Keywords: FairPlay, FPS Certificate, DRM, FairPlay Streaming, license server Hi all, We are currently using FairPlay Streaming in production and already have an FPS certificate in place. However, the passphrase for the existing FPS certificate has unfortunately been lost. We are now considering reissuing a new FPS certificate, and I would like to confirm a few points before proceeding: 1️⃣ If we reissue a new FPS certificate, will the existing certificate be automatically revoked? Or will it remain valid until its original expiration date? 2️⃣ Is it possible to have both the newly issued and the existing certificates valid at the same time? In other words, can we serve DRM licenses using either certificate depending on the packaging or client? 3️⃣ Are there any caveats or best practices we should be aware of when reissuing an FPS certificate? For example, would existing packaged content become unplayable, or would CDN/packaging server configurations need to be updated carefully? Since this affects our production environment, we would like to minimize any service disruption or compatibility issues. Unfortunately, when we contacted Apple support directly, we were advised to post this question here in the Forums for additional guidance. Any advice or experiences would be greatly appreciated! Thank you in advance.

I’m building a music app using Apple Music streaming via ApplicationMusicPlayer. My goal is to decrease the volume of the current song during the last 10 seconds, and when the next track begins, restore the volume to its normal level. I know that ApplicationMusicPlayer doesn’t expose a volume API, and I want to avoid triggering the system volume HUD. ✅ Using Apple Music streaming (not local files) ❓ Is it possible to implement per-track fade-out/fade-in logic with ApplicationMusicPlayer? Appreciate any clarification or official guidance!

While validating a Dolby Vision Profile 5 playlist in CMAF format (with segments in MP4), the Media Stream Validator reported the following error in the MUXT-FIX-ISSUES list: However, the playlist correctly specifies Dolby Vision Profile 5 in both the EXT-X-STREAM-INF and EXT-X-I-STREAM-INF tags. Playlist: #EXTM3U #EXT-X-VERSION:8 #EXT-X-INDEPENDENT-SEGMENTS #EXT-X-MEDIA:TYPE=AUDIO,GROUP-ID="audio-ec3",LANGUAGE="und",NAME="Undetermined",AUTOSELECT=YES,CHANNELS="6",URI="var14711339/aud1257/playlist.m3u8?device_profile=hls&seg_size=6&cmaf=1" #EXT-X-STREAM-INF:BANDWIDTH=14680000,AVERAGE-BANDWIDTH=14676380,VIDEO-RANGE=PQ,CODECS="ec-3,dvh1.05.06",RESOLUTION=3840x2160,AUDIO="audio-ec3" var14711339/vid/playlist.m3u8?device_profile=hls&seg_size=6&cmaf=1 #EXT-X-I-FRAME-STREAM-INF:BANDWIDTH=1419881,URI="trk14711339/playlist.m3u8?device_profile=hls&cmaf=1",VIDEO-RANGE=PQ,CODECS="dvh1.05.06",RESOLUTION=3840x2160 Could you please review this and clarify: Why is the Media Stream Validator reporting this error, even though the playlist correctly includes Dolby Vision Profile 5 parameters in CMAF format? Why is this error not reported when using a playlist with TS segments instead of CMAF (MP4)?

Hi there, We're working on offline playback of DRM tracks. The persistent keys (also known as track licenses) for offline playback are stored locally on the device and are served from cache when a user initiates playback of a downloaded track. Our persistent keys have a limited validity time and need to be refreshed when they expire. To prevent a situation where a persistent key expires while the user is offline, we've decided to eagerly refresh these keys one week before their expiration date. To make that happen we need to be able to obtain the expiration date of the given track license. We've been attempting to use the makeSecureTokenForExpirationDateOfPersistableContentKey API to facilitate this process. The documentation states that this API returns a secret token representing the persistent key, which we can then exchange with our license server for the expiration date: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/avfoundation/avcontentkeysession/makesecuretokenforexpirationdate(ofpersistablecontentkey:completionhandler:)?language=objc However, every time we call makeSecureTokenForExpirationDateOfPersistableContentKey, we receive an error with code -46250. We haven't been able to find any public references or documentation for this specific error code, which is preventing us from troubleshooting the issue. We are conducting our tests on a physical device, as the simulator does not support FairPlay playback. We don't use dual expiry approach. Is our understanding of how to obtain the expiration timestamp correct? Are we using the makeSecureTokenForExpirationDateOfPersistableContentKey API as it was intended? What does the -46250 error code mean, and what steps should we take to fix our FairPlay implementation to make this work? Thanks in advance for your assistance.

