Ionic + cordova-sqlite-storage + deviceready = No render on transition?

Since adding the cordova-sqlite-storage plugin and refactoring controllers to something like the following I am seeing strange behavior on transitions between tabs.

angular.module('blah.controllers').controller('EquipmentCtrl', ['$scope', '$state', 'EquipmentService', 'UtilService', function($scope, $state, EquipmentService, UtilService) {

    document.addEventListener("deviceready", getRowsFromDb, false);

    function getRowsFromDb() {
        EquipmentService.getAllEquipment().then(function(rows) {

            $scope.equipmentList = rows;
            $scope.equipmentRows = UtilService.chunkArray($scope.equipmentList, 3);
        });
    }    
}]);

Everything works/looks great on initial page load but when I transition between tabs I don't see the data from sqlite on the page until I tap the same tab a second time.

The page will load as far as showing static data (title, other text, etc) but I won't see the data returned from sqlite until the second tap of the current tab. I am wondering if 'deviceready' is firing after the page has loaded but I am not sure how to combat that.

I tried this solution but didn't see any difference in behavior.

Has anybody else run into this and if so, what's the best plan of attack?

Since deviceready runs outside of angularjs' context, you have to apply the digestion manually. This case, you can use $scope.$apply to apply scope changes from the apply callback:

$scope.$apply(function () {
    // do scope things here
});

The following example has been taken from your example and updated with this technique.

angular.module('blah.controllers', [])
  .controller('EquipmentCtrl', [
    '$scope',
    '$state',
    'EquipmentService',
    'UtilService',
    EquipmentCtrl
  ]);

function EquipmentCtrl($scope, $state, EquipmentService, UtilService) {

  document.addEventListener("deviceready", getRowsFromDb, false);

  function getRowsFromDb() {
    EquipmentService.getAllEquipment().then(function(rows) {
      $scope.$apply(function() {
        $scope.equipmentList = rows;
        $scope.equipmentRows = UtilService.chunkArray($scope.equipmentList, 3);
      });
    });
  }
}