UIHostingConfiguration on tvOS, focus engine problem with SwiftUI and collectionView

UIHostingConfiguration on tvOS: focus permanently broken with multiple focusable SwiftUI views

Hi everyone,

I'm working on a tvOS app with a UICollectionView. Some cells embed SwiftUI content via UIHostingConfiguration, specifically a row of 3 buttons that should be individually focusable. The cell itself returns canBecomeFocused = false so focus passes through to the SwiftUI buttons.

The problem: after navigating focus into that section once, it becomes permanently unfocusable. Focus enters briefly, then immediately exits to nil on its own, without any user input. From that point on, the focus engine completely skips the section.

The exact same SwiftUI view works perfectly when embedded via UIHostingController instead.

How to reproduce

1. Press DOWN to move focus into the UIHostingConfiguration section
2. Focus lands on a SwiftUI button for a split second
3. Focus exits on its own and bumps to another section
4. The section is now dead, focus skips it on every subsequent navigation

What the system logs say (-UIFocusLoggingEnabled YES)

Right when focus enters, the system reports the SwiftUI focus items as "disappearing":

Ignoring focus update request for disappearing focus environment <UIKitFocusSectionResponderItem>

Then when searching for a new focusable item:

<SwiftUI._UIInheritedView>  → (warning) No focusable items found.
<UIHostingContentView>      → (warning) No focusable items found.
=== unable to find focused item in context. retrying with updated request. ===

The views are still in the hierarchy (verified by pointer), but the UIHostingContentView no longer exposes its virtual focus items. I also see mismatched parentFocusEnvironment on those items, pointing to a _UIHostingView from a completely different cell.

What I've tried

I've spent a lot of time on this with my colleagues, dug through the very limited documentation available online, and even used AI agents to help brainstorm. We tested 10 different approaches, none worked:

• Overriding preferredFocusEnvironments to point to the UIHostingContentView
• setNeedsFocusUpdate() / updateFocusIfNeeded(), rescan finds nothing
• Forcing UIKit redraws (setNeedsLayout, setNeedsDisplay)
• Removing .focusSection()
• Removing all SwiftUI animations, identical behavior
• Using canFocusItemAt: delegate instead of cell subclass, identical
• remembersLastFocusedIndexPath = true, causes a separate focus trap
• configurationUpdateHandler + setNeedsUpdateConfiguration(), config is rebuilt but virtual items stay deregistered
• Verified the UIHostingContentView never leaves the hierarchy. It doesn't, its internal state is just corrupted

My workaround

I switched to UIHostingController with proper view controller containment. It works because the hosting controller is a full UIFocusEnvironment, so the focus engine can traverse it and it correctly maintains its virtual items.

Has anyone encountered this? Is there a known pattern for using UIHostingConfiguration on tvOS with multiple focusable SwiftUI elements? Or should I just file a Feedback?

Thanks for any help!

You can find the code here : https://github.com/ThomasDutartre/focus-problem-tvos

I recored the problem here : https://youtu.be/yPfM5AvU2ko