iOS 6: supportedInterfaceOrientations is called but shouldAutorotate is not called

Question

I know this question has been asked before here iOS 6 shouldAutorotate: is NOT being called. But my scenario is a bit different.
Initially, on application launch I load a viewController like
self.window.rootViewController = self.viewController;
and When this view is loaded I am using a custom tabBar view (inherited from UIView) which has 5 UINavigationController for each tab. The code of this viewController Class is:

\\\ .h File

@protocol tabbarDelegate <NSObject>
-(void)touchBtnAtIndex:(NSInteger)index;
@end
@class tabbarView;
@interface ViewController : UIViewController <tabbarDelegate>
@property(nonatomic,strong) tabbarView *tabbar;
@property(nonatomic,strong) NSArray *arrayViewcontrollers;
@property(nonatomic,strong) UINavigationController * navigation1;
@property(nonatomic,strong) UINavigationController * navigation2;
@property(nonatomic,strong) UINavigationController * navigation3;
@property(nonatomic,strong) UINavigationController * navigation4;
@property(nonatomic,strong) UINavigationController * navigation5;
@end

and m file is

- (void)viewDidLoad
{
[super viewDidLoad];

CGFloat orginHeight = self.view.frame.size.height- 60;
_tabbar = [[tabbarView alloc]initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0,  orginHeight, 320, 60)];
_tabbar.delegate = self;
[self.view addSubview:_tabbar];
_arrayViewcontrollers = [self getViewcontrollers];
[self touchBtnAtIndex:0];
}
-(void)touchBtnAtIndex:(NSInteger)index    \\This delegate method is called on every custom tabBar button clicked.
{
UIView* currentView = [self.view viewWithTag:SELECTED_VIEW_CONTROLLER_TAG];
[currentView removeFromSuperview];

UINavigationController *viewController = [_arrayViewcontrollers objectAtIndex:index];
viewController.view.tag = SELECTED_VIEW_CONTROLLER_TAG;
viewController.view.frame = CGRectMake(0,0,self.view.frame.size.width, self.view.frame.size.height- 50);

[self.view insertSubview:viewController.view belowSubview:_tabbar];
}
-(NSArray *)getViewcontrollers
{
FirstViewController *firstController = [[FirstViewController alloc]initWithNibName:@"FirstViewController" bundle:nil];
SecondViewController *secondController = [[SecondViewController alloc]initWithNibName:@"SecondViewController" bundle:nil];
ThirdViewController *thirdController = [[ThirdViewController alloc]initWithNibName:@"ThirdViewController" bundle:nil];
ForthViewController *forthController = [[ForthViewController alloc]initWithNibName:@"ForthViewController" bundle:nil];
FifthViewController *fifthController = [[FifthViewController alloc]initWithNibName:@"FifthViewController" bundle:nil];

navigation1 = [[UINavigationController alloc] initWithRootViewController:firstController];
navigation2 = [[UINavigationController alloc] initWithRootViewController:secondController];
navigation3 = [[UINavigationController alloc] initWithRootViewController:thirdController];
navigation4 = [[UINavigationController alloc] initWithRootViewController:forthController];
navigation5 = [[UINavigationController alloc] initWithRootViewController:fifthController];

NSArray* tabBarItems = [[NSArray alloc] initWithObjects:navigation1,navigation2,navigation3,navigation4,navigation5, nil];
return tabBarItems;
}

I have also implemented UINavigationController's category for rotation as:

@implementation UINavigationController (autoRotation)
-(BOOL)shouldAutorotate {
return [[self.viewControllers lastObject] shouldAutorotate];
}

-(NSUInteger)supportedInterfaceOrientations {
return [[self.viewControllers lastObject] supportedInterfaceOrientations];
}

- (UIInterfaceOrientation)preferredInterfaceOrientationForPresentation {
return [[self.viewControllers lastObject] preferredInterfaceOrientationForPresentation];
}

My Problem is that only supportedInterfaceOrientations method is called and shouldAutorotate is never called. The main Window's rootViewController is ViewController class, not any UINavigationController or UITabBarController. What I am doing wrong? Please help me.

Answer 1

If you add these to your root view controller:

- (BOOL)shouldAutorotate
{
    NSLog(@"ViewController shouldAutorotate super=%d", [super shouldAutorotate]);
    return YES;
}
- (NSUInteger)supportedInterfaceOrientations
{
    NSLog(@"ViewController supportedInterfaceOrientations");
    return UIInterfaceOrientationMaskPortrait | UIInterfaceOrientationMaskLandscapeLeft | UIInterfaceOrientationMaskLandscapeRight;
}

you will see that the system is constantly sending both of these messages. Your code there can query the active Navigation Controller to see what values to return if you wish.

Also, I'm no fan of using a category to override these on a UINavigation Controller - that it works is somewhat of a fluke and importing some other library that does the same could cause unexpected consequences later on. Just create a really simple subclass and over ride both of these. I've been doing that with both UITabBarController and UINavigationController since iOS4 and never had an issue.