[iOS] Background music (e.g. Spotify) stops after unmounting first video and playing second - broken since 6.11

[niklasmachacek]

Version

6.11.0+ (broken)
6.10.2 (last working version)

What platforms are you having the problem on?

• iOS
• Android

Architecture

• New Architecture (Fabric)

What happened?

After upgrading from 6.10.2 to 6.11.0 (or any later version including the latest), background audio from other apps like Spotify stops playing when navigating between screens with video components. I am working in a setup where all videos are muted and I want to keep playing background music without interference from my app.

For that behaviour, our Video component uses these props:

<Video
	ignoreSilentSwitch="obey"
	muted={true}
    volume={0}
/>

The specific behavior is:

1. Start playing background music (e.g. Spotify)
2. Open a screen with a <Video /> component and play a video
3. ✅ First video works fine - Background music keeps playing (assuming video is muted or mixWithOthers is set)
4. Navigate away from the screen (unmounting the video component)
5. Navigate to another screen with a different <Video /> component
6. ❌ Second video start stops background music
7. Switching apps to turn on music again and the cycle repeats consistently.

Version 6.10.2 does NOT have this problem. The same code works perfectly on 6.10.2.

Expected behavior

Background music should continue playing when:

• Videos are muted, OR
• mixWithOthers="mix" is set

This worked correctly in version 6.10.2.

Workarounds attempted (none worked)

I've tried the following props/configurations, none of which fix the issue:

<Video
  mixWithOthers="mix"
  // ...
/>

// Also tried
<Video
  disableAudioSessionManagement={true}
  // ...
/>

Neither of these workarounds restore the 6.10.2 behavior.

Environment info

expo: "^54.0.19"
react-native-video: 6.11.0+ (broken) / 6.10.2 (working)
react-native: "0.81.5"
Platform: iOS 26.1
Device: iPhone 15