ios: UITableView reloadData not working until scroll - ios

Question

I've noticed a few questions similar to this one on SO but they all seem to end in the person was calling
[self.tableView reloadData]
Outside of the main thread.
My problem is, I'm calling this on the main UI thread and I still don't get the new rows loaded until I like tap the screen or scroll a little bit. Here's what I'm doing: When I enter my ViewController the table displays fully and correctly. After pressing a button on the view I call my external db and load in some new rows to be added to the table. After adding these to my data source, I call reloadData and all of the new rows are blank. The couple rows that still fit on the screen that were already part of the table still show, but nothing new. When I touch the screen or scroll a little bit all of the new cells pop up.
Here's my code starting from when my call to the server finishes:
- (void)connectionDidFinishLoading:(NSURLConnection *)connection {
if(connection == self.searchConnection) {
..... some code ......
if(successful) {
// Adding new data to the datasource
[self.locations removeObjectAtIndex:[[NSNumber numberWithInt:self.locations.count - 1] integerValue]];
[self.cellTypeDictionary removeAllObjects];
for(int i = 0; i < [jsonLocations count]; ++i) {
NSDictionary *locationDictionary = jsonLocations[i];
BTRLocation *location = [BTRLocation parseLocationJSONObject:locationDictionary];
[self.locations addObject:location];
}
if(self.currentNextPageToken != nil && ![self.currentNextPageToken isEqual:[NSNull null]] && self.currentNextPageToken.length > 0) {
BTRLocation *fakeLocation = [[BTRLocation alloc] init];
[self.locations addObject:fakeLocation];
}
[self determineCellTypes];
if([self.locations count] < 1) {
self.emptyView.hidden = NO;
} else {
... some code .....
if(self.pendingSearchIsNextPageToken) {
NSIndexPath *indexPath = [NSIndexPath indexPathForRow:[[NSNumber numberWithInt:countBefore] integerValue]
inSection:[[NSNumber numberWithInt:0] integerValue]];
dispatch_async(dispatch_get_main_queue(), ^{
[self.tableView reloadData];
[self.tableView scrollToRowAtIndexPath:indexPath atScrollPosition:UITableViewScrollPositionMiddle animated:NO];
});
} else {
NSIndexPath *indexPath = [NSIndexPath indexPathForRow:[[NSNumber numberWithInt:0] integerValue]
inSection:[[NSNumber numberWithInt:0] integerValue]];
dispatch_async(dispatch_get_main_queue(), ^{
[self.tableView reloadData];
[self.tableView scrollToRowAtIndexPath:indexPath atScrollPosition:UITableViewScrollPositionMiddle animated:NO];
});
}
}
} else {
if(invalidAccessToken) {
// TODO: invalidAccessToken need to log out
}
}
You can see I even added
dispatch_async(dispatch_get_main_queue(), ^{
[self.tableView reloadData];
[self.tableView scrollToRowAtIndexPath:indexPath atScrollPosition:UITableViewScrollPositionMiddle animated:NO];
});
Even though I know connectionDidFinishLoading is called on the main thread. But I figured I'd just try it anyway.
I can see no reason for why this isn't working.

Answer 1

the proper way is:
[self.tableView reloadData];
__weak MyViewController* weakSelf = self;
dispatch_async(dispatch_get_main_queue(), ^{
__strong MyViewController *strongSelf = weakSelf;
[strongSelf.tableView scrollToRowAtIndexPath:indexPath atScrollPosition:UITableViewScrollPositionMiddle animated:NO];
});
Sometimes I found that you add after the reloadData:
[self.tableView layoutIfNeeded];