Playing ads on AppleTV with kaltura-player-rn

[attilakiss323]

Description
I am using the PlayKit_IMA plugin to play pre-roll ads in our React Native TVos project with kaltura-player-rn. The first time I open the video player the ad loads as expected, however if I then exit the player and open it again the ad does not load anymore. AdEvents.AD_REQUESTED is fired, but AdEvents.STARTED is not.

Setup

 player
      .setup(PLAYER_TYPE.OTT, JSON.stringify(playerOptions), partnerId)
      .then(() => {
         // ... Check if component is already mounted and destroy the player if it is
        player
          .loadMedia(assetId, JSON.stringify(mediaAsset))
          .then(() => {
              // ...
          })
          .catch((error: KalturaError) => {
              // ... Set the error to a global redux state
          })
      })
      .catch((error) => {
        // ... Set the error to a global redux state
      })

Where the initial config looks like this:

 const playerOptions = {
     serverUrl,
     ks,
     autoplay: true,
     plugins: {
       ima: {
         adTagUrl: getPreRollAdUrl(adBreaks),
         alwaysStartWithPreroll: true,
      }
    }
  }

Not sure if it is relevant for the config, but we are playing DRM protected videos.

Versions

 "react-native": "npm:[email protected]",
 "kaltura-player-rn": "0.4.2",

Gemfile:

ruby '3.0.0'
gem 'cocoapods', '~> 1.11', '>= 1.11.0'

Observation
As far as I can tell the issue is that in IMAPlugin.swift when the ad is loaded it is immediately discarded as well, but I haven't been able to figure out why.

      case .LOADED:
             // This if condition triggers when the player is opened for the second time
            if shouldDiscard(ad: event.ad, currentState: currentState) {
                self.discardAdBreak(adsManager: adsManager)
            } else {
                var adEvent = AdEvent.AdLoaded()
                
                if let ad = event.ad {
                    let adInfo = PKAdInfo(ad: ad,
                                          podCount: adsManager.adCuePoints.count,
                                          adPlayHead: .nan)
                    self.pkAdInfo = adInfo
                    adEvent = AdEvent.AdLoaded(adInfo: adInfo)
                }
                
                self.notify(event: adEvent)
                
                // if we have more than one ad don't start the manager, it will be handled in `AD_BREAK_READY`
                guard adsManager.adCuePoints.count == 0 else { return }
                guard canPlayAd(forState: currentState) else { return }
                self.start(adsManager: adsManager)
            }

Any suggestion would be highly appreciated.
Thank you!

[giladna]

Please check it on our samples if you see the same

https://github.com/kaltura/kaltura-player-ios-samples

[attilakiss323]

@giladna
Thanks for the reply! We have looked into the examples as you suggested, but we haven't managed to find a solution so far.

Do you maybe have an example implementation with pre-roll ads for react-native-tvos ?

I will try to provide some more context to the errors that we are getting:

• We get the following error when we open the player for the second time: [Error] [IMAPlugin.swift:403] adsLoader(_:failedWith:) > Ads cannot be requested because the IMAAdDisplayContainer's adContainerViewController property is nil.
  Opening the player for the first time works with the pre-roll ad playing as expected. However, then if we navigate away (and destroy the player), and open the player again it throws the above mentioned error.

• We also noticed that there are three requests for the pre-roll ads. The first request constantly fails with the following error: TypeError: undefined is not an object (evaluating 'google.ima.NativeBridge.receiveMessage').

Do you have an idea what could the issue be?

And my last question is could you point us towards a documentation on how to add mid-roll ads? Ideally with the PlayKit_IMA plugin.

[x-NR-x]

Hi @attilakiss323,

Sorry for the late reply.
On which iOS version are you testing and getting theses errors?
If you are using Xcode then I would like to get the version for that as well please.
I'm asking because we are facing the "TypeError: undefined is not an object" in other places as well.

Thanks,
Nilit Danan