optimised out by the compiler or something.

Sub PlayTick
    MP.Initialize ()
    MP.Load(File.DirAssets, "tick.wav")   
    MP.Play   
    Do While MP.IsPlaying
    Loop
End Sub

 

[Erel]

It is wrong to block the main thread. You should instead use the Complete event and continue your program flow.

The compiler will not remove this code. It should work.

Note that it is better to initialize and load the sound file once and reuse the MediaPlayer object.

 

[Arf]

Thanks Erel,
Just for my education - is this the best strategy to adopt:
Initialise MP once only, in Service_Create
Load a sound file, play it.
If I need to play that sound again, just play it again (after I know the first play has ended) without re-loading it.
If I need to play a different sound, I just load the different sound and play it, no need for re-init?

 

[Erel]

Yes.

1. You can also use SoundPool for short sounds. It is more efficient.
2. You can create several MediaPlayer objects if you play the same files several times.