MPMoviePlayerController does not work with movie in documents folder

Question

I have a ViewController which plays a movie. If the movie was downloaded (with ASI-HTTP-Request) it takes the local version. Otherwise it streams it from the web. It's the exact same movie.

Streaming does work very well, but playing the local file does not work. Just a black screen and no controls. The file has been downloaded correctly I checked the md5 checksum.

It's a Apple QuickTime Video (.mov) at a size of 1024x5xx pixel.

player = [[MPMoviePlayerController alloc] init];
[player.view setFrame: self.view.bounds];
if (local) {
    // DOES not work
    // SHOULD be [NSURL fileURLWithString:...]
    [player setContentURL: [NSURL URLWithString: @"/path/to/the/movie.mov"]];
} else {
    // does work
    [player setContentURL: [NSURL URLWithString: @"http://mydomain.tld/path/to/the/movie.mov"]];
}
[self.view addSubview: player.view];
[player play]

I tried around with the players MediaSourceType. But it didn't help. Why does it not work? I don't have any error messages because I dont receive one..., is there a way to get error messages from it?

Solution

I found my error.

I used [NSURL URLWithString: @"/the/path/..."] for the local path.

It works with [NSURL fileURLWithPath: @"/the/path/..."]

Answer 1

Check URL to video file. This line return path to Documents directory.

NSString* docPath = [NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains
               (NSDocumentDirectory, NSUserDomainMask, YES) objectAtIndex:0];

Your path is not related to Document directory

[player setContentURL: [NSURL URLWithString: @"/path/to/the/movie.mov"]];

Try this

[player setContentURL: [NSURL URLWithString: [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@%@", docPath, @"/path/to/the/movie.mov"]]];