UIViewController with inputAccessoryView is not deallocated

Question

I have simple subclass of UIViewController (code below). If I attach inputAccessoryView, my viewcontroller is never deallocated. If I do not set inputAccessoryView in viewDidLoad, dealloc is called as expected.

Am I missing something?

@interface IMTestViewController : UIViewController

@property (nonatomic, strong) UIView *messageInputView;
@property(nonatomic, readwrite, strong) UIView *inputAccessoryView;

@end

@implementation IMTestViewController

- (id)initWithNibName:(NSString *)nibNameOrNil bundle:(NSBundle *)nibBundleOrNil
{
    self = [super initWithNibName:nibNameOrNil bundle:nibBundleOrNil];
    if (self) {
        // Custom initialization
    }
    return self;
}

- (void)dealloc
{

}

- (void)viewDidLoad
{
    [super viewDidLoad];

    self.inputAccessoryView = self.messageInputView;
}

- (BOOL)canBecomeFirstResponder
{
    return YES;
}

- (UIView *)messageInputView
{
    if (_messageInputView == nil)
    {
        _messageInputView = [[UIView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 0, self.view.frame.size.width, 45)];
        _messageInputView.autoresizingMask = UIViewAutoresizingFlexibleWidth;
    }
    return _messageInputView;
}
@end

I have ran out of ideas. Thank you.

Answer 1

Unfortunately for me @rdelmar's answer didn't work. After some time spent trying to solve it I found this article: http://derpturkey.com/uitextfield-docked-like-ios-messenger/

My goal is to have the input accessory view visible even if the keyboard is not, exactly like in all IM apps. I previously subclassed my UIViewController custom class to allow it to become first responder and returned my custom subview as inputAccessoryView. This was preventing the view controller from being dealloced. Now I subclass the controller's view to achieve the same thing as recommended in the link above, everything seems to work fine.

EDIT: after some more testing I can confirm the custom UIView is dealloced just fine.

EDIT 2: only downside is that you can't make the keyboard appear in viewWillAppear, the inputAccessoryView is not already added to the view hierarchy and can't become first responder.