Fix Android app crash when leaving the video player

[nyomanjyotisa]

What

On Android, opening a video and pressing back closed the entire app instead of returning to the previous screen (Fixes #267). The "app close" is a fatal, unhandled JS exception on the back path. This guards the player calls that run during teardown so they can no longer crash the app.

Why

Tearing down the video screen runs this cleanup:

useEffect(() => () => player.pause(), [player]);

During back navigation, react-native-screens freezes/detaches the screen and expo-video's useReleasingSharedObject releases the native player. The subsequent player.pause() then runs against an already-released shared object and throws:

Call to function 'VideoPlayer.pause' has been rejected.
→ Caused by: Cannot use shared object that was already released
   code: ERR_USING_RELEASED_SHARED_OBJECT

In dev this is a red box; in production it is an uncaught exception that closes the app — matching the report and the high-volume player.* expo-video Sentry crash group. The race is timing-dependent, which is why it can't be reproduced reliably in-house yet hits many users in the wild.

Approach chosen: wrap the player calls that can run during teardown — the unmount pause() and the AppState background/foreground handler — in a guard that swallows ERR_USING_RELEASED_SHARED_OBJECT and rethrows everything else. This neutralizes the exact failing call regardless of teardown ordering, with no behavior change on the happy path. Alternatives considered and rejected: deferring player creation to avoid the null-source recreation (verified on-device to not prevent this crash); removing the manual pause (relies on release timing and still leaves the AppState path exposed).

Before/After

Verified on an Android emulator (API 36) against the production API.

• Before (unguarded): back from the video player → ERR_USING_RELEASED_SHARED_OBJECT from player.pause() (red box + logcat); in production this closes the app.
• After (this PR): repeated open → back cycles with both system back and the header back arrow (including the playback-error state) → returns to the previous screen, app stays alive, no exception.

Walkthrough video attached as a comment below (GitHub media can only be uploaded through the web UI).

Test Results

jest — 29 suites, 214 tests passing, including two new regression tests in tests/app/video-player.test.tsx that assert teardown/background no longer crash when the player is already released. Both fail when the guard is reverted.

Test Suites: 29 passed, 29 total
Tests:       214 passed, 214 total

tsc --noEmit and expo lint both clean.

---

AI disclosure

Model: Claude Opus 4.8 (via Claude Code).

Prompts given by the author:

1. "github.com/Android: back from a video closes the entire app instead of returning to the previous screen #267 — debug and fix this, create PR and assign to me"
2. "are you 100% sure it will fix the issue?"
3. "do verification on real app on simulator, run the app either iOS or Android and verify the fix, and test before/after. update the env first to use production API"
4. "so does the PR fix the issue?"
5. "check reviewer comments, and address them if correct"

---

Note

Low Risk
Narrow defensive change around teardown timing; happy-path playback is unchanged and other errors still propagate.

Overview
Fixes a fatal crash when leaving the video player on Android by guarding expo-video player calls that can run after the native player is already released during screen teardown.

Adds isReleasedPlayerError / withReleasedPlayerGuard to swallow ERR_USING_RELEASED_SHARED_OBJECT, ERR_NATIVE_SHARED_OBJECT_NOT_FOUND, and matching message patterns, while rethrowing other errors. Wraps the unmount player.pause() cleanup and the full AppState background/foreground handler so pause, seek, and resume no longer throw when the shared object is gone.

Adds regression tests in video-player.test.tsx for unmount and background paths when pause throws released-player errors (Android) and iOS “native shared object not found” failures.

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[greptile-apps]

Greptile Summary

This PR guards player.pause() and the AppState change handler inside withReleasedPlayerGuard so that ERR_USING_RELEASED_SHARED_OBJECT (and its iOS equivalent) no longer crashes the app when navigating back from the video player on Android.

• Guard helpers added — isReleasedPlayerError matches both the Android error code and an iOS message-based variant; withReleasedPlayerGuard wraps a void operation, swallowing only those errors and rethrowing everything else.
• Two call-sites wrapped — the unmount useEffect cleanup (player.pause()) and the AppState "background/inactive" handler, matching the two crash paths described in the issue.
• Four regression tests added — cover Android ERR_USING_RELEASED_SHARED_OBJECT and iOS message-match paths for both unmount and background transitions; they fail when the guard is reverted.

Confidence Score: 4/5

Safe to merge for the guarded paths; one unguarded call site remains that can throw the same released-player error.

The unmount and AppState paths are correctly guarded and tested. However, the setInterval callback that runs every 5 seconds reads player.currentTime and calls updateMediaLocation without any guard — it can throw the same released-player error in the window between native-player release and interval cleanup, leaving that crash path open.

app/video-player.tsx — the setInterval block around line 160 needs the same guard applied to the unmount and AppState paths.

Important Files Changed

Filename	Overview
app/video-player.tsx	Adds isReleasedPlayerError / withReleasedPlayerGuard helpers and wraps the unmount pause() and the AppState change handler in the guard; the periodic player.currentTime read inside setInterval is left unguarded.
tests/app/video-player.test.tsx	Adds four regression tests covering Android (ERR_USING_RELEASED_SHARED_OBJECT) and iOS message-based guard paths for both unmount and background transitions; all existing tests preserved.

Sequence Diagram

sequenceDiagram
    participant User
    participant RNScreens as react-native-screens
    participant React
    participant Guard as withReleasedPlayerGuard
    participant Player as expo-video Player

    User->>RNScreens: Press Back
    RNScreens->>Player: useReleasingSharedObject releases native player
    RNScreens->>React: Freeze/detach screen
    React->>Guard: unmount cleanup → player.pause()
    alt Player already released
        Player-->>Guard: throws ERR_USING_RELEASED_SHARED_OBJECT
        Guard-->>React: swallows error (returns)
    else Player still alive
        Player-->>Guard: pause() succeeds
        Guard-->>React: returns normally
    end
    React-->>User: Previous screen shown, app alive

    Note over AppState,Guard: AppState path (background/inactive)
    participant AppState
    AppState->>Guard: background → player.pause()
    alt Player already released
        Player-->>Guard: throws ERR_USING_RELEASED_SHARED_OBJECT
        Guard-->>AppState: swallowed
    else Player still alive
        Player-->>Guard: pause() succeeds
    end

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Comments Outside Diff (1)

1. app/video-player.tsx, line 160-171 (link)

   The periodic setInterval callback reads player.currentTime directly without any guard. Because this interval runs every 5 seconds and is only cleared on unmount, there is a window between when react-native-screens detaches the screen (releasing the native player) and when React actually runs the cleanup. During that window the interval can fire and throw ERR_USING_RELEASED_SHARED_OBJECT (or the iOS equivalent) on the player.currentTime property access — the same class of error the rest of this PR guards against.

_{Reviews (3): Last reviewed commit: "Also guard the iOS released-player teard..." | Re-trigger Greptile}