Strange blur artefacts with UIVisualEffectView

Question

I have a UIVisualEffectView which is causing some strange artefacts right when it appears. The UIVisualEffectView is added in code after the view loads because it's not available in iOS 7.

Look at the blurred text background over the street view image: http://s.swic.name/Z3UL

The blur takes a good 0.1 seconds to appear, and before that it's just a lower resolution background shining through like the blur hasn't been calculated yet.

Any idea what is going on? I'm adding the blur in awakeFromNib using this code

- (void)addBlurWithColor:(UIColor *)color andStyle:(UIBlurEffectStyle)style andVibrancy:(BOOL)vibrancy
{
    if (UIDevice.supportsVisualEffects && NSClassFromString(@"UIVisualEffectView") && !UIAccessibilityIsReduceTransparencyEnabled()) {
        self.backgroundColor = color;

        UIBlurEffect *blurEffect = [UIBlurEffect effectWithStyle:style];
        UIVisualEffectView *visualEffectView = [[UIVisualEffectView alloc] initWithEffect:blurEffect];
        visualEffectView.frame = self.bounds;
        visualEffectView.autoresizingMask = UIViewAutoresizingFlexibleWidth | UIViewAutoresizingFlexibleHeight;

        NSArray *subviews = self.subviews;

        [self addSubview:visualEffectView];
        [self sendSubviewToBack:visualEffectView];

        if (vibrancy) {
            UIVibrancyEffect *vibrancyEffect = [UIVibrancyEffect effectForBlurEffect:blurEffect];
            UIVisualEffectView *vibrancyEffectView = [[UIVisualEffectView alloc] initWithEffect:vibrancyEffect];
            [vibrancyEffectView setFrame:self.bounds];
            vibrancyEffectView.autoresizingMask = UIViewAutoresizingFlexibleWidth | UIViewAutoresizingFlexibleHeight;

            for (UIView *subview in subviews) {
                [vibrancyEffectView.contentView addSubview:subview];
            }

            [[visualEffectView contentView] addSubview:vibrancyEffectView];
        }
    }
}

Edit: The video just has slow animations enabled, the transition is a regular push segue.

Edit2: I get the same strange behaviour if i just drag drop a "UIVisualEffectView with Blur" in Interface Builder, so the code above shouldn't be to blame.

Answer 1

Found the problem, when the view appears I'm reloading the tableview inside [UIView transitionWithView:...] which alters the alpha which apparently is a big no-no when it comes to UIVisualEffectViews!

According to UIVisualEffectView Documentation;

When using the UIVisualEffectView class, avoid alpha values that are less than 1. Creating views that are partially transparent causes the system to combine the view and all the associated subviews during an offscreen render pass. UIVisualEffectView objects need to be combined as part of the content they are layered on top of in order to look correct. Setting the alpha to less than 1 on the visual effect view or any of its superviews causes many effects to look incorrect or not show up at all.

https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/uikit/reference/UIVisualEffectView/index.html