UIImagePickerController error: Snapshotting a view that has not been rendered results in an empty snapshot in iOS 7

Question

I am getting this error only in iOS 7 and the application crashed. In iOS 6, I never get any error, just once of memory warning when opening the camera.

Snapshotting a view that has not been rendered results in an empty snapshot. Ensure your view has been rendered at least once before snapshotting or snapshot after screen updates.

Here is what I am doing.

imagePicker = [[UIImagePickerController alloc] init];
[imagePicker setDelegate:self];
[imagePicker setSourceType:UIImagePickerControllerSourceTypeCamera];
[imagePicker setAllowsEditing:YES];

[self presentModalViewController:imagePicker animated:YES];

I did tried to delay the presentModalViewController, but I am still getting the same message. After few seconds (7-10), the application crashed.

This error is only present in iOS 7.

Anybody has the clue?

I have the same problem. On iOS7 UIIMagePickerController is not working anymore. — condor304, Sep 20 '13 at 11:00
Calling this method worked for me. Place it after presenting your view. [yourViewBeingPresented.view layoutIfNeeded]; — Bobby, Mar 31 '16 at 09:15

score 32 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 14 '13 at 10:04

32

The problem in iOS7 has to do with transitions. It seems that if a previous transition didn't complete and you launch a new one, iOS7 messes the views, where iOS6 seems to manage it correctly.

You should initialize your Camera in your UIViewController, only after the view has Loaded and with a timeout:

- (void)viewDidAppear:(BOOL)animated 
{
    [super viewDidAppear:animated];
    //show camera...
    if (!hasLoadedCamera)
        [self performSelector:@selector(showcamera) withObject:nil afterDelay:0.3];
}

and here is the initialization code

- (void)showcamera {
    imagePicker = [[UIImagePickerController alloc] init];
    [imagePicker setDelegate:self];
    [imagePicker setSourceType:UIImagePickerControllerSourceTypeCamera];
    [imagePicker setAllowsEditing:YES];

    [self presentModalViewController:imagePicker animated:YES];
}

answered Oct 14 '13 at 10:04

Lefteris

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This seems to work so far, I've have tested it by taking 10 pics one after each other with no problem. – DevC Dec 10 '13 at 09:50
3

presentModalViewController was deprecated in iOS 6. It is suggested that presentViewController be used now. – Gallymon Jan 23 '14 at 18:50
Working well. Thanks! – Can Ürek Aug 13 '14 at 02:20
5

The same trouble and fix for iOS8. – Yauheni Shauchenka Sep 19 '14 at 12:03
1

I'm trying to make this work from an UIAertControl - one option is to present the image picker for photo browser - this works fine and the other is to present for camera - this doesn't .where would i build in the delay when using a UIALertController? – SimonTheDiver Jan 23 '15 at 12:55
How are you initializing tha UiimagepickerController now? – Lefteris Jan 24 '15 at 00:04
3

I don't initialize the camera in viewDidAppear/Load. I have a tableview, and I bring up the camera in response to one of the tableview choices. And I get this error message. Any ideas? – Henning Feb 19 '15 at 16:13
In my case, I followed the response above guidelines, however, the iOS 8 still occurring the problem. But to set the flag [imagePicker setAllowsEditing: NO] the problem was solved for both iOS as 8 to iOS 7. :) – Douglas Frari Mar 03 '15 at 14:07
Do you know guys if this warning can make app review fails? I cannot get rid of it in iOS 9 – theDC Oct 29 '15 at 13:09
Guys, where do `hasLoadedCamera` coming from? – Sonic Master Jul 28 '16 at 09:39
@SonicMaster it's a global ivar which I'm using as a flag to know if the camera had been initialized already once, since we are running the code in the viewDidAppear which can be called multiple times. It's a Boolean flag which you can set to true in the showCamera function. – Lefteris Jul 28 '16 at 17:13

score 18 · Answer 2 · edited Jan 30 '15 at 10:52

18

This error also showed up for me with Apple's PhotoPicker sample code project.

I was using Xcode Version 5.0 and iOS 7.0.3 on an iPhone 4.

Steps to Reproduce:

Download Apple's PhotoPicker sample project at https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/samplecode/PhotoPicker/Introduction/Intro.html
In APLViewController.m comment out line 125

//imagePickerController.showsCameraControls = NO;
In APLViewController.m comment out lines 130-133

//[[NSBundle mainBundle] loadNibNamed:@"OverlayView" owner:self options:nil];
// self.overlayView.frame = imagePickerController.cameraOverlayView.frame;
// imagePickerController.cameraOverlayView = self.overlayView;
// self.overlayView = nil;
Build and launch the app.
Once launched, rotate device to Landscape mode.
Click Camera icon to open UIImagePickerController in Camera mode.
View the console output.

