viewDidLoad getting called twice on rootViewController at launch

Question

Anyone know why this root View Controller's viewDidLoad is being called twice at launch? It's driving me nuts!

here's the stack trace from first time through viewDidLoad:

#0  0x0000276a in -[RootViewController viewDidLoad] at RootViewController.m:71
#1  0x3097548f in -[UIViewController view]
#2  0x00002734 in -[RootViewController initWithCoder:] at RootViewController.m:39
#3  0x30ab5ce4 in -[UIClassSwapper initWithCoder:]
#4  0x30514636 in _decodeObjectBinary
#5  0x30514035 in _decodeObject
#6  0x30ab5a1d in -[UIRuntimeConnection initWithCoder:]
#7  0x30514636 in _decodeObjectBinary
#8  0x30515f27 in -[NSKeyedUnarchiver _decodeArrayOfObjectsForKey:]
#9  0x305163b0 in -[NSArray(NSArray) initWithCoder:]
#10 0x30514636 in _decodeObjectBinary
#11 0x30514035 in _decodeObject
#12 0x30ab4dde in -[UINib instantiateWithOptions:owner:loadingResourcesFromBundle:]
#13 0x30ab6eb3 in -[NSBundle(NSBundleAdditions) loadNibNamed:owner:options:]
#14 0x308f85f1 in -[UIApplication _loadMainNibFile]
#15 0x30901a15 in -[UIApplication _runWithURL:sourceBundleID:]
#16 0x308fef33 in -[UIApplication handleEvent:withNewEvent:]
#17 0x308fad82 in -[UIApplication sendEvent:]
#18 0x309013e1 in _UIApplicationHandleEvent
#19 0x32046375 in PurpleEventCallback
#20 0x30245560 in CFRunLoopRunSpecific
#21 0x30244628 in CFRunLoopRunInMode
#22 0x308f930d in -[UIApplication _run]
#23 0x309021ee in UIApplicationMain
#24 0x000022e4 in main at main.m:14

and the second time:

#0  0x0000276a in -[RootViewController viewDidLoad] at RootViewController.m:71
#1  0x30ab50cd in -[UINib instantiateWithOptions:owner:loadingResourcesFromBundle:]
#2  0x30ab6eb3 in -[NSBundle(NSBundleAdditions) loadNibNamed:owner:options:]
#3  0x308f85f1 in -[UIApplication _loadMainNibFile]
#4  0x30901a15 in -[UIApplication _runWithURL:sourceBundleID:]
#5  0x308fef33 in -[UIApplication handleEvent:withNewEvent:]
#6  0x308fad82 in -[UIApplication sendEvent:]
#7  0x309013e1 in _UIApplicationHandleEvent
#8  0x32046375 in PurpleEventCallback
#9  0x30245560 in CFRunLoopRunSpecific
#10 0x30244628 in CFRunLoopRunInMode
#11 0x308f930d in -[UIApplication _run]
#12 0x309021ee in UIApplicationMain
#13 0x000022e4 in main at main.m:14

Answer 1

I had this same issue when my app was first launching. What I found was that in my MainWindow.xib file, I was setting both my App Delegate's viewController outlet, and my Window's rootViewController outlet to my root view controller. When you build a View Based project file in Xcode, your App Delegate's didFinishLaunchingWithOptions will be pre-populated with:

self.window.rootViewController = self.viewController;
[self.window makeKeyAndVisible];
return YES;

I believe that the self.viewController ivar is instantiated from MainWindow.xib before didFinishLaunchingWithOptions gets called. Then the pre-populated code above sets the Window's rootViewController. So if, in conjunction, you specify the rootViewController outlet for the Window in your MainWindow.xib file, your root view controller will actually be created twice and added as the Window's root view controller two times.