Core Data saving objects in background issue

Question

What I\'m trying todo in a nutshell is I am using a background queue to save JSON objects pulled from a web service to the Core Data Sqlite3 database. The saving takes place on

Answer 1

I'm going to throw this out there. Stop following the best practices for concurrency listed in the Core Data Programming Guide. Apple has not updated it since adding nested contexts which are MUCH easier to use. This video goes into full detail: https://developer.apple.com/videos/wwdc/2012/?id=214

Setup your primary context to use your main thread (appropriate for handling UI):

NSManagedObjectContext * context = [[NSManagedObjectContext alloc] initWithConcurrencyType:NSMainQueueConcurrencyType];
[context setPersistentStoreCoordinator:yourPSC];

For any object you create that may be doing concurrent operations, create a private queue context to use

NSManagedObjectContext * backgroundContext = [[NSManagedObjectContext alloc] initWithConcurrencyType:NSPrivateQueueConcurrencyType];
[backgroundContext setParentContext:context];
//Use backgroundContext to insert/update...
//Then just save the context, it will automatically sync to your primary context
[backgroundContext save:nil];

The QueueConcurrencyType refers to the queue the context will do it's fetch (save and fetch request) operations on. The NSMainQueueConcurrencyType context does all it's work on the main queue, which makes it appropriate for UI interaction. A NSPrivateQueueConcurrencyType does it on it's own private queue. So when you call save on the backgroundContext, it merges it's private data calling the parentContext using performBlock as appropriate automatically. You don't want to call performBlock on the private queue context in case it happens to be on the main thread which will cause a deadlock.

If you want to get really fancy, You can create a primary context as a private queue concurrency type (which is appropriate for background saving) with a main queue context for just your UI and then child contexts of your main queue context for background operations (like imports).