iPhone - when is dealloc for a viewcontroller called? - iphone

I am using UINavigationController to move between views. When I move back and forth in views, the memory used by my app keeps on increasing. On placing NSLog statements in the dealloc method of all viewcontrollers, I noticed it was being called for only some viewcontrollers and not all that were popped.
For instance, this is the sequence in which views are pushed MainViewController -> viewcontroller1 -> viewcontroller2 -> viewcontroller3
Now in viewcontroller3 if I do a popToViewController:mainController, dealloc is called only for viewcontroller3. It is not called for viewcontroller1 and 2.
Can someone please tell me why this is happening.
Found the problem. The dealloc method was not being called if any of the references held by a viewcontroller were still in memory. In my case it was the MPMoviePlayerController object which was not released in viewcontroller1 and viewcontroller2.

It is a case of last on, first off. So if you imagine your first view controller is the bottom bun of a burger, you then add the burger (second view controller) and then the top burger (third view controller).
If you go back to the burger you take off the top bun (popViewController: calls the dealloc method of the view that is popped). If you want to go back to the bottom bun then you have to pop the burger (dealloc is called every time the view is popped).
not sure why on pop to root the second view controller's dealloc wouldn't be called though..
hmm

where you navigate your controllers there should be need to write this line after pushviewcontroller,
[viewControllername release];
then it would be call each viewcontroller Dealloc method :)

You should also keep in mind that dealloc is not always guaranteed to run.

use like [self.navigationController popToRootViewControllerAnimated:YES];
It worked for me... calls all dealloc methos of my 10 view controllers

Related

self.navigationController pushViewController not adding controller to stack

I am on a viewController called vcA and I do this:
[self.navigationController pushViewController:vcB animated:YES];
and it works. vcB is pushed. Inside vcB's viewDidAppear I do this:
NSArray *controllers = self.navigationController.viewControllers;
and controllers contains just one object, vcA !!!! (what?)
Why is vcB being added to the controllers array? Is there anything that can prevent that from happening?
thanks.
I banged my head on the wall for a week to solve this problem involving pushing a view controller on the navigation controller stack.
The problem was this: I was on a navigation controlled based app and I had 3 view controllers, vA, vB and vC.
I was pushing vB from vA using this:
[self.navigationController pushViewController:vB animated:YES];
it worked, but, when I tried to push vC from vB, the self.navigationController property of vB was nil and vB was not on the navigation controller stack. What? Yes, I pushed vB on the navigation stack and vB was not being added to it, but even so, vB was showing correctly.
I discovered that inside vB's viewDidLoad, self.navigationController was not nil and that vB was on the navigation controller stack, but as soon as vB's viewDidLoad ended, vB was removed from the navigation controller stack and its navigationController property was set to nil. At that time, vB was a kind of ghost control, outside the navigation controller stack.
I don't need to mention that from vB I was unable to get back to vA or to push vC.
How that happen?
simple, I was pushing vB from inside a block... something like:
void (^ block1)() = ^(){
[self.navigationController pushViewController:vB animated:YES];
};
What was happening because a UIKit function (the push thing) was being executed in a block that was probably running on a thread that was not the main thread.
The resolution to that was to wrap the push in a dispatch to the main thread, using this:
void (^ block1)() = ^(){
dispatch_async(dispatch_get_main_queue(),
^{
[self.navigationController pushViewController:vB animated:YES];
});
};
The app had another minor problem with a wrong outlet connected to a viewController, but this was the main problem. This is the kind of problem hard to spot, for being subtle. I discovered the problem when I added another button to the navigation bar and that button did not appear. So, I suspect that something involving UIKit was happening, or not happening in that case. The big problem here is that this code was not crashing, no error message, nothing, just working bad, but working.
I believe this has to do with the timing of your checking. During the pushViewController method, the next view controller's viewWillAppear: method (and others, such as the one you're checking) are in the process of getting called. I believe after all those method are called, the view controller is considered on the navigation stack AFTER the animation is done completing.

View transition without using navigation controller?

