iPhone: UITableView not refreshing

Question

I have read many topics about UITableViews not refreshing on iPhone, but couldn't find anything matching my situation, so I'm asking for help.

In my class, which extends UIViewController, I have a TableView and an 'ElementList' (which is a wrapper for NSMutableArray) used as data source.

A separate thread adds a new Element to the array via the 'updateList:' method. When this happens, I want the tableView to be refreshed automatically, but this doesn't happen.

By debugging my app, I can see that 'cellForRowAtIndexPath' is never called and I can't figure out why.

I tried to add an Observer, which calls the 'reloadTableView' method (it is actually called) but the tableView is not updated.

This is my code:

#import <UIKit/UIKit.h>

@interface ListViewController : UIViewController <UITableViewDelegate, UITableViewDataSource>
{
    UITableView *tableView;
    ElementList *elementList;   // Wrapper for NSMutableArray
}

// Called by someone else, triggers the whole thing
-(void)updateList:(Element *)element;

// Added out of desperation
-(void)reloadTableView;

@end


@implementation ListViewController

-(void)loadView
{
    // Create the TableView
    tableView = [[UITableView alloc] initWithFrame:[[UIScreen mainScreen] applicationFrame] style:UITableViewStylePlain];
    assert(tableView != nil);
    tableView.delegate = self;
    tableView.dataSource = self;
    [tableView reloadData];

    self.view = tableView;

    // Added out of desperation 
    [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self selector:@selector(reloadTableView) name:@"UpdatedListNotification" object:nil];
}

-(void)reloadTableView
{
    // Try anything
    [tableView reloadData];
    [tableView setNeedsLayout];
    [tableView setNeedsDisplay];
    [tableView reloadData];
    [self.view setNeedsLayout];
    [self.view setNeedsDisplay];
}

// Called by someone else, triggers the whole thing
-(void)updateList:(Element *)element
{
    assert(element != nil);
    [elementList addElement:element];
    [element release];

    // Notify the observer, which should update its table view
    [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] postNotificationName:@"UpdatedListNotification" object:self];
}

// TableView Delegate protocol
- (void)tableView:(UITableView *)table didSelectRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath
{
    Element *selected_element = [elementList getElementAtIndex:indexPath.row];
    if (selected_element == nil)
    {
        NSLog(@"ERROR: Selected an invalid element");
        return;
    }
    [table deselectRowAtIndexPath:indexPath animated:YES];

    NSLog(@"Selected %@", selected_element.name);
}

// TableView Data Source protocol
- (NSInteger)numberOfSectionsInTableView:(UITableView *)tableView
{
    return 1;
}

- (NSInteger)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView numberOfRowsInSection:(NSInteger)section
{
    return [elementList count];
}

- (UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)table cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath
{       
    static NSString *CellIdentifier = @"Cell";
    UITableViewCell *cell = [table dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:CellIdentifier];
    if (cell == nil)
    {
    cell = [[[UITableViewCell alloc] initWithStyle:UITableViewCellStyleDefault reuseIdentifier:CellIdentifier] autorelease];
    }

    // Set the cell label
    cell.textLabel.text = [[elementList getElementAtIndex:indexPath.row] name];
    cell.textLabel.frame = cell.bounds;
    cell.textLabel.textAlignment = UITextAlignmentLeft;
    return cell;
}

@end

Any help is greatly appreciated, thank you.

Answer 1

Notifications are executed in the same thread as the caller. Updating the UI should really be done in the main thread, so you should call -reloadData on the main thread:

-(void)updateList:(Element *)element
{
    assert(element != nil);
    [elementList addElement:element];

    [self.tableView performSelectorOnMainThread:@selector(reloadData) withObject:nil];
}

Also note that you shouldn't release an object that you don't own. So don't call [element release] in your -updateList method. The release should be called by the caller of the function.