I have been using my SwiftUI app for a while and noticed that my widget started showing the placeholder instead of the actual widget in random times. For the placeholder widget I used template data and it isn’t meant to be displayed on the home screen. The comments left by the WidgetKit extension template stated that I shouldn’t do fetch requests in the placeholders, so I didn’t.

To create example items for placeholders or previews I created this function:

private func createExampleItem(_ count: Int = 1) -> [Birth] {
    let childContext = NSManagedObjectContext(concurrencyType: .mainQueueConcurrencyType)
    childContext.parent = PersistenceController.shared.container.viewContext
    
    let exampleItem = Birth(context: childContext)
    exampleItem.name = "John Doe"
    exampleItem.date = Calendar.current.date(byAdding: .day, value: 10, to: Date())
        
    do {
        try childContext.save()
    } catch {
        print(error)
    }
        
    var arr: [Birth] = []
        
    for _ in 1...count {
        arr.append(exampleItem)
    }
        
    return arr
}

In this function I used childContexts so that my example data wasn’t saved to the actual viewContext.

Both my getSnapshot and placeholder functions use the createExampleItem function so I actually don’t know if the widget displayed on the Home Screen is the snapshot or placeholder. I also can’t test to see which one it is since it displays the placeholder in random times. If this isn’t a known issue I will test and see if it’s the snapshot or placeholder being displayed no matter how long it takes.

I also tried refreshing the widgets through a button I put in the app but it doesn’t change anything.

Timeline Provider

struct Provider: IntentTimelineProvider {
    var networkManager = NetworkManager()
    
    func placeholder(in context: Context) -> SimpleEntry {
        SimpleEntry(date: Date(), configuration: ConfigurationIntent(), items: createExampleItem(), itemCount: 1)
    }

    func getSnapshot(for configuration: ConfigurationIntent, in context: Context, completion: @escaping (Entry) -> Void) {
        let date = Date()
        var entry: SimpleEntry
        
        entry = SimpleEntry(date: date, configuration: configuration, items: createExampleItem(), itemCount: 1)
        
        completion(entry)
    }

    func getTimeline(for configuration: ConfigurationIntent, in context: Context, completion: @escaping (Timeline<SimpleEntry>) -> ()) {
        networkManager.fetchDataAndFilter { items in
            let entry = SimpleEntry(date: Date(), configuration: configuration, items: items, itemCount: items.count)
            
            
            let timeline = Timeline(entries: [entry], policy: .atEnd)
            
            completion(timeline)
        }
    }
}

Network Manager

class NetworkManager {
    private func fetchData() throws -> [Birth] {
        let context = PersistenceController.shared.container.viewContext
        
        let request = Birth.fetchRequest()
        let result = try context.fetch(request)
        
        return result
    }
    
    func fetchDataAndFilter(completion: @escaping ([Birth]) -> Void) {
        do {
            let items = try self.fetchData()
            
            let sorted = sortBirthItems(items: items, filter: true)
            
            completion(sorted)
        } catch {
            print(error)
        }
    }
}