Console output

PhotoPicker[240:60b] Snapshotting a view that has not been rendered results in an empty snapshot. Ensure your view has been rendered at least once before snapshotting or snapshot after screen updates.

showsCameraControls property

The problem occurs for me when this has a value of YES (the default).

Setting this to NO eliminated the message.

Bug report

I just filed a bug report with Apple.

I've tried many of the suggestions that have been made in different posts, but have not found a satisfactory workaround.

edited Jan 30 '15 at 10:52

elp

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answered Nov 02 '13 at 15:05

Scott Carter

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How apple replied to you? I have same problem and solutions in stackoverflow does not work. – heekyu Apr 01 '14 at 10:47
I have not heard from Apple on this yet. I'll post a reply if I get a response from them. – Scott Carter Apr 01 '14 at 15:41
Any news from Apple? @ScottCarter – Benjamin Toueg Aug 05 '14 at 09:30
1

Just checked again. No action on the open bug since it was filed on Nov 2, 2013. – Scott Carter Aug 16 '14 at 01:14
This is bug 15377241 on bugreport.apple.com – Scott Carter Apr 25 '15 at 02:42
i know its old thread, however i would like to know, if this is still bug? apple replied anything? i googled out almost all threads related to this topic however i did not got proper solution. i do not get crash because of the warning but my client reported the crash. any one got proper solution for this issue ....? – user2813740 May 04 '15 at 21:15
Hey, did you hear anything back from Apple? – Munib Nov 13 '16 at 02:56
@return0 Apple never responded to the bug. I just checked now. – Scott Carter Dec 06 '16 at 01:50

score 11 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 23 '13 at 17:53

I got the problem when I tried to present the camera view inside of a popover. Under iOS6 this was no problem but in iOS7 I got the message

Snapshotting a view that has not been rendered results in an empty snapshot. Ensure your view has been rendered at least once before snapshotting or snapshot after screen updates.

as well.

However after I changed the presentation of the camera view to fullscreen as described in Taking Pictures and Movies, iOS Developer Library everything went fine again and the message never appeared again. However I had to make sure that depending on in which mode the app is (i.e., presenting camera view or photo roll) I had to either dismiss the popover or the view controller whenever the method - (void) imagePickerControllerDidCancel: (UIImagePickerController *) picker was called.

cameraUI.modalPresentationStyle = UIModalPresentationFullScreen; works for me. It's the only thing that has been successful on here. Thanks! — daveMac, Feb 28 '14 at 19:07
Finally! I have had this problem many times and never found a good solution. Feel so stupid now for never looking further down in the question threads - imagePicker.modalPresentationStyle = UIModalPresentationFullScreen; solved this for me. This should be the accepted answer :) — woobione, Jun 30 '14 at 08:40

Asfanur · Answer 4 · 2013-12-12T03:42:53.987

6

create a property

@property (nonatomic) UIImagePickerController *imagePickerController;

Then

UIImagePickerController *picker = [[UIImagePickerController alloc] init];
picker.delegate = self;
picker.modalPresentationStyle = UIModalPresentationCurrentContext;
picker.sourceType = UIImagePickerControllerSourceTypeCamera;
picker.allowsEditing = YES;
self.imagePickerController = picker;
[self presentViewController:self.imagePickerController animated:YES completion:nil];

This should solve the problem

edited Dec 12 '13 at 03:42

answered Dec 12 '13 at 01:41

Asfanur

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picker.modalPresentationStyle = UIModalPresentationCurrentContext; made the difference for me. – Mr. Berna Dec 19 '13 at 14:20
1

It works the first time the picker is presented, but after that the warning returns. – daveMac Feb 28 '14 at 18:26
i confirm picker.modalPresentationStyle = UIModalPresentationCurrentContext; Solves for me the problem of wrong layouts in iOS 8 – João Nunes Sep 19 '14 at 11:35
Not working for me -- added this to a UIButton action on iOS 8.1.3 – Andy Feb 20 '15 at 04:16
This seemed promising, but did nothing for me for the snapshotting issue AND displayed a useless frame around a portion of the image after a pic was taken. – drew.. Oct 28 '15 at 21:50

score 4 · Answer 5 · answered Jan 26 '14 at 11:50

4

I used this code to workaround the problem:

