Multiple ui elements break WidgetExtension - swift

Question

I'm trying to dynamically build a view using SwiftUI for my widget. However, when multiple views are stacked, the widget no longer works.
I want to loop my Widget over an array of fetched data, like so:
VStack {
ForEach(entry.layers.indices) { index in
let layer = entry.layers[index]
Text(layer)
}
}
but this doesnt work properly when the forEach loops more than about 5 times (it works fine when only looping once or twice!). I contacted Apple Code Level Support about this and they told me this is a 'bug'. See the example project I provided: https://github.com/swifty-on-me/Widget-Example
This is the data I'm trying to render: https://github.com/swifty-on-me/Widget-Example/blob/main/Data/FakeData.swift
I tried something like converting a view to image but the solution doesn't work in Extensions.
So I found this 'workaround' on the Apple Developer Forums but I'm unsure how to implement it:
https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/665935
Could someone explain or guide me to this workaround? (I'm not so at home with Swift(UI))
I've been messing around with this for ages now and I think I'm going insane about what seems like such a simple task.
See this example (about 28 seconds)

Answer 1

It looks like you are going against how SwiftUI works. You should not have code inside a view declaration. I'm surprised that code even compiled.
Here's where the problem appears to be:
GeometryReader { geo in
ZStack(alignment: .topLeading) {
Color.init("#bf1b49")
VStack {
ForEach(entry.layers.indices) { index in
let layer = entry.layers[index] // < Here
Text(layer)
}
}
}
}
I'm not entirely sure what you are trying to do here, but you don't need two lines of code to do that. You could probably try moving the entry.layers[index] into the Text, because you don't need to store a variable for that. Like this:
GeometryReader { geo in
ZStack(alignment: .topLeading) {
Color.init("#bf1b49")
VStack {
ForEach(entry.layers.indices) { index in
Text(entry.layers[index])
}
}
}
}
Notice how the let layer is gone and the code that makes up layer is now within the text directly. Hopefully this helps!

Answer 2

I too have the same problem. I try to show month view of a calendar in widget (with additional info from my app). I use ForEach and many VStack and HStack. The widget is very unreliable to load. I still try to figure out what causes this issue but I found out one thing… The widget does load successfully when I test it from around 2PM - midnight my local time. (Both when launching app from Xcode and from TestFlight) I know this is weird but it is what happens to me right now.
And yes removing some elements from widget makes widget loads successfully.
Thank you
Boon