viewWillAppear not getting called - ios

Question

I have a view controller(VC1) embedded in a navigation controller(NAV1). In its viewWillAppear method, I make a call to modally present another view controller. In one case I need the new view controller(VC2) to be presented with animation, and in another case it should be presented without animation. VC2 is also embedded in its own navigation controller(NAV2).
All is fine when the animation flag is set to TRUE. When I set the flag to FALSE, couple of things go wrong:
1. I get the following warning in the console: Presenting view controllers on detached view controllers is discouraged
2. When I move back from VC2 after calling dismissViewControllerAnimated:FALSE completion:nil the viewWillAppear method of VC1 does not get called. It gets called if the animation flag is set to TRUE.
In VC1:
- (void)viewWillAppear:(BOOL)animated
{
[super viewWillAppear:animated];
[self performSelector:#selector(importStuff:)
withObject:nil];
}
-(void)importStuff
{
//instatntiate VC2
//instantiate NAV2
[Utility presentViewController:pNavController
fromViewController:self
animated:FALSE
completion:nil];
// the above method calls the presentViewController:animated:completion: method
}
IN VC2:
[Utility dismissViewController:self
animated:FALSE
completion:nil];
The above method calls the dismissViewControllerAnimated: method.

Answer 1

Not a solution but a workaround:
You can easily postpone any UI operation to the very next event loop by using afterDelay:0:
[self performSelector:#selector(importStuff:)
withObject:nil
afterDelay:0];
This will give a chance to the current operation to complete.
Furthermore, a delay of 0.4 will match the OS. However, whatever delay you use (other than 0) is a kludge and not guaranteed to work under every situation, device and memory load, etc.
Instead, you should revisit your approach.
Change your design:
Do not run the risk of encountering this animation race in the first place.
You have a couple of options, including:
Controlling the transition animation yourself and waiting for its completion prior pushing another view controller (using a completion signal or completion block)
Changing your methodology entirely to avoid this conundrum altogether

Answer 2

-(void)viewWillAppear:(BOOL)animated{
[super viewWillAppear:animated];
[self performSelector:#selector(importStuff) withObject:nil afterDelay:0.1];
}
-(void)importStuff
{
//instatntiate VC2
//instantiate NAV2
SecondViewController *viewMe=[self.storyboard instantiateViewControllerWithIdentifier:#"second"];
[self.view.window.rootViewController presentViewController:viewMe animated:NO completion:nil];
// the above method calls the presentViewController:animated:completion: method
}