Expo app problem loading especific custon font weights - react-native

Question

I have created an react-native/typescript app with expo CLI, this generate some base code, inlcuding hooks/useCachedResources to load any resources or data that we need prior to rendering the app, in my case in this hook I load custom fonts(in particular Inter Display Font). I'm experimenting some problems because the app loads only two weights: regular and medium, If I try to use semi-bold or bold this doesnt work and use the san serif font that comes by default.
Additional data:
The fonts path its ok
Expo app doesn't show any error. I have seen in other questions errors such as fontFamily "MyFontFamily" is not a system font and has not been loaded through Font.loadAsync. This is not the case.
Font family name is in the correct format.
I'm using React Native UI Kitten and I load the fonts as they suggest in Advanced Configuration and change some especific styles.
According to some answers The out of the box support for custom fonts on Android is a little limited in React Native. It does not support font weights other than normal and bold. So I tried setting fontWeight: normal or any of the weights but nothing works.
useCachedResources hook
This come by default with expo init my-app.
import * as Font from 'expo-font';
import * as SplashScreen from 'expo-splash-screen';
import { useEffect, useState } from 'react';
// Error reporting service
import { logger } from '#utils';
export function useCachedResources(): boolean {
const [isLoadingComplete, setLoadingComplete] = useState(false);
// Load any resources or data that we need prior to rendering the app
useEffect(() => {
async function loadResourcesAndDataAsync() {
try {
await SplashScreen.preventAutoHideAsync();
// Load fonts
await Font.loadAsync({
'inter-display-regular': require('../assets/fonts/InterDisplay-Regular.ttf'),
'inter-display-medium': require('../assets/fonts/InterDisplay-Medium.ttf'),
'inter-display-semibold': require('../assets/fonts/InterDisplay-SemiBold.ttf'),
'inter-display-bold': require('../assets/fonts/InterDisplay-Bold.ttf'),
});
} catch (loadCachedResourcesError) {
logger.log(loadCachedResourcesError);
} finally {
setLoadingComplete(true);
await SplashScreen.hideAsync();
}
}
loadResourcesAndDataAsync();
}, []);
return isLoadingComplete;
}
Consuming the hook in App.tsx
import { StatusBar } from 'expo-status-bar';
import React from 'react';
import { SafeAreaProvider } from 'react-native-safe-area-context';
import useCachedResources from './hooks/useCachedResources';
import Navigation from './navigation';
// again this comes by defautl expo init command
export default function App(): React.ReactElement | null {
const isLoadingComplete = useCachedResources();
if (!isLoadingComplete) {
return null;
}
return (
<SafeAreaProvider>
<Navigation />
<StatusBar />
</SafeAreaProvider>
);
}
mapping.json: specific UI-Kitten configuration to change font style
I can think that the problem comes from here but the thing is, if there was a problem loading the fonts, either expo would have already thrown an error or the other fonts weights(regular/medium) would not load.
{
"strict": {
"text-font-family": "inter-display-regular",
"text-heading-1-font-size": 32,
"text-heading-1-font-weight": "normal",
"text-heading-1-font-family": "inter-display-medium",
"text-paragraph-1-font-size": 16,
"text-paragraph-1-font-weight": "normal",
"text-paragraph-1-font-family": "$text-font-family",
}
}
The problem
I have no idea if the problem comes from expo, ui kitten or if inter font can't be loaded by react native by some other reason.

Answer 1

In your useCachedResources try to remove 'await' keyword from SplashScreen method's:
SplashScreen.preventAutoHideAsync();
SplashScreen.hideAsync();