I want to implement view transition without using navigation controller like pushviewController mechanism. So, I created the view hierarchy like below.
window is superview and contains three subviews.
[window] - aViewController - bViewController - cViewController
If I want to go back to the aVewiController from cViewController, I simply allocate aViewController again like this: [[aViewController alloc] init].
Then, after 4 circulations, I got didReceiveMemoryWarning and "Program exited with status value:0" messages. Its obviously memory issue but no memory leak. Allocating viewcontroller over and over is a problem. I have no idea how to transit view in this case.
If you want your hierarchy of UIViewControllers to behave as they do in UINavigationController case you should
A) show your new ViewController with this call
//This code should be implemented in viewControllerA
[self presentModalViewController:viewControllerB animated:YES]
B) go back one step by calling
//This code should be implemented in viewControllerA
[self dismissModalViewControllerAnimated:YES]
Notes: The way you would tell viewControllerA that you want to close viewControllerB is by sending a NSNotification. The good thing about this is that if you want to go from viewControllerC to viewControllerA you simply send a notification to viewControlerA to dissmisModalViewController and it will recursively dismiss viewControllerC and viewControllerB for you.
Hope this helps
You should allocate them only once and transition between the views itself by hiding/unhiding them:
viewController.view.hidden = YES/NO;
You will need to make sure you are releasing your object after you add them to their superview. and Make sure that you are removing them from their superview when they are sent off screen....
If you want to reuse the object then you can keep them in a list and try to dequeue them like the table view does. This way you wont have to remake them each time.
If you add them to the subview and never remove them. then you will have multiple views that are no longer used that are still being referenced by their super view. therefore they will still be in memory.

Releasing UIViewController when not in use

Hi I hope somebody can help me with this problem.
I have a UIViewController named "Login" (for example) and when the user has successfully logged in this will call another controller to replace the "Login" controller like below:
[self presentModalViewController:anotherController animated:YES].
I do not need the previous controller any more so I placed a [self release] as shown in the code snippet below.
LoginController.m
- (void)viewDidDisappear:(BOOL)animated {
[self release];
}
This will then call the LoginController's dealloc method and I can be sure it's released.
Now in the new controller that is now in view has a button which calls a UINavigationController like below:
[self presentModalViewController:settingsNavigationController animated:YES];
But this crashes the app which would normally work if I didn't release the previous LoginController.
There is probably an easier or more logical method to release the controller but as I am running out of ideas I sometimes use drastic measures.
Thank you.
You should not be releasing the LoginController, at least not in its own -viewDidDisappear:. That controller is still in use and can be referenced, for example by the navigation controller's parentViewController property. Release the controller when it is no longer part of your view controller hierarchy, not just when it is no longer visible.
In addition [self release] is a warning sign that you are applying incorrect memory management.
1) Replace the "Login" controller
presentModalViewController doesn't replace your login view controller, but it puts anotherController on top of your login view controller.
2) viewDidDisappear
You should read documentation. Quote - You can override this method to perform additional tasks associated with dismissing or hiding the view. If you override this method, you must call super at some point in your implementation.
In other words, you must call [super viewDidDisappear:animated] too.
3) Memory Management
You should definitely need to read Memory Management Guide - http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/cocoa/conceptual/MemoryMgmt/MemoryMgmt.html
4) View Controller
You should definitely need to read View Controller Programming Guide too - http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#featuredarticles/ViewControllerPGforiPhoneOS/Introduction/Introduction.html
Two problems with what you are doing.
First, viewDidDisappear is NOT a destructor. Do not release self there. viewDidDisAppear and appear are used for visibility of the view, not in/out of memory.
Second, presentModalViewController is intended for presenting a MODAL view controller, ie child.
You should consider setting up a UINavigationController and calling
[navigationController popToRootViewControllerAnimated:FALSE];
[navigationController pushViewController:(UIViewController*)controller animated:TRUE];
also in some situations you can get away with an [autorelease] view controller using present modal.

Do something if view loads

I shift to my view by
[[self navigationController] popToViewController:controller animated:YES];
In that ViewController, I'm not able to get a notice, that it comes back to front (e.g. by viewWillAppear). I want to reload a table, as soon as the view is visible again.
How do I get a notice, that the view comes back on the screen?
----> solved: See my last comment on Corey's answer
viewWillAppear should be called if you are using a UINavigationController.
Are you sure you have added it correctly to the view hierarchy?
Did you check if viewWillDisappear gets called when it goes offscreen?
Did you try viewDidAppear just to make sure?
Did you spell the method name correctly?
To add:
Is the instance of UINavigationController added directly to the UIWindow instance?
The delegate methods like viewWillappear are sent from UIApplication (I believe). UIApplication only "knows" about viewControllers whose views are either:
Added Directly to UIWindow.
Added to a
UINavigationController/UITabBarCOntroller
that is added directly to UIWindow
(or a chain of these that leads to UIWindow).

