Disappearing status bar at the top after MPMoviePlayerController is closed

Question

Having an interesting little problem with my iPhone app. I have a view with a table and each cell, when clicked, plays a video fullscreen then when you press done, the video stops and goes back to the table view. The only problem is, when you press done within the first 2 or 3 seconds of the video loading, when the view goes back to the table view, the bar at the top of the screen that tells the time and battery strength etc is no longer there, its just a white space. But if you press done after the first few seconds, then when you go back to the table view, everything is absolutely fine! I have absolutely no idea why this is happening and the only thing I found on the internet is this which is some guy with pretty much exactly the same problem as me:

http://www.iphonedevsdk.com/forum/iphone-sdk-development/53020-disappearing-status-bar.html

This lead me to try using:

[UIApplication sharedApplication].statusBarHidden = NO;

However this lead nowhere either.

The code that is executed when they click on a video:

NSString *path = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:currentTitle ofType:@"m4v"];
NSURL *url = [NSURL fileURLWithPath:path];
movieController = [[MPMoviePlayerController alloc] initWithContentURL:url];
[movieController setControlStyle:MPMovieControlStyleFullscreen];
[movieController setFullscreen:YES];
movieController.view.frame = self.view.bounds;
[self.view addSubview:movieController.view];

[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter]  addObserver:self selector:@selector(playbackFinished:) name:MPMoviePlayerPlaybackDidFinishNotification object:nil];

And the code that executes either when the video is done or when the user clicks done is:

NSLog(@"movieController moviePlayBackDidFinish");
[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] removeObserver:self name:MPMoviePlayerPlaybackDidFinishNotification object:nil];

[movieController setFullscreen:NO animated:NO];
[movieController.view removeFromSuperview];

[movieController release];

LiveEventsView *liveEventsView = [[LiveEventsView alloc] initWithNibName:@"LiveEventsView" bundle:nil];
UIView *currentView = self.view;
UIView *theWindow = [currentView superview];
UIView *newView = liveEventsView.view;
newView.frame = CGRectMake(0, 20, 320, 460);
[currentView removeFromSuperview];
[theWindow addSubview:newView];
[UIApplication sharedApplication].statusBarHidden = NO;

If anybody can shed any light on this situation, I would be very grateful as it is extremely frustrating!

Thanks,

Matt

Answer 1

I've found that with the given solutions the content often disappears beneath the status bar. This approach fixes it.

Register for MPMoviePlayerWillExitFullscreenNotification

        [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self
                                             selector:@selector(moviePlayerWillExitFullscreen:)
                                                 name:MPMoviePlayerWillExitFullscreenNotification
                                               object:self.moviePlayer];

And then reset the status bar visibility AND remove and re-add the rootViewController from the main window, this will make sure that the bounds of the view are correct again.

- (void)moviePlayerWillExitFullscreen:(NSNotification *)notification {
    [[UIApplication sharedApplication] setStatusBarHidden:NO withAnimation:UIStatusBarAnimationSlide];
    AppDelegate *appDelegate = [UIApplication sharedApplication].delegate;

    id rootViewController = appDelegate.window.rootViewController;
    appDelegate.window.rootViewController = nil;
    appDelegate.window.rootViewController = rootViewController;
}

Answer 2

Maybe the animation from when the video view disappears is causing a timing issue with the status bar animation.

try delaying the statusBarHidden = NO call by a few seconds.

NSInteger delay = 3;

dispatch_after(dispatch_time(DISPATCH_TIME_NOW, delay * NSEC_PER_SEC), dispatch_get_current_queue(), ^{
[UIApplication sharedApplication].statusBarHidden = NO;
});

Answer 3

You can just set the delay to be a float instead. So it would be

float delay = 0.1;

    dispatch_after(dispatch_time(DISPATCH_TIME_NOW, delay * NSEC_PER_SEC), dispatch_get_current_queue(), ^{
        [UIApplication sharedApplication].statusBarHidden = NO;
        [UIApplication sharedApplication].statusBarStyle = UIStatusBarStyleBlackOpaque;
    });

I had the same problem and solved it by modifying richerd's code a bit. 0.1 second is acceptable imo. I also had to change the status bar style since it returned a BlackTranslucent bar style and the original was BlackOpaque style. But works fine now.