UIImagePickerController *imagePicker = [[UIImagePickerController alloc] init];
[imagePicker setSourceType:UIImagePickerControllerSourceTypeCamera];
[imagePicker setDelegate:self];

if ([self respondsToSelector:@selector(presentViewController:animated:completion:)]){
    [imagePicker setShowsCameraControls:NO];
    [self presentViewController:imagePicker animated:YES completion:^{
        [imagePicker setShowsCameraControls:YES];
    }];
} else {
    [imagePicker setShowsCameraControls:YES];
    [self presentModalViewController:imagePicker animated:YES];
}

answered Jan 26 '14 at 11:50

Germán Marquès

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While the idea works in theory, unfortunately the controls shown do not work or appear correctly. – daveMac Feb 28 '14 at 18:29
And it didn't get rid of the warning either (for me at least) – Ege Akpinar Nov 16 '14 at 14:21

score 3 · Answer 6 · answered Sep 25 '13 at 09:21

I have the same issue and found a solve. I think, that error related with orientation of your application. My application uses only landscape mode, but UIImagePickerController use portrait mode. I add try-catch block to main.m, and get real exception:

Supported orientations has no common orientation with the application, and shouldAutorotate is returning YES

How i solve this problem:

1) Recheck device orientation in Target->General, or .plist file: Supported interface orientations : Landscape left, Landscape right.

2) Add in AppDelegate.m:

- (NSUInteger)application:(UIApplication *)application supportedInterfaceOrientationsForWindow:(UIWindow *)window {
    return UIInterfaceOrientationMaskLandscape | UIInterfaceOrientationMaskPortrait;
}

After this step UIImagePickerController works properly, but my viewcontrollers can be rotated to portrait mode. So, to solve this:

3) Create a category for UINavigationController, (supportedInterfaceOrientations moved from UIViewController to UINavigationController in iOS6):

@implementation UINavigationController (RotationIOS6)

- (NSUInteger)supportedInterfaceOrientations {
    return UIInterfaceOrientationMaskLandscape;
}

@end

This solution works properly on iOS 6.0, 6.1, 7.0. Hope this helps.

I'm fixing up a portrait-mode app that gives the error mentioned in OP. So it would seem that your solution is not universally applicable. — JohnK, Sep 25 '13 at 18:47
Did you try to add try-catch block to main.m and print exception and stacktrace? — Roman Ermolov, Sep 26 '13 at 10:32
Like [this](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10212677/in-ios-5-1-app-why-cant-i-see-the-exception)? — JohnK, Sep 26 '13 at 13:42

score 3 · Answer 7 · answered Oct 14 '13 at 07:35

I get this error when building app with iOS SDK 6.1, deployment target iOS 6.1 and running app on iOS 7 powered iPhone. App doesn't crash but implementing UIViewController shouldAutorotate method helps me to remove error message.

- (BOOL)shouldAutorotate {
    return YES;
}

score 3 · Answer 8 · answered Feb 03 '14 at 04:49

I had the same issue when I was trying to modify the demo app that come with the Avirary SDK, in the demo app, it can only edit the photo picked from the camera roll. To try to edit the photo by capturing from camera, I first added the following code in the UIViewcontroller.m file:

#pragma mark - Take Picture from Camera
- (void)showCamera
{
//[self launchPhotoEditorWithImage:sampleImage highResolutionImage:nil];

    if ([self hasValidAPIKey]) {
        UIImagePickerController * imagePicker = [UIImagePickerController new];
        [imagePicker setSourceType:UIImagePickerControllerSourceTypeCamera];
        [imagePicker setDelegate:self];
        [imagePicker setAllowsEditing:YES]; //important, must have

        if (UI_USER_INTERFACE_IDIOM() == UIUserInterfaceIdiomPhone) {
            [self presentViewController:imagePicker animated:YES completion:nil];
        }else{
            [self presentViewControllerInPopover:imagePicker];
        }
    }
}

Then when I run the app, the error occurred:

Snapshotting a view that has not been rendered results in an empty snapshot. Ensure your view has been rendered at least once before snapshotting or snapshot after screen updates.

