Android MediaPlayer sometimes skips or fails when playing two sounds simultaneously

Question

I've made a method to play sounds in mp3 format (max file size 145kb). When an event happens in the game I just send the file to this method. It creates a new mediaplayer instance whenever it is called, then releases that instance on completion. My problem is that with both the emulator and my phone, when I play 2 sounds near simultaneously, the sounds either skip (like a scratched CD), or one sound doesn't play at all, or sometimes it actually works.

Is a thread getting overloaded or something? I have a Samsung galaxy s3. Should I use soundpool instead? I've heard it has its own problems

public class MediaSimultaneous {

private MediaPlayer[] mediaPlayerArray = new MediaPlayer[10];
private AudioManager mAudioManager;
int playerNum = -1; // Array index of the player instance.

public void playSound(Context context, int audioId) {
    if (mAudioManager == null) {
        mAudioManager = (AudioManager) context.getSystemService(Context.AUDIO_SERVICE);
    }
        playerNum += 1;
        mediaPlayerArray[playerNum] = MediaPlayer.create(context, audioId);

        mediaPlayerArray[playerNum].setOnPreparedListener(new MediaPlayer.OnPreparedListener() {

            @Override
            public void onPrepared(MediaPlayer mp) {
                mp.start();
                mp.setOnCompletionListener(new MediaPlayer.OnCompletionListener() {

                    @Override
                    public void onCompletion(MediaPlayer mp) {

                        mp.release();
                        mediaPlayerArray[playerNum] = null;
                        playerNum -= 1;

                        if (playerNum <= 0) {
                            playerNum = 0;

                        }
                    }
                });
            }
        });

}

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 04 '15 at 17:22

I figured out that it was two separate problems. The stuttering was due to a well documented bug in mediaPlayer, and the sometimes not playing at all was due to onPrepared no being called. This code fixed that problem. I'm not sure exactly how. Possibly because the media was being prepared before the onPreparedListener had been created.

        mediaPlayerArray[playerNum] = new MediaPlayer();
        Uri mediaFile;
        mediaFile = Uri.parse("android.resource://com.adventureapps.borntorun/" + audioId);
        try {
            mediaPlayerArray[playerNum].setDataSource(context, mediaFile);
        } catch (IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
            mediaPlayerArray[playerNum].setAudioStreamType(AudioManager.STREAM_MUSIC);
        mediaPlayerArray[playerNum].setOnPreparedListener(new MediaPlayer.OnPreparedListener() {
            @Override
            public void onPrepared(MediaPlayer mp1) {
                mp1.start();
                Log.d(TAG, "mediaplayer " + Integer.toString(playerNum) + " started");
            }
        });
        try {
            mediaPlayerArray[playerNum].prepare();
        } catch (IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5343730/mediaplayer-stutters-at-start-of-mp3-playback — Carson Holzheimer, Sep 14 '16 at 14:12

Android MediaPlayer sometimes skips or fails when playing two sounds simultaneously

1 Answers1