load a MediaPlayer from a Uri in a context assets

Question

I have an audio file in my assets directory. assets/audio/dance.mp3.

If I run context.getAssets().list("audio"); it shows up.

But when I try to use MediaPlayer.create(context,uri) it always fails and returns null.

none of this seems to work

private void tryLoad(String path,Context context)
{
    Uri uri = Uri.parse(path);
    this.audioPlayer =  MediaPlayer.create(context,uri);
    if (this.audioPlayer == null)
    {
        Log.d(TAG, "loadAudio: audioPlayer is null. current assets"+ uri.toString()) ;
    }
    else
    {
        Log.d(TAG, "loadAudio: WORKED"+ uri.toString()) ;
    }

}
public void loadAudio(Context context)
{
    if (this.audioPlayer != null)
        return;
    if (this.audioFile != null && this.audioFile.length() >0)
    {
        try 
        {
            tryLoad("/dance.mp3",context);
            tryLoad("dance.mp3",context);
            tryLoad("audio/dance.mp3",context);
            tryLoad("/audio/dance.mp3",context);
            tryLoad("assets/audio/dance.mp3",context);
            tryLoad("/assets/audio/dance.mp3",context);
            tryLoad("\\dance.mp3",context);
            tryLoad("dance.mp3",context);
            tryLoad("audio\\dance.mp3",context);
            tryLoad("\\audio\\dance.mp3",context);
            tryLoad("assets\\audio\\dance.mp3",context);
            tryLoad("\\assets\\audio\\dance.mp3",context);
        }   
        catch (Exception e)
        {
            Log.d(TAG, "loadAudio exception: " + e.getMessage());
        }
    }
}

Answer 1

I have asked something like this question, look at this post MediaPlayer issue between raw folder and sdcard on android. I hope this help you

Answer 2

I think you can do it because the MediaPlayer expects an URI and it's impossible to create an URI for an assets file. Try creating a MediaPlayer object and setting a data source to it using the MediaPlayer.setDataSource(FileDescriptor) method. You can get the FileDescriptor object using the AssetManager.openFd() method and then calling the AssetFileDescriptor.getFileDescriptor() method for the returned object.

I haven't tried this solution, so it's just an idea. But I hope it'll work.

Answer 3

you cannot call mp.setDataSource(afd.getFileDescriptor()); on an asset file as it will play all the assets. Instead follow the solution in this thread: Play audio file from the assets directory

Answer 4

You need to put the file in the res/raw folder and then loading it with:

MediaPlayer mp = MediaPlayer.create(context, R.raw.sound_file_1);

From: Android documentation