Hey there, We're seeing a high rate of 403 - Invalid Authentication on this endpoint v1/me/library/artists since a few days. Does anyone have the same issue ?

We have a Low-Latency HLS stream, and on iOS 26, even though the bandwidth is sufficient, it still selects a low-bandwidth resolution (e.g., RESOLUTION=640x360) for playback instead of using a higher-bandwidth resolution (e.g., RESOLUTION=1920x1080) when using AVPlayerViewController with AVPlayer. This works fine on iOS version 18 and previous versions. What could be the solution to this issue?

Hi, I submitted the FairPlay Streaming Credentials Approval request, but it's been 15 days and I haven't received a response yet. Do you happen to know how long they usually take to reply to these requests?

Hello, I'm investigating an issue with LL-HLS playback using AVPlayer, specifically during DVR Live seeking (seeking to a past time). I noticed that in certain seeking scenarios, AVPlayer sends a Blocking Playlist Reload request that includes the _HLS_msn parameter but is missing the _HLS_part parameter. While I understand this is compliant with the HLS spec, I would like to know the specific criteria AVPlayer uses to decide when to drop the _HLS_part parameter. Does AVPlayer intentionally omit the part info when it determines that loading a specific partial segment is unnecessary during a seek operation? Clarification on this behavior would help us greatly in debugging our stream delivery. Thanks in advance.

Hi Is it possible to have a playlist where I have a indication of a stream in clear, but then, someone started a DRM encrypted period and then someone turns it off. Can I just do the following (I've removed the video segments part, I'm just interested in the parts where I want notify the new drm region )? #EXT-X-MAP:URI="video_2_10000000_t17586401730000000_init.mp4" #EXT-X-KEY:METHOD=NONE ... #EXT-X-MAP:URI="video_2_10000000_t17587374640000000_init.mp4" #EXT-X-KEY:METHOD=SAMPLE-AES,URI="skd://5df0b36ac4bb4d0ff954a73b502ac332",KEYFORMAT="com.apple.streamingkeydelivery",KEYFORMATVERSIONS="1" ... #EXT-X-MAP:URI="video_2_10000000_t17587376740000000_init.mp4?" #EXT-X-KEY:METHOD=NONE Should I insert discontinuity tags or something else? Right now what I can observe is that I got some audio drops when I try to do this.

Our license service is based on version 4.5.4 and we make use of sample .c/.h files for building license service. We are told that version 4.5.4 is going to be deprecated in 2026 and we should migrate to latest SDK version 26. When explored the SDK, we noticed that only python and Swift based SDk is provided. Does Apple also provide C/C++ based SDK as it is going to easier for us to integrate. If yes, please share the SDK package and sample license service solution.

The same H265 encrypted Fairplay content can be played in all Apple devices except A1625. The clear H265 content is played in A1625. The question is: will this model (A1625) support H265 Fairplay encrypted content? A ticket was created here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255658006?sortBy=best

I use AVPlayer to play HLS video successfully on macOS Sonoma, but I encountered this error on macOS Sequoia. Please help me: Error Domain=AVFoundationErrorDomain Code=-11833 ‘Cannot Decode’ UserInfo={NSUnderlyingError=0x600001e57330 {Error Domain=CoreMediaErrorDomain Code=-12906 ‘(null)’}, NSLocalizedFailureReason=The decoder required for this media cannot be found., AVErrorMediaTypeKey=vide, NSLocalizedDescription=Cannot Decode} Thanks!

