Crash on iOS when system purges memory and closes a UIViewController

Question

My application is crashing when one of the views is purged from memory because of low-memory condition. At least this is what I understand from the crashlog. It happens on numerous screens but only when opening a Facebook dialog (using the Facebook SDK). Basically, looks like the system sometimes runs out of memory when we need to present a Facebook dialog (e.g. to let user post something on the Facebook timeline).

Date/Time: 2012-03-14 19:47:33.819 +0000
OS Version: iPhone OS 5.1 (9B176)
Report Version: 104
Exception Type: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV)
Exception Codes: KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS at 0x30000008
Crashed Thread: 0
Thread 0 name: Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread
Thread 0 Crashed:
0 libobjc.A.dylib 0x30f2bf78 objc_msgSend + 16
1 MyApp 0x00003c0e -LTBaseViewController viewDidUnload (LTBaseViewController.m:145)
2 MyApp 0x00004ea2 -LTBaseTableViewController viewDidUnload (LTBaseTableViewController.m:90)
3 UIKit 0x33766bd8 -[UIViewController unloadViewForced:] + 244
4 UIKit 0x338ae492 -[UIViewController purgeMemoryForReason:] + 58
5 Foundation 0x3071a4f8 __57-NSNotificationCenter addObserver:selector:name:object:_block_invoke_0 + 12
6 CoreFoundation 0x30e95540 ___CFXNotificationPost_block_invoke_0 + 64
7 CoreFoundation 0x30e21090 _CFXNotificationPost + 1400
8 Foundation 0x3068e3e4 -NSNotificationCenter postNotificationName:object:userInfo: + 60
9 Foundation 0x3068fc14 -NSNotificationCenter postNotificationName:object: + 24
10 UIKit 0x3387926a -UIApplication _performMemoryWarning + 74
11 UIKit 0x33879364 -UIApplication _receivedMemoryNotification + 168
12 libdispatch.dylib 0x36a12252 _dispatch_source_invoke + 510
13 libdispatch.dylib 0x36a0fb1e _dispatch_queue_invoke$VARIANT$up + 42
14 libdispatch.dylib 0x36a0fe64 _dispatch_main_queue_callback_4CF$VARIANT$up + 152
15 CoreFoundation 0x30e9c2a6 __CFRunLoopRun + 1262
16 CoreFoundation 0x30e1f49e CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 294
17 CoreFoundation 0x30e1f366 CFRunLoopRunInMode + 98
18 GraphicsServices 0x33fb6432 GSEventRunModal + 130
19 UIKit 0x336f5e76 UIApplicationMain + 1074
20 MyApp 0x00004818 main (main.m:16)
21 MyApp 0x000023b4 0x1000 + 5044

I checked and there are almost no memory leaks, e.g. when testing the app for an hour the total memory leaked was around 2-3Kb caused by some string-copying libraries. So I don't believe this is caused by the application. I guess that when the phone is not restarted for some time there are applications running in the background and when using Facebook SDK the memory becomes a problem and the system tries to recover the memory from random applications, including my application.

My question is, how can I prevent this crash from happening? How should I handle unloadViewForced on a view controller to make the app more robust in low-memory conditions? And lastly, am I right that this crashlog suggests the crash occurred because the system tried to free memory and my application didn't handle it properly?

Any help greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

What is most likely happening is that one of the objects being referred to and probably being released by LTBaseViewController viewDidUnload method is being doubly released. In fact, since the backtrace indicates that the crash is happing on line 145 of LTBaseViewController.m you should be able to quickly see which object is the culprit.