iOS 7 UIRefreshControl tintColor not working for beginRefreshing

Question

I'm trying to set a tintColor on my UIRefreshControl (building on iOS 7). I enabled refreshing for the tableViewController in storyboard, then in my ViewController viewDidLoad method i did the following:

[self.refreshControl setTintColor:[UIColor redColor]];

So now, when I pull to refresh, the color of the refresh control is red indeed:

I want my view to update automatically when it appears, so I did:

- (void)viewDidAppear:(BOOL)animated{
    [self.refreshControl beginRefreshing];
}

It didn't show the spinning wheel, according to https://stackoverflow.com/a/16250679/1809736, I added

[self.tableView setContentOffset:CGPointMake(0, -self.refreshControl.frame.size.height) animated:NO];

to force show it. It shows it, but now it is back to default color:

If I try manually to pull to refresh afterwards, it is red.

I tried building it on iOS6 and it works as it should, so is that an iOS7 bug?

P.S.: it is not a problem with the simulator, I tried building it on device, same bug.

P.P.S: I built an example project, can you tell me if you have the same bug or if there is a problem in my code? Here is the link: http://d.pr/f/pGrV

Thanks a lot !

Answer 1

Hey just stumbled into this exact issue.

Interestingly I fixed my code by setting the contentOffset first then calling beginRefreshing

if(self.tableView.contentOffset.y == 0){
    self.tableView.contentOffset = CGPointMake(0, -self.refreshControl.frame.size.height);
    [self.refreshControl beginRefreshing];
}

You may want to animate this process:

[UIView animateWithDuration:0.25 delay:0 options:UIViewAnimationOptionBeginFromCurrentState animations:^(void){
    self.tableView.contentOffset = CGPointMake(0, -self.refreshControl.frame.size.height);
} completion:^(BOOL finished) {
    [self.refreshControl beginRefreshing];
}];

Hope this helps you.

W

Answer 2

SWIFT SOLUTION ! Insert the following code in the viewDidLoad:

self.refreshControl.tintColor = UIColor.orangeColor()
self.tableView.contentOffset = CGPointMake(0, -self.refreshControl.frame.size.height)
self.refreshControl.beginRefreshing()

Swift 3.1

self.refreshControl.tintColor = UIColor.orange
self.tableView.contentOffset = CGPoint(x:0, y:-self.refreshControl.frame.size.height)
self.refreshControl.beginRefreshing()

Answer 3

@william-george's answer set me in the right direction, but was giving me weird autolayout animation issues.

So here's the version that worked for me:

- (void)programaticallyRefresh {
    // Hack necessary to keep UIRefreshControl's tintColor
    [self.scrollView setContentOffset:CGPointMake(0, -1.0f) animated:NO];
    [self.scrollView setContentOffset:CGPointMake(0, -self.refreshControl.frame.size.height) animated:YES];
    [self.refreshControl beginRefreshing];
    [self refresh];
}

-refresh is the method tied to the UIRefreshControl.