In an m3u8 manifest, audio EXT-X-MEDIA tags usually contain CHANNELS tag containing the audio channels count like so: #EXT-X-MEDIA:TYPE=AUDIO,URI="audio_clear_eng_stereo.m3u8",GROUP-ID="default-audio-group",LANGUAGE="en",NAME="stream_5",AUTOSELECT=YES,CHANNELS="2" Is it possible to get this info from AVPlayer, AVMediaSelectionOption or some related API?

We are having issues with ScreenCaptureKit. Our use case is the following: We have multiple applications that each starts a stream capture, using ScreenCaptureKit. It works fine when just one application is streaming, but when starting multiple streams continuesly, all streams stops or crashes, without ScreenCaptureKit reporting an error back. Restarting replayd for the user will allow us to start streaming again, if the streaming applications are restartet too. We have build a small test program that we have tested on different Macs, running different versions of macOS, with identical results. The test program just calls the 'getShareableContentExcludingDesktopWindows' function multiple times, since this was the simplest way to show the problem. Our test setup is the following: Mac Mini M2 macOS 13.6 MacBook Pro M3 macOS 14.4 MacBook Pro M3 macOS 15.1 Code main.m #import <Foundation/Foundation.h> #import <ScreenCaptureKit/ScreenCaptureKit.h> @interface Runner : NSObject @property(atomic, assign) BOOL keepRunning; @property(atomic, retain) SCShareableContent* availableWindows; -(void) updateAvailableWindows; -(void) notif:(NSNotification*) aNotif; @end int main(int argc, const char * argv[]) { @autoreleasepool { NSRunLoop* loo = [NSRunLoop mainRunLoop]; Runner* r = [[Runner alloc] init]; [r updateAvailableWindows]; while (r.keepRunning) [loo runUntilDate:[NSDate distantFuture]]; NSLog(@"Program exit"); } return 0; } @implementation Runner -(instancetype) init { self = [super init]; if(self){ _keepRunning = YES; [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self selector:@selector(notif:) name:@"windowWasNotFound" object:nil]; [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self selector:@selector(notif:) name:@"windowWasFound" object:nil]; } return self; } -(void) updateAvailableWindows { @autoreleasepool { NSLog(@"begin"); [SCShareableContent getShareableContentExcludingDesktopWindows:NO onScreenWindowsOnly:YES completionHandler:^(SCShareableContent* content, NSError* error){ NSLog(@"running"); if(!error){ self.availableWindows = content; for (__unused SCWindow* aWin in self.availableWindows.windows) { [NSThread sleepForTimeInterval:0.01]; } [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] postNotificationName:@"windowWasFound" object:self.availableWindows]; } else{ [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] postNotificationName:@"windowWasNotFound" object:nil]; } }]; } } -(void) notif:(NSNotification*) aNotif { if(aNotif.object) [self performSelectorOnMainThread:@selector(updateAvailableWindows) withObject:nil waitUntilDone:NO]; else{ NSLog(@"Not Found"); self.keepRunning = NO; } } @end How to replicate: Compile and run the program from multiple terminal windows (terminal must be granted screen recording permission) and notice that the output stops, when the replayd stops responding (our assumption). Restarting the application does nothing, before the replayd also is restarted. Running th application in Xcode gives the following error: [ERROR] -[RPDaemonProxy fetchShareableContentWithOption:windowID:currentProcess:withCompletionHandler:]_block_invoke:902 error: 4097 This error is not something we have been able to detect in our applications - and since the only workaround is restarting replayd and the applications, catching the error would help us.

Hello! Just curious if AVAssetWriter append() randomly fails for anyone but me? Seems to happen when live streaming (encoding with VTCompressionSession) and recording (with AVAssetWriter) at the same time.