To solve the error, modified the UIImagePicker delegate in your UIViewContooler.m file as shown below:

#pragma mark - UIImagePicker Delegate

- (void) imagePickerController:(UIImagePickerController *)picker didFinishPickingMediaWithInfo:(NSDictionary *)info
{
    NSURL * assetURL = [info objectForKey:UIImagePickerControllerReferenceURL];

    void(^completion)(void)  = ^(void){

        [[self assetLibrary] assetForURL:assetURL resultBlock:^(ALAsset *asset) {
            if (asset){
                [self launchEditorWithAsset:asset];
            }
        } failureBlock:^(NSError *error) {
            [[[UIAlertView alloc] initWithTitle:@"Error" message:@"Please enable access to your device's photos." delegate:nil cancelButtonTitle:@"OK" otherButtonTitles:nil] show];
        }];

        UIImage * editedImage = [info objectForKey:UIImagePickerControllerEditedImage];
        if(editedImage){
            [self launchPhotoEditorWithImage:editedImage highResolutionImage:editedImage];
        }

    };

    if (UI_USER_INTERFACE_IDIOM() == UIUserInterfaceIdiomPhone) {
        [self dismissViewControllerAnimated:YES completion:completion];
    }else{
        [self dismissPopoverWithCompletion:completion];
    }

}

Then the error disappeared and the app works!

score 1 · Answer 9 · answered Sep 26 '13 at 06:30

Try this, use

[self performSelector:@selector(presentCameraView) withObject:nil afterDelay:1.0f];

and function

-(void)presentCameraView{
    [self presentViewController:imagePicker animated:YES completion:nil];
}

to replace. [self presentModalViewController:imagePicker animated:YES]; and of cause make imagePicker as a global variable.

score 1 · Answer 10 · answered Oct 15 '13 at 05:15

This is what fixed it for me on my app, ymmv

first off it is a iPhone - iPad app

in appname-Info.plist. in the Supported interface orientations(iPad) showed 4 orientations.

in the Supported interface orientations showed 3 orientations. I added the fourth and ran the app, no debug output.

Hope this helps.

score 0 · Answer 11 · answered Nov 26 '14 at 11:32

I've just encountered the same issue. In my case the problem was that I had some non-ARC code and I've migrated it to ARC. When I did the migration, I didn't hold a strong reference to the UIImagePickerController and that was the reason for the crash.

Hope it helps :)

score 0 · Answer 12 · answered Apr 10 '15 at 12:34

0

I had same issue in iOS 8, But the Camera Access was Disable inside Settings--> Privacy for my App. Just Enabled it, and It was working.

answered Apr 10 '15 at 12:34

BhushanVU

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score 0 · Answer 13 · answered May 06 '15 at 09:56

I spent long time try to find the solution, and surprisingly I have found it at the end and it was just very funny once I discovered it.

Here is what you will do to retrieve the image you picked and resume working :)

-(void)imagePickerController:(UIImagePickerController*)picker didFinishPickingMediaWithInfo:(NSDictionary*)info
{
    UIImage* pickedImage = [info objectForKey:@"UIImagePickerControllerOriginalImage"];
    [composeImageView setImage:pickedImage];
[picker dismissViewControllerAnimated:YES completion:nil];
 }

Yes, to solve the issue, you only need to dismiss the picker normally as it seems this message: "Snapshotting a view that has not been rendered results in an empty snapshot. Ensure your view has been rendered at least once before snapshotting or snapshot after screen updates." stops the picker from being responsive but you can dismiss it and retrieve the image normally.

score 0 · Answer 14 · answered Apr 14 '16 at 15:49

In my case it was related with a layout change: the VC presenting the UIImagePickerViewController has the status bar hidden, but the UIImagePickerViewController hasn't.

So, I solved it hiding the status bar in the UIImagePickerViewController as it's shown in this answer.

score -1 · Answer 15 · answered Dec 10 '13 at 09:56

Not directly answering your question but you mentioned you had a memory warning ,you might be storing the raw image in a property which can lead to a memory warning. This is because the raw image takes up roughly 30MB of memory. I noticed a similar memory warning when testing apps on iOS6 which were on the iPhone 4 series. I still got this warning when the devices were upgraded to iOS7. There is no memory warning when testing on iPhone 5 series on iOS7.

score -5 · Answer 16 · edited Apr 02 '14 at 20:08

-5

Changing

[self presentViewController:imagePicker animated:YES completion:nil];

to

[self presentViewController:imagePicker animated:YES completion:NULL];

fixed the issue for me.

edited Apr 02 '14 at 20:08

maelswarm

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answered Apr 02 '14 at 19:45

Yuki

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UIImagePickerController error: Snapshotting a view that has not been rendered results in an empty snapshot in iOS 7

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