Videoview (Exoplayer) in a recycler view plays for the first time but when I scroll down and come up the video fails to play

Question

I am trying to implement an Instagram like recycler view in a fragment which shows Images and Videos. The images work fine. The videoview too works fine for the first time. But when I scroll down and the video view is removed from the displayed elements and then scroll back up, the video does not play.

Pretty sure the videoview isn't being initialized the second time.

What can I do to make it work?

Also when exactly is the onBindViewHolder called?

   class PostListAdapter(var posts: ArrayList<Post>) :
    RecyclerView.Adapter<PostListAdapter.PostViewHolder>() {


override fun onCreateViewHolder(parent: ViewGroup, viewType: Int) = PostViewHolder(


        LayoutInflater.from(parent.context).inflate(com.example.mehfil.R.layout.item_post_v2, parent, false)

    )

    override fun getItemCount() = posts.size

    override fun onBindViewHolder(holder: PostViewHolder, position: Int) {
        holder.bind(posts[position])


    }

My bind method looks like this...

  fun bind(post: Post) {

        if(post.type!!equals("video")) {
            //trigger video
            imageView.visibility = View.GONE
            videoView.visibility = View.VISIBLE
            try {
                videoView.setSource("mp4 video link")
            } catch (E: Exception) {
                Log.d("Video Error", E.toString())
            }
        }
        else
        {
            videoView.visibility=View.GONE
            imageView.visibility=View.VISIBLE
            //trigger images
            if(post.media!= null)
        {
            if(post.media!!.indexOf("http:")!= -1)
                post.media=post.media!!.replace("http","https")
            imageView.loadImage(post.media , progressDrawable)
            Log.d("Media link ",post.media)
        }

                       }

Answer 1

Use exoplayer if you want to play videos in recyclerview , it automatically saves instance and play video when scrolled up or down

Add this in gradle

implementation 'com.google.android.exoplayer:exoplayer:2.10.8'

add exoplayer widget where you declared imageview in xml like this

<com.google.android.exoplayer2.ui.PlayerView
                    android:id="@+id/exoPlayer"
                    android:layout_width="match_parent"
                    android:layout_height="200dp"
                    android:visibility="gone" />

Now you method looks like this using exoplayer in it

fun bind(post: Post) {

        if(post.type!!equals("video")) {
            //trigger video
            imageView.visibility = View.GONE
            exoplayer.visibility = View.VISIBLE
            try {
              val uri = Uri.parse(
                    video_path
                )
             val player = ExoPlayerFactory.newSimpleInstance(context)
                exoPlayer.setPlayer(player)
 // Produces DataSource instances through which media data is loaded.
                val dataSourceFactory: DataSource.Factory =
                    DefaultDataSourceFactory(
                        context,
                        Util.getUserAgent(context, "Appname")
                    )

                val videoSource: MediaSource = ProgressiveMediaSource.Factory(dataSourceFactory)
                    .createMediaSource(uri)
// Prepare the player with the source.
                // Prepare the player with the source.
                player.prepare(videoSource)
            } catch (E: Exception) {
                Log.d("Video Error", E.toString())
            }
        }
        else
        {
            exoplayer.visibility=View.GONE
            imageView.visibility=View.VISIBLE
            //trigger images
            if(post.media!= null)
        {
            if(post.media!!.indexOf("http:")!= -1)
                post.media=post.media!!.replace("http","https")
            imageView.loadImage(post.media , progressDrawable)
            Log.d("Media link ",post.media)
        }

                       }