UITableView separator line disappears when selecting cells in iOS7

Question

In my tableView I set a separator line between cells. I am allowing selection of multiple cells. Here\'s my code for setting selected cell background color:

Answer 1

This simple call did it for me on iOS 8.

- (void)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView didSelectRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath {
    // ....
    [tableView deselectRowAtIndexPath:indexPath animated:YES]

    // ....
}

Answer 2

You could also trying setting the separator insets to 0. I did that and it solved the problem, but the trade-off is you lose the nice look of the insets.

Answer 3

In iOS 14, Apple has FINALLY made this less painful.

If you want to...

• ...be able to select rows (for example in edit mode)
• ...prevent the default gray or blue cell highlight color
• ...keep the default system separator views

...this will help you. In your UITableViewCell subclass, put this into the initializer:

override init(style: UITableViewCell.CellStyle, reuseIdentifier: String?) {
    super.init(style: style, reuseIdentifier: reuseIdentifier)
    
    // Prevent cell highlighting while preserving selectability and separator views
    if #available(iOS 14.0, *) {
        var backgroundConfig = UIBackgroundConfiguration.listPlainCell()
        backgroundConfig.backgroundColor = .clear
        backgroundConfiguration = backgroundConfig
    } else {
        selectedBackgroundView = {
            let bgView = UIView(frame: .zero)
            bgView.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false
            bgView.backgroundColor = .clear
            return bgView
        }()
    }
}

If you're only targeting iOS 14+ you can leave out the else block and you're done. If you are also targeting iOS 13 and below, you'll also need to override layoutSubviews to keep the separator view from disappearing (thanks to this comment: https://stackoverflow.com/a/47573308/171933). This will do the trick (also in your UITableViewCell subclass):

override func layoutSubviews() {
    super.layoutSubviews()

    if #available(iOS 14.0, *) {
        // no op
    } else {
        // Setting a custom selectedBackgroundView causes the system to hide the
        // separatorView. If we want to have the separator, we need to show it again.
        subviews.forEach { view in
            if type(of: view).description() == "_UITableViewCellSeparatorView" {
                view.alpha = 1.0
            }
        }
    }
}

Enjoy.

Answer 4

For those of you looking for a solution in Swift, this fixed the issue for me. In your cellForRowAtIndexPath method, after you call dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier, you just need to set the cells selectionStyle to .None

Here's the code:

    override func tableView(tableView: UITableView?,  cellForRowAtIndexPath indexPath: NSIndexPath) -> UITableViewCell {
    let cell:TextTableViewCell = tableView!.dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier("textCell", forIndexPath: indexPath) as! TextTableViewCell

    cell.selectionStyle = .None //  This fixes the disappearing border line issue

Answer 5

I resolved this issue (hackishly) by reloading not just the selected cell but by also reloading the one right above it. None of the other solutions above worked for me.

    NSIndexPath *indexPathOfCellAbove = [NSIndexPath indexPathForRow:(indexPath.row - 1) inSection:indexPath.section];

    if (indexPath.row > 0)
        [self.tableView reloadRowsAtIndexPaths:@[indexPathOfCellAbove, indexPath] withRowAnimation:UITableViewRowAnimationNone];
    else
        [self.tableView reloadRowsAtIndexPaths:@[indexPath] withRowAnimation:UITableViewRowAnimationNone];

Answer 6

What I did was this:

1. Add a new subview under the content view of the cell.
2. Connect that from the cell as the selectedBackgroundView.
3. Add a subview of the new selected background view. Set it to start 16px from the left and cover the rest of the width, be 1px high, 1px down from the top and have a background color of 90% white.

In my case, I didn't want my rows shaded at all when selected, so I left the selected background view clear, but you can make it whatever color you like.

Also, I am not using autolayout, so just set my sizes appropriately. I presume with autolayout you would have to set up appropriate constraints.

For me, this completely resolved the problem (though I agree that this really does seem to be a bug in ios 7).