UINavigationController embedded in container view from Storyboard won't push UIViewController

Question

In my storyboard for a container class, I have created a full-screen Container View with an embed segue that's attached to a UINavigationController. I'm trying to test this by pushing a viewController programmatically like below:

UIViewController* test = [[UIViewController alloc] init];
test.view.backgroundColor = [UIColor redColor];
UINavigationController* navC = [[RootController mainStoryBoard] instantiateViewControllerWithIdentifier:@"containerNav"];
[navC pushViewController:test animated:NO];

navC is successfully initialized as the navigation controller, but the pushViewController call seems to do nothing. I still just see an empty navigation controller on the screen (default navigation bar with black view). I also tried a similar test with the setViewControllers method, which also failed. Are navigation controllers not meant to be embedded into container views?

Answer 1

UINavigationController needs a UIViewController at the bottom of its stack from when it is first created, (and it can't 'pop' that one). In other words it can't begin with an empty stack, you should be adding/embedding one viewController inside it in the xib/storyboard, then I expect it'll work with what you're doing here

Answer 2

I think you may need to just set the viewControllers property on the Nav Controller, like this:

[navC setViewControllers(@[test] animated: NO]