Question

UIImagePickerController is easy to use, but i’m all of a sudden finding it exasperating when I didn’t find it so before. What’s happening is that sometimes the imagePickerController:didFinishPickingImage:editingInfo delegate method does not seem to work — the image will not show in the UIImageView even after the assignment was made. Sometimes it will, sometimes not, and furthermore, every single bit of example code i’ve tried (from the web, from the “Beginning iPhone 3 Development” book, etc.) exhibits the same problem. I’m at a loss as to why, and the problem happens on both my iPhone 3G as well as my 3GS, so I doubt that it’s a hardware issue. These devices are running OS 3.1.2. The view controller is loaded from a xib file that contains one button and the UIImageView. I’d really like someone to tell me what stupid thing i’m obviously doing wrong 🙂

Here is the code — i’ve tried to make the smallest app I could that exhibits the problem:

#import <UIKit/UIKit.h>
#import <Foundation/Foundation.h>

@interface imagepickerViewController : UIViewController <UINavigationControllerDelegate, UIImagePickerControllerDelegate>
{
    IBOutlet UIButton *button;
    IBOutlet UIImageView *imageView;    
}

@property (nonatomic, retain) UIImageView *imageView;

- (IBAction)takepic;
- (void)usePic:(UIImage *)pic;

@end




#import "imagepickerViewController.h"

@implementation imagepickerViewController

@synthesize imageView;

- (IBAction)takepic 
{
    if ([UIImagePickerController isSourceTypeAvailable:UIImagePickerControllerSourceTypeCamera])
    {
        UIImagePickerController *picker = [[UIImagePickerController alloc] init];
        picker.sourceType = UIImagePickerControllerSourceTypeCamera;        
        picker.delegate = self;

        [self presentModalViewController:picker animated:YES];
        [picker release];
    }
}

- (void)imagePickerController:(UIImagePickerController *)picker didFinishPickingImage:(UIImage *)image editingInfo:(NSDictionary *)info
{
    [self usePic:image];
    [picker dismissModalViewControllerAnimated:YES];

    // after this method returns, the UIImageView should show the image -- yet very often it does not ...
}

- (void)imagePickerControllerDidCancel:(UIImagePickerController *)picker
{
    [picker dismissModalViewControllerAnimated:YES];
}

- (void)usePic:(UIImage *)picture
{
    imageView.image = picture;
}

@end

Answer 1

My guess: make sure you’re handling didReceiveMemoryWarning correctly. Put a breakpoint or a debug printout or something to see if it’s being hit, and then check what’s happening next.

- (void)didReceiveMemoryWarning {
    // Releases the view if it doesn't have a superview.
    [super didReceiveMemoryWarning];

    // Release any cached data, images, etc that aren't in use.
    NSLog(@"Got a memory warning");
}

The default handling is for UIViewControllers that are not visible (and your app’s main view controller is not visible while the picker is in front of it!) to discard their views.