fix(ios): fixed TabBarItem update for iOS 18+

[hbugdoll]

Fixes #14145.

Introduction:

• in (void)updateTabBarItem a new UITabBarItem is created and assigned to the ViewController with each property update
• iOS 18/iPadOS 18 handles internally the tab bar in a slight different way and iPadOS 18 has also introduced a new "floating" tab bar
• it turned out that under iPadOS 18+ it is necessary to use the "original" UITabBarItem to update the badge value

Description:

• set tabBarItem on correct ViewController (NavigationController controller instead of RootViewController rootController)
  • so fixed the error Inconsistency in UITabBar items and view controllers detected.
• reuse controller.tabBarItem when updating the properties (e.g. badge) of a tab bar item
  • needed for updating badge in "floating" tab bar under iPadOS 18+
  • no re-init every (void)updateTabBarItem call
  • re-init only in the case of switching to a system item (with system icon) and vice versa
• BTW fixed a memory leak related to UITabBarAppearance
• aligned call sequence for tab bar items with system icons and custom icons
• added some comments for better clarity

[m1ga]

Tested it on iPhone and iPad and both badges are set correctly now :+1:

[m1ga]

In another Alloy project I see some issues:

• I use $.tab_setting.icon = Ti.Filesystem.getFile(Ti.Filesystem.applicationDataDirectory,"icon_profil.png").read(); to assign generated icons to the tabs in the open event and I don't see the icons.
• when I click on a tab it will crash with

[ERROR] Application received error: Inconsistency in UITabBar items and view controllers detected. No view controller matches the UITabBarItem '<UITabBarItem: 0x102f8a7d0> title='Pläne' selected'.
[ERROR]     0   CoreFoundation                      0x00000001804f39e8 __exceptionPreprocess + 172
[ERROR]     1   libobjc.A.dylib                     0x000000018009c084 objc_exception_throw + 72
[ERROR]     2   Foundation                          0x00000001810353c0 _userInfoForFileAndLine + 0
[ERROR]     3   UIKitCore                           0x00000001859c10c0 -[UITabBarController _viewControllerForTabBarItem:] + 388
[ERROR]     4   UIKitCore                           0x00000001859c1164 -[UITabBarController _tabBarDidChangeSelectionToItem:] + 28
[ERROR]     5   UIKitCore                           0x00000001857bdf90 -[UITabBar _didSelectButtonForItem:] + 308
[ERROR]     6   UIKitCore                           0x00000001852e0c78 block_destroy_helper.30 + 43056
[ERROR]     7   UIKitCore                           0x00000001851aea08 __swift_memcpy9_8 + 8720
[ERROR]     8   UIKitCore                           0x00000001861b0fcc -[UIAction performWithSender:target:] + 104
[ERROR]     9   UIKitCore                           0x0000000185ae7e6c -[UIControl _sendActionsForEvents:withEvent:] + 284
[ERROR]     10  UIKitCore                           0x00000001852d87e4 block_destroy_helper.30 + 9116
[ERROR]     11  UIKitCore                           0x00000001852e0924 block_destroy_helper.30 + 42204
[ERROR]     12  UIKitCore                           0x0000000185d408ec -[UIGestureRecognizerTarget _sendActionWithGestureRecognizer:] + 76
[ERROR]     13  UIKitCore                           0x0000000185d499ec _UIGestureRecognizerSendTargetActions + 88
[ERROR]     14  UIKitCore                           0x0000000185d46760 _UIGestureRecognizerSendActions + 296
[ERROR]     15  UIKitCore                           0x0000000185d46324 -[UIGestureRecognizer _updateGestureForActiveEvents] + 320
[ERROR]     16  UIKitCore                           0x0000000185d4af30 -[UIGestureRecognizer gestureNode:didUpdatePhase:] + 296
[ERROR]     17  Gestures                            0x000000022efbf64c GFGestureNodeDefaultValue + 4468
[ERROR]     18  Gestures                            0x000000022efdc858 _swift_stdlib_malloc_size + 26304
[ERROR]     19  Gestures                            0x000000022f0070ac __swift_memcpy24_8 + 20672
[ERROR]     20  Gestures                            0x000000022f02e90c GFGestureNodeCoordinatorCreate + 2148
[ERROR]     21  UIKitCore                           0x0000000185d37e18 -[UIGestureEnvironment _updateForEvent:window:] + 468
[ERROR]     22  UIKitCore                           0x000000018629b3d4 -[UIWindow sendEvent:] + 2796
[ERROR]     23  UIKitCore                           0x0000000186279714 -[UIApplication sendEvent:] + 376
[ERROR]     24  Fitness Plan                        0x00000001021f3cd8 -[TiUIApplication sendEvent:] + 404
[ERROR]     25  UIKitCore                           0x000000018630dc6c __dispatchPreprocessedEventFromEventQueue + 1184
[ERROR]     26  UIKitCore                           0x0000000186310920 __processEventQueue + 4800
[ERROR]     27  UIKitCore                           0x0000000186308ecc updateCycleEntry + 168
[ERROR]     28  UIKitCore                           0x0000000185773878 _UIUpdateSequenceRunNext + 120
[ERROR]     29  UIKitCore                           0x000000018617ec90 schedulerStepScheduledMainSectionContinue + 56
[ERROR]     30  UpdateCycle                         0x00000002509462b4 _ZN2UC10DriverCore18continueProcessingEv + 80
[ERROR]     31  CoreFoundation                      0x00000001804114ac __CFMachPortPerform + 164
[ERROR]     32  CoreFoundation                      0x000000018044dbe0 __CFRUNLOOP_IS_CALLING_OUT_TO_A_SOURCE1_PERFORM_FUNCTION__ + 56
[ERROR]     33  CoreFoundation                      0x000000018044d1f8 __CFRunLoopDoSource1 + 480
[ERROR]     34  CoreFoundation                      0x000000018044c2c0 __CFRunLoopRun + 2100
[ERROR]     35  CoreFoundation                      0x0000000180446e24 _CFRunLoopRunSpecificWithOptions + 496
[ERROR]     36  GraphicsServices                    0x00000001925319bc GSEventRunModal + 116
[ERROR]     37  UIKitCore                           0x000000018625fc3c -[UIApplication _run] + 772
[ERROR]     38  UIKitCore                           0x0000000186263e64 UIApplicationMain + 124
[ERROR]     39  Fitness Plan                        0x00000001021845b0 main + 884
[ERROR]     40  dyld                                0x00000001029293d0 start_sim + 20
[ERROR]     41  ???                                 0x0000000102a64d54 0x0 + 4339420500
[ERROR] libc++abi: terminating due to uncaught exception of type NSException

