I have a group messaging application that works fine until I want to change some of the basic group properties such as group title, image, etc. Before I show my code to display my conversations and update them I will show you some of my data structure.
When it comes to dealing with the displaying and editing of conversations I use two main nodes. An overall conversation node containing the conversation properties and a conversations node within my current user.
Here is what the conversation node in my current user looks like:
As you can see in the image above my user has a conversation node with a list of conversation ids. These conversation ids refer to a conversation node within my database. Here is a picture of the conversation node:
Just to review the problem. Basically when I update any of the conversation properties (title, image, members) it re calls my child added method which creates an error I will show later.
Here is my code to display the conversations:
func observeUserConversations() {
guard let uid = currentUserProperties.id else {
return
}
FIRDatabase.database().reference().child("users").child(uid).child("conversations").observe(.childAdded, with: { (snapshot) in
FIRDatabase.database().reference().child("conversations").child(snapshot.key).observe(.value, with: { (conversationSnapshot) in
if let conversation = Groups(snapshot: conversationSnapshot) {
conversation.groupId = conversationSnapshot.key
self.conversations.append(conversation)
DispatchQueue.main.async(execute: {
self.tableView.reloadData()
})
}
}, withCancel: nil)
}, withCancel: nil)
}
Here is my code to update some of the conversation properties:
static func updateConversationProperties(conversationId: String, property: String, propertyValue: String) {
let updateConversationPropertyRef = FIRDatabase.database().reference().child("conversations").child(conversationId).child(property)
updateConversationPropertyRef.setValue(propertyValue)
ProgressHUD.showSuccess("Field Updated!")
}
Please note I have tried using update child values instead of set value and it still has the same bug.
To sum up whenever I update a conversation property the child added function is called and appends a duplicate version of the conversation to my conversation array.
I know this may be a bit confusing, so I have a video here showing the bug: https://youtu.be/OhhnYzQRKi8
In the video above you will see that the same conversaiton is duplicated and added twice.
Any help would be appreciated!
UPDATE
So I changed my observers a bit to look like this:
FIRDatabase.database().reference().child("users").child(uid).child("conversations").observe(.childAdded, with: { (snapshot) in
FIRDatabase.database().reference().child("conversations").child(snapshot.key).observeSingleEvent(of: .value, with: { (conversationSnapshot) in
if let conversation = Groups(snapshot: conversationSnapshot) {
conversation.groupId = conversationSnapshot.key
self.conversations.append(conversation)
DispatchQueue.main.async(execute: {
self.tableView.reloadData()
})
}
}, withCancel: nil)
}, withCancel: nil)
In the above code, everything works and no duplicates are made. However, now the conversations won't update in realtime. Instead they will display the old data and won't update to the newly changed data. Also if I add a conversation the new added conversaiton won't display.

