Controls not showing for AVPlayerViewController embedded within view of another View Controller in Swift/Objective-C

I am trying to play audio in an IOS App with simple play/pause/stop functionality without launching a separate avPlayerViewController.

According to the answers to this question there is no way to get premade controls without using Apple's AVPlayerViewController. However, Apple's recommended workaround is to embed the AVPlayerViewController within a view of another View Controller.

I am trying to do this and the media is playing, however, the controls are not showing up.

Here is my code in Objective-C and Swift. Can't get either to work.

Objective-C

#import <AVFoundation/AVFoundation.h>
#import <UIKit/UIKit.h>
#import <AVKit/AVKit.h>
/*in header file:
@property (nonatomic, strong) IBOutlet AVPlayerViewController *pVC;
*/
NSString* audiosurl = @"https://commondatastorage.googleapis.com/codeskulptor-demos/DDR_assets/Sevish_-__nbsp_.mp3";
NSURL * audioURL = [NSURL URLWithString:audiosurl];
  self.pVC = [AVPlayerViewController new];
  self.pVC.view.bounds= self.videoView.bounds;
  AVPlayer *avplayer = [AVPlayer playerWithURL:audioURL];
  // AVPlayerLayer *playerLayer = [AVPlayerLayer playerLayerWithPlayer:avplayer];
  // playerLayer.frame = self.videoView.bounds;
  // [self.videoView.layer addSublayer:playerLayer];
   self.pVC.player = avplayer;
   self.pVC.showsPlaybackControls = YES;
   self.pVC.videoGravity = AVLayerVideoGravityResizeAspectFill;
   self.pVC.view.backgroundColor = [UIColor clearColor];
   [self.videoView addSubview:self.pVC.view];
   [avplayer play];

Swift:

let videoURL = URL(string: "https://commondatastorage.googleapis.com/codeskulptor-demos/DDR_assets/Sevish_-__nbsp_.mp3")
let player = AVPlayer(url: videoUrl)
let playerViewController: AVPlayerViewController!
 playerViewController = AVPlayerViewController()
 playerViewController.view.frame = YOUR_FRAME_OR_EMBED_IN_STORYBOARD
 playerViewController.player = player
 playerViewController.showsPlaybackControls = true
 playerViewController.videoGravity = .resizeAspectFill
self.videoView.addSubview(playerViewController.view)
playerViewController.player!.play() 

Wondering if the issue might be a background color, the order of the view hierarchy, whether you are supposed to use layers or something else.

What is preventing controls from being visible?

Thanks for any suggestions!

Edit: What I am seeing...

Everything you're doing is wrong. That is not how you embed one view controller's view in another.

If you don't know how to embed, you might be happier with a presented view controller:

self.present(playerViewController, animated: true)

Just to show you how to embed, though, here's a rewrite of your code where we occupy the entire parent view controller's view. Notice the "dance" you have to do in order to embed:

let videoURL = URL(string: "https://commondatastorage.googleapis.com/codeskulptor-demos/DDR_assets/Sevish_-__nbsp_.mp3")
let player = AVPlayer(url: videoURL!)
let playerViewController =  AVPlayerViewController()
playerViewController.player = player
self.addChild(playerViewController)
self.view.addSubview(playerViewController.view)
playerViewController.view.frame = self.view.bounds
playerViewController.view.autoresizingMask = [.flexibleWidth, .flexibleHeight]
playerViewController.didMove(toParent: self)
playerViewController.player?.play()

Result:

It's not much of an interface, but it's better than nothing.