13.0.0:

13.1.0:

[hbugdoll]

@m1ga Thanks for testing and reporting 👍 I can now reproduce the issue and I'am working on it.

[hbugdoll]

@m1ga The new issue could be reproduced by modifying your example from https://github.com/tidev/titanium-sdk/issues/14145#issuecomment-3422338133 as follows

var win1 = Ti.UI.createWindow({
    backgroundColor: 'blue',
    title: 'Blue'
});
win1.add(Ti.UI.createLabel({text: 'I am a blue window.'}));

var win2 = Ti.UI.createWindow({
    backgroundColor: 'red',
    title: 'Red'
});
win2.add(Ti.UI.createLabel({text: 'I am a red window.'}));

var tab1 = Ti.UI.createTab({
    window: win1,
    title: 'Blue',
    badge: 10
}),
tab2 = Ti.UI.createTab({
    window: win2,
    title: 'Red'
}),
tabGroup = Ti.UI.createTabGroup({
    tabs: [tab1, tab2]
});
tabGroup.open();

setTimeout(function(){
    tab1.icon = '/assets/images/tab1.png';
    tab2.icon = '/assets/images/tab2.png';
    tab2.badge=2;
}, 2000);

which initially leads to [[UITabBarItem alloc] initWithTitle:title image:nil selectedImage:nil] in updateTabBarItem. Actually, and so far, no problem – the tab bar items are created without icons and the icons will be set later.

~~But iOS 18 has a modified caching mechanism for the tab bar, which leads to these strange problems... It appears that tab bar items with icons are handled differently than icon-less tab bar items. Adding an icon at a later time, apparently a new tab bar item is created internally and then no longer doesn't match its view controller.~~

~~Using an "empty" placeholder image at creation time has solved this problem.~~ see below

[m1ga]

It's not crashing anymore but please check the "Red" (2nd tab) title in your example: it's at the wrong position at first and then jumps into place when the timeout is running

In my app it looks like this when I start the app: and after I clicked on all items it's correct:

[hbugdoll]

It's not crashing anymore but please check the "Red" (2nd tab) title in your example: it's at the wrong position at first and then jumps into place when the timeout is running

Weird behavior on iOS 26!

~~Forcing a relayout of the TabBar is needed. I put it in didChangeTraitCollection:, so the relayouting isn't performed unnecessarily often and unnecessarily too early, when the TabBar is still being built up.~~ see below

---

The result of the example above is as follows.

iOS 26: iPadOS 26:

[m1ga]

Thank you for the update :+1: Now it looks fine here too.

[hbugdoll]

Thank you for the update 👍 Now it looks fine here too.

Thanks for checking again.

[hbugdoll]

The updated fix requires neither a TabBar relayout nor a placeholder image.

The TabBarItem has always been set on the wrong ViewController (rootController instead of NavigationController controller). That causes the Inconsistency in UITabBar items and view controllers detected error.

---

Here some own debug logs for the example above...

Setting TabBarItem on the RootViewController [rootController setTabBarItem:tabBarItem]:

[INFO]  RootViewController: <TiViewController: 0x100f11ef0>
[INFO]  RootViewController's TabBarItem: <UITabBarItem: 0x100f07330> title='Blue' image=<UIImage:0x6000030181b0 anonymous {30, 30} renderingMode=alwaysTemplate>
[INFO]  TabBarController's ViewControllers (1):
[INFO]  - [0] VC: <UINavigationController: 0x13c811e00> | item=<UITabBarItem: 0x100f07330> title='Blue' image=<UIImage:0x6000030181b0 anonymous {30, 30} renderingMode=alwaysTemplate>
[INFO]  TabBarController's TabBarItems (1):
[INFO]  - [0] Item: title="Blue", image=(null)

Setting TabBarItem on the NavigationController [controller setTabBarItem:tabBarItem]

[INFO]  RootViewController: <TiViewController: 0x103946e10>
[INFO]  RootViewController's TabBarItem: <UITabBarItem: 0x103949fc0> title='Blue'
[INFO]  TabBarController's ViewControllers (1):
[INFO]  - [0] VC: <UINavigationController: 0x104039e00> | item=<UITabBarItem: 0x103949e70> title='Blue' image=<UIImage:0x600003028120 anonymous {30, 30} renderingMode=alwaysTemplate> selected
[INFO]  TabBarController's TabBarItems (1):
[INFO]  - [0] Item: title="Blue", image=<UIImage:0x600003028120 anonymous {30, 30} renderingMode=alwaysTemplate>