Can't see my alertView unless I comment out automatic dismission - ios5

Question

I am implementing a simple alert view with activity indicator to show to the user while the app is performing the restore of the database. Everything is fine except that I can't see the alert view, unless I comment out the automatic dismiss line (last one here).
Ok, the restore of the database is quite quick, but still I would expect to see it even if for an instant, no? I can see the screen get's a little darker during animation but that's all. I also tried putting a for loop to extend the time, the time extends but still no alert view.
There is nothing wrong in the way the alert view is called, since if I comment the dismiss, I can see it...only forever. Anyone has an idea here?
Before anyone says it, I tried changing the delegate of the alertView to self as posted here, but it didn't help.
// First we prepare the activity indicator view to show progress indicator
UIActivityIndicatorView * activityView = [[UIActivityIndicatorView alloc] initWithActivityIndicatorStyle:UIActivityIndicatorViewStyleWhiteLarge];
[activityView setFrame:CGRectMake(121.0f, 50.0f, 37.0f, 37.0f)];
[activityView startAnimating];
// Then we put it in an alert view
UIAlertView *alertView = [[UIAlertView alloc] initWithTitle:#"Loading" message:nil delegate:nil cancelButtonTitle:nil otherButtonTitles:nil];
[alertView addSubview:activityView];
[alertView show];
// Finally we operate the restore
[[SQLManager sharedSQL] restoreDatabase:[restoreDatabaseURL path]];
// And we can dismiss the alert view with the progress indicator
[alertView dismissWithClickedButtonIndex:0 animated:NO];

Answer 1

Im not sure why this happens, but I encounter it occasionally as well. One way I have gotten something like this to work is by using performSelector:withObject:afterDelay: on the next call, like this:
// First we prepare the activity indicator view to show progress indicator
UIActivityIndicatorView * activityView = [[UIActivityIndicatorView alloc] initWithActivityIndicatorStyle:UIActivityIndicatorViewStyleWhiteLarge];
[activityView setFrame:CGRectMake(121.0f, 50.0f, 37.0f, 37.0f)];
[activityView startAnimating];
// Then we put it in an alert view
UIAlertView *alertView = [[UIAlertView alloc] initWithTitle:#"Loading" message:nil delegate:nil cancelButtonTitle:nil otherButtonTitles:nil];
[alertView addSubview:activityView];
[alertView show];
// Finally we operate the restore
// [[SQLManager sharedSQL] restoreDatabase:[restoreDatabaseURL path]];
[[SQLManager sharedSQL] performSelector:#selector(restoreDatabase:) withObject:[restoreDatabaseURL path] afterDelay:0.25];
// And we can dismiss the alert view with the progress indicator
[alertView dismissWithClickedButtonIndex:0 animated:NO];
performSelector Documentation

Answer 2

Sounds like it's dismissing itself almost instantaneously. If you add a for loop, it will likely freeze all other computations which means your activity view won't show up until the loop breaks.
You could try using a NSTimer to call another function to determine if the restore is complete or not;
// Setup our the timer
NSTimer *timer = [NSTimer scheduledTimerWithTimeInterval:1.0
target:self
selector:#selector(checkRestore)
userInfo:nil
repeats:YES];
// Timer function checking for completion
-(void)checkRestore {
if (restore is complete) {
[alertView dismissWithClickedButtonIndex:0 animated:NO];
}
}