MFMailComposeViewController won't open after picking an email from the contact list - objective-c

Question

I'm trying to send an email to a contact on the contact list. I am using a ABPeoplePickerNavigationController. Once the user selects a contact's email, the following happens:
- (BOOL)peoplePickerNavigationController:(ABPeoplePickerNavigationController *)peoplePicker shouldContinueAfterSelectingPerson:(ABRecordRef)person property:(ABPropertyID)property identifier:(ABMultiValueIdentifier)identifier {
if(property == kABPersonEmailProperty){
[self dismissModalViewControllerAnimated:YES];
ABMultiValueRef emails = ABRecordCopyValue(person, property);
int index = ABMultiValueGetIndexForIdentifier(emails, identifier);
NSString *emailValueSelected = (__bridge NSString*)ABMultiValueCopyValueAtIndex(emails, index);
MFMailComposeViewController* controller = [[MFMailComposeViewController alloc] init];
controller.mailComposeDelegate = self;
[controller setSubject:#"the subject"];
[controller setMessageBody:#"Hello there" isHTML:NO];
[controller setToRecipients:[[NSArray alloc] initWithObjects:emailValueSelected, nil]];
if (controller){
[self presentModalViewController:controller animated:YES];
}
return NO;
}
return YES;
}
The emailValueSelected variable has the correct email value, and all the code seems to be executed without any problems (even the body of the if(controller){...} statement).
The issue is that nothing happens, the email controller is never shown. I've tried both with [self presentViewController:controller animated:YES completion:nil] and [self presentModalViewController:controller animated:YES];.
I use the exact same code on another part of my application to send an email and it works correctly, so I'm guessing it has something to do with the people picker.

Answer 1

Are you using a tab bar controller?
Then you should try
[self.tabBarController presentModalViewController:controller animated:YES];
Also you can set a breakpoint and do a po controller to see if the controller is initialized correctly (i.e. it is not nil)

Answer 2

The problem was that the people picker modal being dismissed was colliding with the email modal which was trying to appear. I solved it by making the people picker modal disappear instantly and not animated.
if(property == kABPersonEmailProperty){
[self dismissModalViewControllerAnimated:NO];
//etc...
}

Answer 3

I had success doing:
[peoplePicker presentViewController:picker animated:YES completion:nil];
instead of:
[self presentViewController:picker animated:YES completion:nil];