iPhone viewWillAppear not firing

I've read numerous posts about people having problems with viewWillAppear when you do not create your view hierarchy just right. My problem is I can't figure out what that means.
If I create a RootViewController and call addSubView on that controller, I would expect the added view(s) to be wired up for viewWillAppear events.
Does anyone have an example of a complex programmatic view hierarchy that successfully receives viewWillAppear events at every level?
Apple's Docs state:
Warning: If the view belonging to a view controller is added to a view hierarchy directly, the view controller will not receive this message. If you insert or add a view to the view hierarchy, and it has a view controller, you should send the associated view controller this message directly. Failing to send the view controller this message will prevent any associated animation from being displayed.
The problem is that they don't describe how to do this. What does "directly" mean? How do you "indirectly" add a view?
I am fairly new to Cocoa and iPhone so it would be nice if there were useful examples from Apple besides the basic Hello World crap.
If you use a navigation controller and set its delegate, then the view{Will,Did}{Appear,Disappear} methods are not invoked.
You need to use the navigation controller delegate methods instead:
navigationController:willShowViewController:animated:
navigationController:didShowViewController:animated:
I've run into this same problem. Just send a viewWillAppear message to your view controller before you add it as a subview. (There is one BOOL parameter which tells the view controller if it's being animated to appear or not.)
[myViewController viewWillAppear:NO];
Look at RootViewController.m in the Metronome example.
(I actually found Apple's example projects great. There's a LOT more than HelloWorld ;)
I finally found a solution for this THAT WORKS!
UINavigationControllerDelegate
I think the gist of it is to set your nav control's delegate to the viewcontroller it is in, and implement UINavigationControllerDelegate and it's two methods. Brilliant! I'm so excited i finally found a solution!
Thanks iOS 13.
ViewWillDisappear, ViewDidDisappear, ViewWillAppear and
ViewDidAppear won't get called on a presenting view controller on
iOS 13 which uses a new modal presentation that doesn't cover the
whole screen.
Credits are going to Arek Holko. He really saved my day.
I just had the same issue. In my application I have 2 navigation controllers and pushing the same view controller in each of them worked in one case and not in the other. I mean that when pushing the exact same view controller in the first UINavigationController, viewWillAppear was called but not when pushed in the second navigation controller.
Then I came across this post UINavigationController should call viewWillAppear/viewWillDisappear methods
And realized that my second navigation controller did redefine viewWillAppear. Screening the code showed that I was not calling
[super viewWillAppear:animated];
I added it and it worked !
The documentation says:
If you override this method, you must call super at some point in your implementation.
I've been using a navigation controller. When I want to either descend to another level of data or show my custom view I use the following:
[self.navigationController pushViewController:<view> animated:<BOOL>];
When I do this, I do get the viewWillAppear function to fire. I suppose this qualifies as "indirect" because I'm not calling the actual addSubView method myself. I don't know if this is 100% applicable to your application since I can't tell if you're using a navigation controller, but maybe it will provide a clue.
Firstly, the tab bar should be at the root level, ie, added to the window, as stated in the Apple documentation. This is key for correct behavior.
Secondly, you can use UITabBarDelegate / UINavigationBarDelegate to forward the notifications on manually, but I found that to get the whole hierarchy of view calls to work correctly, all I had to do was manually call
[tabBarController viewWillAppear:NO];
[tabBarController viewDidAppear:NO];
and
[navBarController viewWillAppear:NO];
[navBarController viewDidAppear:NO];
.. just ONCE before setting up the view controllers on the respective controller (right after allocation). From then on, it correctly called these methods on its child view controllers.
My hierarchy is like this:
window
UITabBarController (subclass of)
UIViewController (subclass of) // <-- manually calls [navController viewWill/DidAppear
UINavigationController (subclass of)
UIViewController (subclass of) // <-- still receives viewWill/Did..etc all the way down from a tab switch at the top of the chain without needing to use ANY delegate methods
Just calling the mentioned methods on the tab/nav controller the first time ensured that ALL the events were forwarded correctly. It stopped me needing to call them manually from the UINavigationBarDelegate / UITabBarControllerDelegate methods.
Sidenote:
Curiously, when it didn't work, the private method
- (void)transitionFromViewController:(UIViewController*)aFromViewController toViewController:(UIViewController*)aToViewController
