Why does UITableViewCell remain highlighted?

Did you subclass -(void)viewWillAppear:(BOOL)animated? The selected UITableViewCell won't deselect when you don't call [super viewWillAppear:animated]; in your custom method.

If you are using a UITableViewCell, then comment the following line

- (void)setSelected:(BOOL)selected animated:(BOOL)animated
{

 // [super setSelected:selected animated:animated];

}

Hope this helps.

To get the behaviour Kendall Helmstetter Gelner describes in his comment, you likely don't want deselectRowAtIndexPath but rather the clearsSelectionOnViewWillAppear property on your controller. Perhaps this was set to YES by accident?

See the comment in the default Apple template for new UITableViewController subclasses:

- (void)viewDidLoad
{
    [super viewDidLoad];

    // Uncomment the following line to preserve selection between presentations.
    // self.clearsSelectionOnViewWillAppear = NO;
}

Swift 5 Solution:

func tableView(tableView: UITableView, didSelectRowAtIndexPath indexPath: NSIndexPath) {
    tableView.deselectRow(at: indexPath as IndexPath, animated: true)
}

 func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, didSelectRowAt indexPath: IndexPath) {
    tableView.deselectRow(at: indexPath as IndexPath, animated: true)
}

if the cell is remaining highlighted after touching it, you can call UITabelView method,

- (void)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView didSelectRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath
{

`[tableView deselectRowAtIndexPath:indexPath animated:YES];`   

}

Or, you can use the following method and modify it according to your requirements,

// MARK: UITableViewDelegate

func tableView(tableView: UITableView, didHighlightRowAtIndexPath indexPath: NSIndexPath) {
  if let cell = tableView.cellForRowAtIndexPath(indexPath) {
     cell.backgroundColor = UIColor.greenColor()
  }
}

func tableView(tableView: UITableView, didUnhighlightRowAtIndexPath indexPath: NSIndexPath) {
  if let cell = tableView.cellForRowAtIndexPath(indexPath) {
     cell.backgroundColor = UIColor.blackColor()
  }
} 

Xcode 10, Swift 4

I had this same issue and discovered I left an empty call to viewWillAppear at the bottom of my tableViewController. Once I removed the empty override function the row no longer stayed highlighted upon return to the tableView view.

problem func

override func viewWillAppear(_ animated: Bool) {
  // need to remove this function if not being used.
}

removing empty function solved my problem.