Problems with popToRootViewControllerAnimated - ios

Question

In my StoryBoard, I have embedded my root view controller inside a Navigation Controller, and this view gets displayed when the app is launched. The user then goes through a series of views, which are basically view controllers presented modally.
I'm trying to implement a function to go back to the root view controller, so I called
-(IBAction)backToMenu{
NSLog(#"Back to menu");
[self.navigationController popToRootViewControllerAnimated:YES];
}
but nothing happens. If I do NSLog(#"%#", self.navigationController"); it prints null, so I guess that's the source of my problem. You can't call popToRootViewControllerAnimated: on a view controller that's been presented modally.
Unless you pass a reference to the root view controller. But is this the right approach? If so, how do you pass a reference to the root view controller? As all my view controllers are instances of a custom subclass of UIViewController, I tried doing inserting this in said class's code :
- (void)prepareForSegue:(UIStoryboardSegue *)segue sender:(id)sender {
[[segue destinationViewController] navigationController] = [[segue sourceViewController] navigationController];
}
but I get an error saying that navigationController is not assignable.
Any thoughts?

Answer 1

In the documentation for dismissViewControllerAnimated:completion:, it says:
If you present several view controllers in succession, thus building a
stack of presented view controllers, calling this method on a view
controller lower in the stack dismisses its immediate child view
controller and all view controllers above that child on the stack.
This suggests that you should keep a reference to your root view controller (or otherwise notify it) and call this method on it. (There's a similar note on the deprecated dismissModalViewControllerAnimated: in case you're using that.)

Answer 2

Does the class that implements the method -(IBAction)backToMenu inherit from UIViewController? I get thi skind of error when the class where I'm implementing the popToRootViewControllerAnimated inherits from some other class. To hold a reference to the original navigatorController I would:
Declare in the class where backToMenu is implemented, a pointer to a pointer to the navigation controller, something like: UINavigationController *navCon; yo should declare this as a property and then synthesizeit.
So when you instance the ViewController for this class you can do something like:
TheClassViewController *theClassVC = [TheClassViewController alloc] initWithNib:#"TheClassViewController" bundle:nil];
theClassVC.navCon = self.navigationController; // Here is where you pass THE reference
[self.navigationController pushViewController:theClassVC animated:YES];

Answer 3

Just solved it.
The problem was that, in the StoryBoard, the initial view controller was the root view controller and not the Navigation Controller it was embedded in!
Once you set the Navigation Controller as the initial view controller (i.e. drag the arrow so that it points to it), popToRootViewControllerAnimated works like a charm.