.. which you can see from the callstack on a working implementation, usually calls the viewWill/Did.. methods but didn't until I performed the above (even though it was called).
I think it is VERY important that the UITabBarController is at window level though and the documents seem to back this up.
Hope that was clear(ish), happy to answer further questions.
As no answer is accepted and people (like I did) land here I give my variation. Though I am not sure that was the original problem. When the navigation controller is added as a subview to a another view you must call the viewWillAppear/Dissappear etc. methods yourself like this:
- (void) viewWillAppear:(BOOL)animated
{
[super viewWillAppear:animated];
[subNavCntlr viewWillAppear:animated];
}
- (void) viewWillDisappear:(BOOL)animated
{
[super viewWillDisappear:animated];
[subNavCntlr viewWillDisappear:animated];
}
Just to make the example complete. This code appears in my ViewController where I created and added the the navigation controller into a view that I placed on the view.
- (void)viewDidLoad {
// This is the root View Controller
rootTable *rootTableController = [[rootTable alloc]
initWithStyle:UITableViewStyleGrouped];
subNavCntlr = [[UINavigationController alloc]
initWithRootViewController:rootTableController];
[rootTableController release];
subNavCntlr.view.frame = subNavContainer.bounds;
[subNavContainer addSubview:subNavCntlr.view];
[super viewDidLoad];
}
the .h looks like this
#interface navTestViewController : UIViewController <UINavigationControllerDelegate> {
IBOutlet UIView *subNavContainer;
UINavigationController *subNavCntlr;
}
#end
In the nib file I have the view and below this view I have a label a image and the container (another view) where i put the controller in. Here is how it looks. I had to scramble some things as this was work for a client.
Views are added "directly" by calling [view addSubview:subview].
Views are added "indirectly" by methods such as tab bars or nav bars that swap subviews.
Any time you call [view addSubview:subviewController.view], you should then call [subviewController viewWillAppear:NO] (or YES as your case may be).
I had this problem when I implemented my own custom root-view management system for a subscreen in a game. Manually adding the call to viewWillAppear cured my problem.
Correct way to do this is using UIViewController containment api.
- (void)viewDidLoad {
[super viewDidLoad];
// Do any additional setup after loading the view.
UIViewController *viewController = ...;
[self addChildViewController:viewController];
[self.view addSubview:viewController.view];
[viewController didMoveToParentViewController:self];
}
I use this code for push and pop view controllers:
push:
[self.navigationController pushViewController:detaiViewController animated:YES];
[detailNewsViewController viewWillAppear:YES];
pop:
[[self.navigationController popViewControllerAnimated:YES] viewWillAppear:YES];
.. and it works fine for me.
A very common mistake is as follows.
You have one view, UIView* a, and another one, UIView* b.
You add b to a as a subview.
If you try to call viewWillAppear in b, it will never be fired, because it is a subview of a
iOS 13 bit my app in the butt here. If you've noticed behavior change as of iOS 13 just set the following before you push it:
yourVC.modalPresentationStyle = UIModalPresentationFullScreen;
You may also need to set it in your .storyboard in the Attributes inspector (set Presentation to Full Screen).
This will make your app behave as it did in prior versions of iOS.
I'm not 100% sure on this, but I think that adding a view to the view hierarchy directly means calling -addSubview: on the view controller's view (e.g., [viewController.view addSubview:anotherViewController.view]) instead of pushing a new view controller onto the navigation controller's stack.
I think that adding a subview doesn't necessarily mean that the view will appear, so there is not an automatic call to the class's method that it will
I think what they mean "directly" is by hooking things up just the same way as the xcode "Navigation Application" template does, which sets the UINavigationController as the sole subview of the application's UIWindow.
Using that template is the only way I've been able to get the Will/Did/Appear/Disappear methods called on the object ViewControllers upon push/pops of those controllers in the UINavigationController. None of the other solutions in the answers here worked for me, including implementing them in the RootController and passing them through to the (child) NavigationController. Those functions (will/did/appear/disappear) were only called in my RootController upon showing/hiding the top-level VCs, my "login" and navigationVCs, not the sub-VCs in the navigation controller, so I had no opportunity to "pass them through" to the Nav VC.
I ended up using the UINavigationController's delegate functionality to look for the particular transitions that required follow-up functionality in my app, and that works, but it requires a bit more work in order to get both the disappear and appear functionality "simulated".
Also it's a matter of principle to get it to work after banging my head against this problem for hours today. Any working code snippets using a custom RootController and a child navigation VC would be much appreciated.
