Call an action at specific intervals in iOS - ios

Question

I am trying to invoke a function that contains ccactioninterval in Cocos3d. I want to call that function at specific time intervals.When I tried NSTimer , i found that it works sometimes and sometimes not.
NSTimer makeTarget=[NSTimer scheduledTimerWithTimeInterval:2.0 target:self selector:#selector(createTargets) userInfo:nil repeats:YES];
Here createTargets is the function that contains action events. when i run the function straightit works fine for single time. Problem comes when i try to schedule it. I ve tried different methods already explained for related questions . But nothing worked for me. . . .
Here is the code
-(void) addTargets {
NSTimer *makeTarget = [NSTimer scheduledTimerWithTimeInterval:2.0
target:self selector:#selector(createTargets) userInfo:nil repeats:YES];
}
-(void)createTargets {
CC3MeshNode *target = (CC3MeshNode*)[self getNodeNamed: #"obj1"];
int minVal=-5;
int maxVal=5;
float avgVal;
avgVal = maxVal- minVal;
float Value = ((float)arc4random()/ARC4RANDOM_MAX)*avgVal+minVal ;
[target setLocation:cc3v(Value, 5.0, 0.0)];
CCActionInterval *moveTarget = [CC3MoveBy actionWithDuration:7.0 moveBy:cc3v(0.0, -10.0, 0.0)];
CCActionInterval *removeTarget = [CCCallFuncN actionWithTarget:self selector:#selector(removeTarget:)];
[target runAction:[CCSequence actionOne:moveTarget two:removeTarget]];
}
-(void)removeTarget:(CC3MeshNode*)targ {
[self removeChild:targ];
targ=nil;
}

Answer 1

Without much code its hard to tell what you issues is, but here are some things to try apologies if any of this is obvious.
Are you holding onto a reference to the timer?
This might be useful for debugging. If you have a property called makeTargetTimer, then you could do this:
NSTimer * makeTargetTimer = [NSTimer scheduledTimerWithTimeInterval:2.0 target:self selector:#selector(createTargets) userInfo:nil repeats:YES];
self.makeTargetTimer = makeTargetTimer // Save to a property for later use (or just use an iVar)
The only way to stop a re-occurring timer is to invalidate it. Therefore you could check to see if its been invalidated.
BOOL isInvalidated = [self.makeTargetTimer isValid];
Also you might want to do this in your dealloc method anyway:
- (void) dealloc {
[_makeTargetTimer invalidate]; // Stops the timer from firing (Assumes ARC)
}
Are you scrolling when the even should be received?
If you want the timer to be fired while scrolling then you need to use NSRunLoopCommonModes. There is a excellent expiation in this question.
[[NSRunLoop currentRunLoop] addTimer:makeTargetTimer forMode:NSRunLoopCommonModes];
What is your implementation of createTargets like?
Have you put NSLog statements on the body of this method. Are you certain its not being called?