Is there a leak in AVPlayers' init method?

Question

I am working on an app that makes extensive use of AVfoundation. Recently I did some leak checking with Instruments. The "leaks" instrument was reporting a leak at a point a in the code where I was instantiating a new AVPlayer, like this:

player1 = [AVPlayer playerWithPlayerItem:playerItem1];

To reduce the problem, I created an entirely new Xcode project with for a single view application, using ARC, and put in the following line.

AVPlayer *player = [[AVPlayer alloc] init];

This produces the same leak report in Instruments. Below is the stack trace. Does anybody know why a simple call to [[AVPlayer alloc] init] would cause a leak? Although I am using ARC, I tried a turning it off and inserting the corresponding [player release]; instruction and it makes no difference. This seems to have to do specifically with AVPlayer.

0 libsystem_c.dylib malloc
1 libsystem_c.dylib strdup
2 libnotify.dylib token_table_add
3 libnotify.dylib notify_register_check
4 AVFoundation -[AVPlayer(AVPlayerMultitaskSupport) _iapdExtendedModeIsActive]
5 AVFoundation -[AVPlayer init]
6 TestApp -[ViewController viewDidLoad] /Users/jason/Synaptic Revival/Project Field Trip/software development/TestApp/TestApp/ViewController.m:22
7 UIKit -[UIViewController view]
--- 2 frames omitted ---
10 UIKit -[UIWindow makeKeyAndVisible]
11 TestApp -[AppDelegate application:didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:] /Users/jason/Synaptic Revival/Project Field Trip/software development/TestApp/TestApp/AppDelegate.m:24
12 UIKit -[UIApplication _callInitializationDelegatesForURL:payload:suspended:]
--- 3 frames omitted ---
16 UIKit _UIApplicationHandleEvent
17 GraphicsServices PurpleEventCallback
18 CoreFoundation __CFRUNLOOP_IS_CALLING_OUT_TO_A_SOURCE1_PERFORM_FUNCTION__
--- 3 frames omitted ---
22 CoreFoundation CFRunLoopRunInMode
23 UIKit -[UIApplication _run]
24 UIKit UIApplicationMain
25 TestApp main /Users/jason/software development/TestApp/TestApp/main.m:16
26 TestApp start

I'm seeing the same leak everywhere and I'm not using AVFoundation. — Cameron Spickert, Mar 30 '12 at 15:32
I'm seeing the same behavior initing an AVPlayer with an AVPlayerItem retrieved from a AVURLAsset. Considering make the player a global... which really sucks. — GnarlyDog, Apr 11 '12 at 19:33

score 3 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:31

This 48-bytes leak is confirmed by Apple as a known issue, which not only lives in AVPlayer but also in UIScrollView (I have an app happened to use both components.)

Please see this thread to get detail: Memory leak every time UIScrollView is released

Here's the link to apple's answer on the thead (you may need a developer id to sign in): https://devforums.apple.com/thread/144449?start=0&tstart=0

Apple's brief quote:

This is a known bug that will be fixed in a future release. In the meantime, while all leaks are obviously undesirable this isn't going to cause any user-visible problems in the real world. A user would have to scroll roughly 22,000 times in order to leak 1 megabyte of memory, so it's not going to impact daily usage.

It seems any component that refers to notify_register_check and notify_register_mach_port will cause this issue.

Currently no obvious walk around or fix can be found. It is confirmed that this issue remains in iOS versions for 5.1 and 5.1.1. Hopefully apple can fix that in iOS 6 because it is really annoying and destructive.

Can you link to a source for "confirmed by Apple," please? – Brighid McDonnell Jul 27 '12 at 17:24 — Brighid McDonnell, Jul 27 '12 at 17:24

Is there a leak in AVPlayers' init method?

1 Answers1