[4.X] iOS 26: app freezes ~20s on every play of a live stream (main-thread hang in SwiftAudioEx chapter inspection)

[pke]

Apps playing live streams (SHOUTcast/Icecast web radio) freeze completely for ~20 seconds on iOS 26 whenever playback starts — UI unresponsive, touches queued, audio delayed; backgrounding during the freeze gets the app watchdog-killed (0x8BADF00D). The simulator does not reproduce, and the freeze exists in both 4.0.0-rc and 4.1.2 (their bundled/pinned SwiftAudioEx versions both carry the affected code).

Root cause is in SwiftAudioEx: the asset's chapter/metadata inspection reads never-async-loaded AVAsset properties (duration, and on the rc-era vendored copy also availableChapterLocales/availableMetadataFormats) synchronously on the main thread; for indefinite-duration live streams, iOS 26's mediaserverd answers those XPC queries only after a ~20s timeout. Older iOS answered instantly, which is why long-working apps regressed after their users updated iOS.

Full analysis with the captured watchdog backtrace: doublesymmetry/SwiftAudioEx#105
Fix PR (async-load duration, skip chapter inspection for indefinite assets): doublesymmetry/SwiftAudioEx#106

Workaround for 4.x apps today (CocoaPods post_install) — strip the chapter inspection; live radio has no chapters and ICY timed metadata arrives via the player-item observer regardless:

['Sources/SwiftAudioEx', 'SwiftAudioEx/Classes'].each do |base|
  wrapper = File.join(__dir__, 'Pods', 'SwiftAudioEx', base,
                      'AVPlayerWrapper', 'AVPlayerWrapper.swift')
  next unless File.exist?(wrapper)
  contents = File.read(wrapper)
  fixed = contents.gsub(
    /^ +if pendingAsset\.availableChapterLocales\.count > 0 \{.*?\n +\}\n/m,
    "// patched: sync chapter/metadata inspection removed (20s main-thread hang on live streams under iOS 26)\n"
  )
  if contents != fixed
    File.chmod(0644, wrapper)
    File.write(wrapper, fixed)
  end
end