UITableView reloadRowsAtIndexPaths hides row

If your table cells are static (i.e., you are using the same cell object to replace the one that's currently displayed), what you're seeing is an artifact of the transition animation.

Think of it this way. Lets say you set UITableViewAnimationOptionFade. When the cell is to be replaced, the cell it's to be replaced with (which in this case is the exact same object) has a fade-in animation added to it. Then, the cell that is being replaced (again, it's all the same object) has a fade-out animation added to it. At the end, the cell is actually there, but it's invisible because the fade-out animation has made that cell object invisible.

In a non-static tableview, one in which the replacement cell is a different object than the cell to be replaced, this isn't a problem, as the animations are added to two different objects.

I had the same problem, it seems to be a bug. I experimented some and the problem doesn't occur when I set the animation option to UITableViewRowAnimationNone. Some other interesting stuff happens when you set that option to UITableViewRowAnimationTop, too.