How to present UIAlertController when not in a view controller?

Question

Scenario: The user taps on a button on a view controller. The view controller is the topmost (obviously) in the navigation stack. The tap invokes a utility class method call

Answer 1

Adding on to Zev's answer (and switching back to Objective-C), you could run into a situation where your root view controller is presenting some other VC via a segue or something else. Calling presentedViewController on the root VC will take care of this:

[[UIApplication sharedApplication].keyWindow.rootViewController.presentedViewController presentViewController:alertController animated:YES completion:^{}];

This straightened out an issue I had where the root VC had segued to another VC, and instead of presenting the alert controller, a warning like those reported above was issued:

Warning: Attempt to present  on  whose view is not in the window hierarchy!

I haven't tested it, but this may also be necessary if your root VC happens to be a navigation controller.