I have a tabBarController with 5 tabs the third tab is a navigation controller with TableViewController as the root view controller.
When I press on a row on the table view it push a detail view (regular view controller) about the selected row.
The problem is first time parentViewController and presentingViewcontroller properties (in the details page) are set, all other consecutive both properties are set to nil.
EDIT I created a single tab application with navigation controller same as the one in the picture but I did not disable auto layout in the storyboard, every time parentViewController is set correctly.
I believe this is a bug if you disabled auto layout.