Android Bad Practices: Use of Released Media Resource

The code references the Android media object after it has already been released.

The code attempts to use the media object after the it has already been released. Any further references to that media object without reacquiring the resource will throw an exception, and can cause the application to crash if the exception is not caught.

Example 1: The following code uses a pause button to toggle the media playback. After the user taps the button once, the current song or video is paused and the camera resource is released. However, if she taps the button again, start() is called on the previously-released media resource.

public class ReuseMediaPlayerActivity extends Activity {
  private MediaPlayer mp;

  ...
  private class PauseButtonListener implements OnClickListener {
      public void onClick(View v) {
          if (paused) {
              mp.pause();
              mp.release();
          }
          else {
              mp.start();
          }
          paused = !paused;
      }
  }
  ...
}