Presenting view controllers on detached ... - sometimes

Question

Like others coming to iOS8, I'm getting the warning:

Presenting view controllers on detached view controllers is discouraged <EditItineraryViewController: 0x7ca56e00>.

This is caused by the following code:

- (void)editActivityDetailsForIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath {
    NSPredicate *predicateForDisplay = [[NSPredicate alloc] init];
    switch (indexPath.section) {
        case kIncompleteActivitiesSection:
            predicateForDisplay = _predIncomplete;
            break;
        case kCompleteActivitiesSection:
            predicateForDisplay = _predComplete;
            break;
        default:
            break;
    }
    NSString *theActivityName = [[NSString alloc] init];
    theActivityName = [[[_activitiesArray filteredArrayUsingPredicate:predicateForDisplay] objectAtIndex:indexPath.row] activityName];
    UIStoryboard *storyboard = [UIStoryboard storyboardWithName:@"Main" bundle:nil];
    ActivityDetailViewController *activityDetailVC = [storyboard instantiateViewControllerWithIdentifier:@"ActivityDetailView"];
    activityDetailVC.modalPresentationStyle = UIModalPresentationFormSheet;
    activityDetailVC.delegate = self;
    // send the activity to the view
    activityDetailVC.theActivity = [[_activitiesArray filteredArrayUsingPredicate:predicateForDisplay] objectAtIndex:indexPath.row];
    // configure the look of the view
    _activityDetailsPopover = [[UIPopoverController alloc] initWithContentViewController:activityDetailVC];
    _activityDetailsPopover.delegate = self;
    ItineraryCell *cell = (ItineraryCell *)[self.itineraryTableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:indexPath];
    activityDetailVC.contentView.backgroundColor = [UIColor whiteColor];
    activityDetailVC.navigationBar.barTintColor = _colorSchemeLightColor;
    activityDetailVC.navigationBar.titleTextAttributes = @{NSForegroundColorAttributeName:_colorSchemeColor};
    activityDetailVC.saveButton.tintColor = _colorSchemeColor;
    activityDetailVC.cancelButton.tintColor = _colorSchemeColor;
    activityDetailVC.labelB.textColor = _colorSchemeColor;
    activityDetailVC.labelM.textColor = _colorSchemeColor;
    activityDetailVC.activityTitle.textColor = _colorSchemeColor;
    activityDetailVC.activityTitle.font = [UIFont boldSystemFontOfSize:17.0];
    // present the view
    [_activityDetailsPopover presentPopoverFromRect:cell.cellDetailsButton.frame inView:cell.cellDetailsButton.superview permittedArrowDirections:UIPopoverArrowDirectionAny animated:YES];
}

This is an iPad app and in this case, the popover is being presented in such a way as to have its little pointer pointing at an "i" icon that sits on a tableview cell in a tableview.

This works in three other places in my app without causing the warning at all. But for some reason, with this implementation, it's causing the warning. The weird thing is, this was the first place in my app I used this means of presenting the popover from a tableview cell and the other instances are just copies of this code!

Any ideas what I can look at to figure out where the hierarchy is buggered up? Is it related to how the tableview cell is being generated and then this popover presented on top of it, or does it have to do strictly with the popover itself? Or could it have to do with the tableview. I don't even know where to start to look.

Thanks so much!

Answer 1

I worked around this problem by presenting the popover from the view controller that presents the tableView (in my case a collection view). The problem arises when you present from a cell. I'm assuming any cell is considered a "detached view controller" so presenting from them will give you this error and will not receive rotation events, which in turn will not use the popoverPresentationController:willRepositionPopoverToRect:inView: callback.