Element in the VisualElementRenderer is not my generic type - ios

Question

I followed the example - https://developer.xamarin.com/guides/xamarin-forms/application-fundamentals/custom-renderer/hybridwebview/ to create a hybrid web view. It works fine in Andriod project but I have issues with the iOS project. In the OnElementChanged override, the Element property is always Xamarin.Forms.Element type which is the base type and not my generic view type (TElement). I have rechecked my code multiple times but cannot find any fixes. If I download the original code and run it, it works fine. The issue is only in my project.
Can anybody give me pointers as to why I might not be getting the generic TElement type. In the original project , the TElement type is HybridWebView. In mine I have a different name but with almost all the same properties and methods.
Below are some of my code. It is really easy to replicate the issue. Just create a new Xamarin.Forms solution and add my code. You will see the issue on this lie - var ele = Element; //ELEMENT HERE IS NOt SBMHybridWebView
The custom control in PCL
public class SBMHybridWebView : Xamarin.Forms.View
{
}
The iOS Renderer (off-course I have added the ExportRenderer)
public class SBMHybridWebViewRenderer : ViewRenderer<SBMHybridWebView, WKWebView>, IWKScriptMessageHandler
{
const string JavaScriptFunction = "function invokeCSharpAction(data){window.webkit.messageHandlers.invokeAction.postMessage(data);}";
WKUserContentController userController;
protected override void OnElementChanged(ElementChangedEventArgs<SBMHybridWebView> e)
{
base.OnElementChanged(e);
if (Control == null)
{
userController = new WKUserContentController();
var script = new WKUserScript(new NSString(JavaScriptFunction), WKUserScriptInjectionTime.AtDocumentEnd, false);
userController.AddUserScript(script);
userController.AddScriptMessageHandler(this, "invokeAction");
var config = new WKWebViewConfiguration { UserContentController = userController };
var webView = new WKWebView(Frame, config);
SetNativeControl(webView);
}
if (e.OldElement != null)
{
//Clean up code
}
if (e.NewElement != null)
{
var ele = Element; //ELEMENT HERE IS NOt SBMHybridWebView
}
}
public void DidReceiveScriptMessage(WKUserContentController userContentController, WKScriptMessage message)
{
//Element.InvokeAction(message.Body.ToString());
}
}
The XAML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<ContentPage xmlns="http://xamarin.com/schemas/2014/forms"
xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2009/xaml"
xmlns:localcontrol="clr-namespace:App2.Control;assembly=App2"
x:Class="App2.View.Page1">
<Grid>
<Grid.RowDefinitions>
<RowDefinition Height="*" />
<RowDefinition Height="60" />
</Grid.RowDefinitions>
<Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ColumnDefinition Width="*" />
</Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<localcontrol:SBMHybridWebView Grid.Row="0" />
</Grid>
</ContentPage>

Answer 1

I found the cause which I cannot explain. In my iOS project, I had my SBMHybridWebViewRenderer in Renderer folder. Somehowm iOS does not like the renderer to be in a folder. Moving it to the root of the project (but keeping the same namespace) solved the issue. WHY? I dont know. I would have expected it to work regardless of where I place the file.
I thought I will post this just incase someone else has the same issue.