tvOS 18.0 Siri back button behavior bug

On testing my app with tvOS 18, I have noticed the Siri Remote back button no longer provides system-provided behavior when interacting with tab bar controller pages. Instead of moving focus back to the tab bar when pressed, the back button will close the app, as if the Home button was pressed. This occurs both on device and in the Simulator.

  1. Create tvOS project with a tab bar controller.
  2. Create pages/tabs which contain focusable items (ie. buttons)
  3. Scroll down to any focusable item (ie. a button or UICollectionView cell)
  4. Hit the Siri Remote back button. See expect behavior below:

Expected behavior: System-provided behavior should move focus back to the tab bar at the top of the screen. Actual results: App is closed and user is taken back to the Home Screen.

Has anyone else noticed this behavior?

PS. Feedback case number is FB14835294

Same here, tested also on tvOS 18.1 betas, what is the outcome of FB14835294 (it seems not public fyi)

Apple always makes mess....

Is there any news on this topic? I have the same bug...

This issue is still present in tvOS 26.0b1.

Does anybody have an answer from Apple about this issue ? I have a standard implementation of a uitabbarcontroller with child vc containing collection view and if I press back after scrolling down, the app exits instead of going up focusing on the tabbar menu item. How to circumvent ?

Be sure to file a bug report with Apple. Despite filing my report and sample project over a year ago, the file says there are "no similar reports."

I wonder if I should copy and re-submit my original report as the title mentions tvOS 18...?

Just fyi I circumvent this problem in creating the tabBarViewController programmatically instead of initially having the tabbar defined in a storyboard with ref to other storyboards for its child. Maybe this could help some of you if you are in the same situation

tvOS 18.0 Siri back button behavior bug
 
 
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