No external cameras show up in the app on visionOS. We use this sample code as a basis for our tests: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/visionos/displaying-video-from-connected-devices We also received the needed entitlement from Apple, but every camera we tried so far does not show up on visionOS. We tried the following devices and hubs: Insta360 X4 Somikon Endoscope Camera: USB HD Endoscope Camera EMEET Full HD Webcam - C960 BENFEI Video/Audio Capture Card, 4K HDMI auf USB C/A Logitech C920 HD PRO Webcam, Anker PowerConf C200 Insta360 GO 3S Anker 341 USB-C Hub UGREEN Revodok Pro 10Gbps USB-C Hub All Vision Pro devices we tried run with visionOS 2.3. When trying the same code on iPad we can actually use external cameras. Steps to reproduce: Start the app on a Vision Pro device and connect an external camera. The connected camera does not show up in the dropdown. Development environment: Xcode 16.2, macOS 15.3 Run-time configuration: iOS 18.3, visionOS 2.3

I am would like to look at AVMetricEvent data during video playback, so I have added this code to a test video player app: let playerItem: AVPlayerItem = ... let allMetrics = playerItem.allMetrics() Task.init { print("metrics task started") do { for try await metricEvent in allMetrics { print("metric event: \(metricEvent.description)") } } catch { print("unexpected metric iterator error \(error)") } } Running this in Simulator on iPhone 16 Pro (18.0) does not result in any "metric event" diagnostic messages being printed when the video associated with this AVPlayerItem is playing. Only the "metric task started" diagnostic message is seen. What am I doing wrong that prevents metric data being received?

FairPlay-Protected HLS Files Not Transferred via Quick Start I have an iOS app that downloads HLS files, which are protected by FairPlay. These files are stored locally, and their locations are managed using Core Data. When playing these tracks, I use AVURLAsset to access the stored file paths. Recently, a client upgraded to a new iPhone and used Quick Start to transfer data from his old device. While all other app data was successfully transferred, including Core Data records and UserDefaults, the actual HLS files were missing. As a result, the app retained metadata about the downloaded content, but the files themselves were gone, causing playback failures. Does Quick Start exclude certain types of locally stored files, especially DRM-protected HLS downloads, or is the issue related to how FairPlay-protected content is handled during the transfer of locally stored files?

The app registers a periodic time observer to the AVPlayer when the playback starts and it works fine. When switching to AirPlay during playback, the periodic time observation continues working as expected. However, when switching back to local playback, the periodic time observer does not fire anymore until a seek is performed. The app removes the periodic time observer only when the playback stops. I can see that when switching back to local playback, the timeControlStatus successively changes to .waitingToPlayAtSpecifiedRate (reason: .evaluatingBufferingRate) then to .waitingToPlayAtSpecifiedRate (reason: .toMinimizeStalls) and finally to .playing But the time observation does not work anymore. Also, the issue is systematic with Live and VOD streams providing a program date (with HLS property #EXT-X-PROGRAM-DATE-TIME), with or without any DRM, and is never reproduced with other VOD streams.

Hi everyone! I’ve been working with AVFoundation and trying to use the AVMetricEventStreamPublisher to discover media performance metrics, as described in the Apple documentation. https://developer.apple.com/cn/videos/play/wwdc2024/10113/?time=508 However, when following the example code, I’m not getting the expected results. The performance metrics for both audio and video don’t seem to be captured properly. Has anyone successfully used this example code? If so, could you share your experience or any solutions you’ve found? Any tips or insights would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance! Ps. the example code: AVPlayerItem *item = ... AVMetricEventStream *eventStream = [AVMetricEventStream eventStream]; id subscriber = [[MyMetricSubscriber alloc] init]; [eventStream setSubscriber:subscriber queue:mySerialQueue] [eventStream subscribeToMetricEvent:[AVMetricPlayerItemLikelyToKeepUpEvent class]]; [eventStream subscribeToMetricEvent:[AVMetricPlayerItemPlaybackSummaryEvent class]]; [eventStream addPublisher:item];