Error handling

The Flowplayer iOS SDK provides a long list of callbacks for monitoring the player's state. Error callbacks are part of this list but in many cases they may require special handling.

Localizable error messages

There are errors that may not interrupt the content playback (eg. ad-related errors) but there are cases where the playback will be interrupted. In these cases, if you use the built-in controls, a meaningful message will be presented to the user together with a reload button. You can change these messages or provide translations to languages other than English by overriding the following string keys in your target's Localizable.strings:

// An error related to the playback has occurred.
"flowplayer-error-playback" = "Failed to play media.";

// The access token could not be validated and therefore the playback cannot start.
"flowplayer-error-access-token" = "Failed to validate access token.";

// Failed to load a Flowplayer config.
"flowplayer-error-config" = "Failed to load media.";

// Failed to load the built-in controls. This probably happened due to poor or no Internet connection.
"flowplayer-error-controls" = "Failed to load built-in controls.";

// This message will actually not be shown to the user since the playback will not be interrupted. The message will be included in the error callback though.
"flowplayer-error-ad" = "Failed to load ad.";

// This actually should not happen but it works as a fallback in case some other (really) unexpected error has occurred.
"flowplayer-error-unknown" = "An unknown error has occurred.";

If you wish to force a locale programmatically and override the default system language, then the simplest solution is to update the UserDefaults. The following example will force the local to French (Canada).

// Note that you need to use an underscore (_) and not a dash (-).
UserDefaults.standard.set(["fr_CA"], forKey: "AppleLanguages")
UserDefaults.standard.synchronize()

Alternatively, you can write the following extension:

extension Bundle {
    private static var bundle: Bundle!

    public static func setLanguage(lang: String) {
        UserDefaults.standard.set(lang, forKey: "app_lang")
        let path = Bundle.main.path(forResource: lang, ofType: "lproj")
        bundle = Bundle(path: path!)
    }
}

Then use it like this:

// Note that you need to use a dash (-) and not an underscore (_).
Bundle.setLanguage(lang: "fr-CA")

Regardless, which of the two alternatives you choose to use, you still need to override Flowplayer's string keys in your target's Localizable.strings as it was mentioned at the top of this section.

Reload player

Finally, if the playback has been interrupted, you may want to reload the player without having to call prepare() again. This can be conveniently achieved by calling:

flowplayerViewController.reload()