How to manually release CMSampleBuffer

Question

This code leads to memory leak and app crash:

    var outputSamples = [Float]()

    assetReader.startReading()
    while assetReader.status == .reading {
        let trackOutput = assetReader.outputs.first!

        if let sampleBuffer = trackOutput.copyNextSampleBuffer(),
            let blockBuffer = CMSampleBufferGetDataBuffer(sampleBuffer) {
            let blockBufferLength = CMBlockBufferGetDataLength(blockBuffer)
            let sampleLength = CMSampleBufferGetNumSamples(sampleBuffer) * channelCount(from: assetReader)
            var data = Data(capacity: blockBufferLength)
            data.withUnsafeMutableBytes { (blockSamples: UnsafeMutablePointer<Int16>) in
                CMBlockBufferCopyDataBytes(blockBuffer, atOffset: 0, dataLength: blockBufferLength, destination: blockSamples)
                CMSampleBufferInvalidate(sampleBuffer)

                let processedSamples = process(blockSamples,
                                               ofLength: sampleLength,
                                               from: assetReader,
                                               downsampledTo: targetSampleCount)
                outputSamples += processedSamples
            }
        }
    }
    var paddedSamples = [Float](repeating: silenceDbThreshold, count: targetSampleCount)
    paddedSamples.replaceSubrange(0..<min(targetSampleCount, outputSamples.count), with: outputSamples)

This is due to copyNextSampleBuffer() and The Create Rule.

In turn, we can not use CFRelease() in Swift. The reason why a link to the Objective-C only rule is there is beyond my understanding.

Is there a way to release CMSampleBuffer manually in Swift?

Answer 1

I recently solved a similar issue by using an autoreleasepool

Try wrapping the area where sampleBuffer is used in an autoreleasepool. Something like this:

var outputSamples = [Float]()

assetReader.startReading()
while assetReader.status == .reading {
    let trackOutput = assetReader.outputs.first!

    autoreleasepool {
        if let sampleBuffer = trackOutput.copyNextSampleBuffer(),
            let blockBuffer = CMSampleBufferGetDataBuffer(sampleBuffer) {
            let blockBufferLength = CMBlockBufferGetDataLength(blockBuffer)
            let sampleLength = CMSampleBufferGetNumSamples(sampleBuffer) * channelCount(from: assetReader)
            var data = Data(capacity: blockBufferLength)
            data.withUnsafeMutableBytes { (blockSamples: UnsafeMutablePointer<Int16>) in
                CMBlockBufferCopyDataBytes(blockBuffer, atOffset: 0, dataLength: blockBufferLength, destination: blockSamples)
                CMSampleBufferInvalidate(sampleBuffer)

                let processedSamples = process(blockSamples,
                                               ofLength: sampleLength,
                                               from: assetReader,
                                               downsampledTo: targetSampleCount)
                outputSamples += processedSamples
            }
        }
    }
}
var paddedSamples = [Float](repeating: silenceDbThreshold, count: targetSampleCount)
paddedSamples.replaceSubrange(0..<min(targetSampleCount, outputSamples.count), with: outputSamples)

If I understand correctly, once it moves out of the scope of autoreleasepool, the sampleBuffer will be released