I have the same issue too, but with useAudioPlayer(). I have not been able to find a fix for this, nor have I been able to find one on the expo docs. However, I did notice why that was happening.

When you initialize the hook, it creates a single instance of the player on startup. However, if it gets removed through either the builtin garbage collector for the player or by the program, and you try to access it again, it will result in a null reference.

Unfortunately, I can't provide a solution but I hope this information helps!