In case this helps anyone. I had a similar problem where my ViewWillAppear is not firing on a UITableViewController. After a lot of playing around, I realized that the problem was that the UINavigationController that is controlling my UITableView is not on the root view. Once I fix that, it is now working like a champ.
I just had this problem myself and it took me 3 full hours (2 of which googling) to fix it.
What turned out to help was to simply delete the app from the device/simulator, clean and then run again.
Hope that helps
[self.navigationController setDelegate:self];
Set the delegate to the root view controller.
In my case problem was with custom transition animation.
When set modalPresentationStyle = .custom viewWillAppear not called
in custom transition animation class need call methods:
beginAppearanceTransition and endAppearanceTransition
For Swift. First create the protocol to call what you wanted to call in viewWillAppear
protocol MyViewWillAppearProtocol{func myViewWillAppear()}
Second, create the class
class ForceUpdateOnViewAppear: NSObject, UINavigationControllerDelegate {
func navigationController(_ navigationController: UINavigationController, willShow viewController: UIViewController, animated: Bool){
if let updatedCntllr: MyViewWillAppearProtocol = viewController as? MyViewWillAppearProtocol{
updatedCntllr.myViewWillAppear()
}
}
}
Third, make the instance of ForceUpdateOnViewAppear to be the member of the appropriate class that have the access to the Navigation Controller and exists as long as Navigation controller exists. It may be for example the root view controller of the navigation controller or the class that creates or present it. Then assign the instance of ForceUpdateOnViewAppear to the Navigation Controller delegate property as early as possible.
In my case that was just a weird bug on the ios 12.1 emulator. Disappeared after launching on real device.
I have created a class that solves this problem.
Just set it as a delegate of your navigation controller, and implement simple one or two methods in your view controller - that will get called when the view is about to be shown or has been shown via NavigationController
Here's the GIST showing the code
ViewWillAppear is an override method of UIViewController class so adding a subView will not call viewWillAppear, but when you present, push , pop, show , setFront Or popToRootViewController from a viewController then viewWillAppear for presented viewController will get called.
My issue was that viewWillAppear was not called when unwinding from a segue. The answer was to put a call to viewWillAppear(true) in the unwind segue in the View Controller that you segueing back to
#IBAction func unwind(for unwindSegue: UIStoryboardSegue, ViewController subsequentVC: Any) {
viewWillAppear(true)
}
I'm not sure this is the same problem that I solved.
In some occasions, method doesn't executed with normal way such as "[self methodOne]".
Try
- (void)viewWillAppear:(BOOL)animated
{
[self performSelector:#selector(methodOne)
withObject:nil afterDelay:0];
}
You should only have 1 UIViewController active at any time. Any subviews you want to manipulate should be exactly that - subVIEWS - i.e. UIView.
I use a simlple technique for managing my view hierarchy and have yet to run into a problem since I started doing things this way. There are 2 key points:
a single UIViewController should be used to manage "a screen's worth"
of your app
use UINavigationController for changing views
What do I mean by "a screen's worth"? It's a bit vague on purpose, but generally it's a feature or section of your app. If you've got a few screens with the same background image but different overlays/popups etc., that should be 1 view controller and several child views. You should never find yourself working with 2 view controllers. Note you can still instantiate a UIView in one view controller and add it as a subview of another view controller if you want certain areas of the screen to be shown in multiple view controllers.
As for UINavigationController - this is your best friend! Turn off the navigation bar and specify NO for animated, and you have an excellent way of switching screens on demand. You can push and pop view controllers if they're in a hierarchy, or you can prepare an array of view controllers (including an array containing a single VC) and set it to be the view stack using setViewControllers. This gives you total freedom to change VC's, while gaining all the advantages of working within Apple's expected model and getting all events etc. fired properly.
Here's what I do every time when I start an app:
start from a window-based app
add a UINavigationController as the window's rootViewController
add whatever I want my first UIViewController to be as the rootViewController of the nav
controller
(note starting from window-based is just a personal preference - I like to construct things myself so I know exactly how they are built. It should work fine with view-based template)
All events fire correctly and basically life is good. You can then spend all your time writing the important bits of your app and not messing about trying to manually hack view hierarchies into shape.