How to stop youtube video playing in Android webview?

Question

How can I stop a YouTube video which is played in my webview? When I click on the back button the video doesn't stop and instead continues in the background.

Code:

webView = (WebView) findViewById(R.id.webview); 
webView.getSettings().setPluginsEnabled(true);
webView.getSettings().setJavaScriptEnabled(true);
webView.getSettings().setBuiltInZoomControls(false); 
webView.getSettings().setSupportZoom(false);
webView.loadData(myUrl,"text/html", "utf-8");

Solution 1

See the following post about WebView threads never stopping

Essentially you'll need to call the WebView's onPause method from your own Activity's onPause method.

The only trick with this is that you cannot call the WebView's onPause method directly because it is hidden. Therefore you will need to call it indirectly via reflection. The following code should get you started on setting up your own Activity's onPause method:

@Override
public void onPause() {
    super.onPause();

    try {
        Class.forName("android.webkit.WebView")
                .getMethod("onPause", (Class[]) null)
                            .invoke(webview, (Object[]) null);

    } catch(ClassNotFoundException cnfe) {
        ...
    } catch(NoSuchMethodException nsme) {
        ...
    } catch(InvocationTargetException ite) {
        ...
    } catch (IllegalAccessException iae) {
        ...
    }
}

Note that the variable 'webview' in the try block above is a private instance variable for the class and is assigned to in the Activity's onCreate method.

Solution 2

Solution: 1 - After spending lot of time, I got the conclusion to pause the video which is playing with WebView <iframe> concept of HTML.

Just override the onPause() method on Activity or Fragment whereever you used WebView, and call it. It works for me.

@Override
public void onPause() {
    super.onPause();
    mWebView.onPause();
}

@Override
public void onResume() {
    super.onResume();
    mWebView.onResume();
}

Solution: 2 - If above solution doesn't work for you then you can force WebView to load a non existent html file.

mWebview.loadUrl("file:///android_asset/nonexistent.html");

Solution 3

you also have to implement the onResume() method or second time it won't work

@Override
public void onResume()
{
    super.onResume();
    webView.onResume();
}

@Override
public void onPause()
{
    super.onPause();
    webView.onPause();
}

Solution 4

The above solution failed for me on Samsung Galaxy S with Android 2.3.3. But I made success trying the below workaround:

    webview.loadUrl("file:///android_asset/nonexistent.html");

I am forcing the webview to load a non existent html file. This seems to be forcing the webview to clean things up.

Solution 5

Try this:

@Override
public void onPause() {
    super.onPause();
    myWebView.onPause();
    myWebView.pauseTimers();
}

@Override
public void onResume() {
    super.onResume();
    myWebView.resumeTimers();
    myWebView.onResume();
}


@Override
protected void onDestroy() {
    myWebView.destroy();
    myWebView = null;
    super.onDestroy();
}

View more solutions

Comments

[png]

i was trying to put logic in "back key press " . but it didnt work. this one works

[dakshbhatt21]

thank you !!! I was trying for last 8 hours and nothing works. But this is working like a charm !!!

[grandouassou]

It seems like the WebView.onResume() and WebView.onPause() are not hidden anymore since API 11. See Ryoghurt's answer. On top of that if your fragment is in a ViewPager, you should also call WebView.onPause from Fragment.setUserVisibleHint().

[bk138]

...and works better than onPause() which on some devices seems to do nothing.

[0xPixelfrost]

Answer is not up to date. API has changed and webview.onPause() is now available. The correct seems to be: stackoverflow.com/questions/5946698/…

[Sean Beach]

WebView.onPause() was added in API 11, making this the more-correct answer.

[SpaceMonkey]

Such a common problem has such a complication solution.. why is Android so bad, I don't get it

[Jarrod Smith]

Didn't work for me on API 19, AudioBoom embedded player continues playing audio.

[Nilzor]

@jarrodSmith try pauseTimers();. Maybe it's more javascript based.

[Nilzor]

Warning: This methods behaves like a static method although it's a instance method. ALL WebView instances will pause when you call mWebView.onPause on either.

[Nilzor]

Correction: comment above only valid for pauseTimers, not onPause. Tested on HTC One and One M8 w/Android 5.0.1, Chrome v43

[bashan]

This solution doesn't work well. When I minimize my app the video on youtube does stop properly, but I when I go back to the page and press play on the video again and then minimize the app the video continues to play.

[bashan]

This is not a good solution, since you will probably want to go back to the page again after a while and you expect the webview to be on the same state when you left it.

[Reham]

did you find a solution for this problem? because i'm still facing it

[Krzysztof Dubrowski]

This solution does not take into account the newer APIs at all

[Rajesh]

doesn't work for me.is there any solution to stop the video?

[Manuel Schmitzberger]

In my application this solution is working, because I haven't the case where I go back to the FragmentActivity.

[Steve]

On what page in Cordova's /platforms/android folder do you put this code? Under what lines?

[Steve]

What's with the "m" in "mWebView"?

[Bryan]

@Steve It is a naming convention outlined in the Android Code Style for Contributors documentation, it stands for 'member'. Though this code style is meant for the Android source code (not necessarily application code), many Android application developers have adopted it.

[DH28]

Works with youtube video in webview. Thanks!

[John Pang]

Need to call both webView.onPause() and webView.onResume() in the activity's / fragment's onPause() and onResume(). Otherwise, video is pause on first time but not on afterward.

[John Pang]

Need to call both webView.onPause() and webView.onResume() in the activity's / fragment's onPause() and onResume(). Otherwise, video is pause on first time but not on afterward.

[John Pang]

This shall be the better answer than above.

[Neon Warge]

@Steve, its also a nice trick to leverage the intellisense if you are using Android Studio (just like any other IDE like Visual Studio). When you are in your class and typed m, a popup list menu will appear listing all the variables you have in the class that starts with 'm'. You can use other letter if you want to.

[Neon Warge]

Is it safe to combine dangels answer with this one to make sure I cover every cases?

[Roxx]

what is the file name to update. Also will it work on latest API 19-26

[rogerdpack]

The other answer was updated to "adopt" this, for followers :)

[rogerdpack]

This worked fine for me (at least with youtube embed) without the need for pauseTimers, FWIW. Also note that John Pang's comment has been implemented into it now.

[Silas S. Brown]

Although the developer documentation says onPause was added in API 11, it has actually been there since API 1 but undocumented. As evidence of this, the old Eclipse-based ADT, when set to an API target of 1, does not complain about it as it complains about other methods above the target API. Therefore, even if you target API 1, you can still use this answer by itself without needing any fallbacks.

[Mackovich]

Unfortunately that does not work for me (onPause / onResume).

[hsu.tw]

the method is not hiden anymore.

[rayworks]

Works for me, but this method requestAudioFocus is deprecated since API level 26.

[sommesh]

Please check developer.android.com/guide/topics/media-apps/audio-focus#ja‌​va and developer.android.com/reference/android/media/…

[hsu.tw]

Cooool. In 2011, you got a solution.

[Asiel Diaz Benitez]

this is the onPause() implementation but what about onResume() ?? how do you resume the music the webview might be playing etc? I tested this with a game that have background music and it pauses the music when minimized but then the game is silent when you resume the webview