Application tried to present modally an active controller : UIImagePickerController - objective-c

Question

I'm struggle at this for 2 days and believe that this is the moment I should call for help. After I search SOF for a while, none of any answer could solve my problem. Here are my application ...
In the application,
Device is iPad, iOS 6
RootViewController is NavigationController
TopViewController is TabBarController
In this TabBarController, I present a popoverController from right bar button of navigation bar
In presenting popover there is a button to allow user to pick image from by taking new one or pick from existing.
To pick new one, I presentViewController UIImagePickerController to allow user to take photo with divice camera. presentModalViewController:animated: if iOS < 6, and presentViewController:animated:completion: for iOS > 6
I also hide Status Bar before presentation
To select from existing photo, I do presentPopoverFromBarButtonItem:permitArrowDirections:animated:
PopoverViewController also referencing by A TabBarController
Here is the issue
Present UIImagePickerController will always failed if user try to pick new one first with exception "Application tried to present modally an active controller <[name of view controller that try to present]>"
BUT, if user try to pick image from camera roll for once and then try to take new one again, it won't fail.
Here are what I tried
present from RootViewController
present from TopViewController (TabBarController)
present from popoverViewController itself
present from a tab of TabBarController
hide popoverViewController before presentation
resignFirstResponder from a textField in popoverViewController
Here is the current code I'm using
// PopoverViewController, presented by a tab in TabBarController
- (IBAction)takePhoto:(id)sender {
[self.delegate takePhotoWithDeviceCamera];
}
// A Tab in TabBarController, delegate of popoverViewController
- (void)takePhotoWithCamera {
[[UIApplication sharedApplication] setStatusBarHidden:YES];
if ([UIDevice OSVersion] < 6.0) {
[self presentModalViewController:cameraPicker animated:YES];
} else {
[self presentViewController:cameraPicker animated:YES completion:nil];
}
}
Any idea what would cause this error? Any suggestion are welcome. Thank you.

Answer 1

Got the same trouble than you and finally got the solution based on #CainaSouza's answer. I've been working with Xamarin.iOS so I'll make my answer in C#, but it can be easily translated to Objective-C.
I'm using the same code as #CainaSouza to call the controller:
UIApplication.SharedApplication.KeyWindow.RootViewController.PresentViewController (customController, true, null);
And then I add the following code to my custom RootViewController:
public override void PresentViewController (UIViewController viewControllerToPresent, bool animated, Action completionHandler)
{
if (PresentedViewController != viewControllerToPresent) {
base.PresentViewController (viewControllerToPresent, animated, completionHandler);
}
}
The trick is to check if you haven't presented that UIViewController before.
I know it's an old question, but hope it will help someone. :)

Answer 2

Present the imagePicker controller in a popoverController(in case of iPad). This will not give you that error.
if ([[UIDevice currentDevice] userInterfaceIdiom] == UIUserInterfaceIdiomPad) {
UIPopoverController *popover = [[UIPopoverController alloc] initWithContentViewController:picker];
[popover presentPopoverFromRect:self.selectedImageView.bounds inView:self.selectedImageView permittedArrowDirections:UIPopoverArrowDirectionAny animated:YES];
self.popOver = popover;
}
else {
[self presentModalViewController:picker animated:YES];
}
Best Regards.

Answer 3

Have you tried to present it like this?
[self.view.window.rootViewController presentModalViewController:cameraPicker animated:YES];

Answer 4

My guess is that the cameraPicker instance is not correctly allocated/released. Try creating the cameraPicker inside your - (void)takePhotoWithCamera method rather than relying on a previously created instance. You'll get a handle to the picker instance in the callback methods...

Answer 5

I had the same problem - I wanted users to take photos using a full screen view (i.e. call presentViewController and pass UIImagePickerController controller instance) and select existing photos from a popover (I associated it with a popover using initWithContentViewController). I reused the same instance of UIImagePickerController for both camera and popover and it threw the same exception if I tried to run a camera before opening a popover.
I turned out to cause a problem and my solution was simply to have two instances of UIImagePickerController - one for camera (which I presented from a main view) and another one for popover. It works so far. :-)
Not sure if it is still actual for the original poster, but hopefully it will help anyone else who encounter this discussion.