I have two standalone APP building by Expo, one for iOS which push to testflight so internal iOS users can test it, another is just an APK let Android users can download and test.
Like Expo document said, I publish code to release-channel 'staging' then build these two APP by release channel staging, all are good and my users can start testing with testflight/APK.
But when I modify code and publish again, no OTA update happen, and in my Expo dashboard, the version code is just the previous one (I've also updated version/android.versionCode/ios.buildNumber in app.json).
What should I do to make the OTA update works? If need any other information please let me know, any suggestion is appreciated!!
Related
Before i continue, let me let you know that i know the code to deply to a targeted build for codepush
appcenter codepush release-react -a aountName/appName -d Production -m --description "CommentHere" -t versionName
I have tried to figure this out on my own and i have not been able to.
I have several versions of my app which i have deploy using CodePush and everything works well but I started having fears of crashes when i installed new packages on the latest build.
This implies the current code base would have new native differences as compaird to the old version.
The question is how can i deploy my new build with new native codes
and packages present to an old version of my app which does not have those
native packages without running into several crashes from all the users using the old version of the app...
I ask this cos i have a feeling if i push the new build with the new changes in UI and native chnages to the old version of my app, the app old app would crash.
If a bug comes in for an old version, how do I fix it and deploy it
for the old version only? Bugs may be critical and not everyone will
have the latest version of the app Or, the bug may only exist on a old
version of the app.
I await your response.
Code push will not affect any native code written within the Android or the iOS projects of a React-Native application. If you read the documentations carefully, it specifically says that it does not change / modify / update the native portion of the app.
Why?
This is because of the way the CodePush mechanism works. In essence, CodePush only stores and triggers the update of the JS bundle of the React-Native application.
This is why we wrap only the JS main app instance with CodePush HOC (Higher Order Component). This is what's happening when you do:
CodePush(MyApp); //wrapping the js bundle at app-root
So, unfortunately in your case, if there are native codes involved, regardless of deployment to a new or old version of the app, it has to be a AppStore / Playstore driven deployment.
I have a testing and production release channel, on TestFlight and the App Store, respectively. I want the ability to run both on the same device. Otherwise if there is an issue with my testing release channel me and my beta users are blocked from using the working production channel (as least without constantly downloading and overwriting the TestFlight vs App Store versions)
I tried https://medium.com/#ywongcode/building-multiple-versions-of-a-react-native-app-4361252ddde5, but it seems like most of the configurations were reverted on build, and I wound up with the same bundleIdentifier and therefore I could not download the TestFlight testing version without removing the App Store version.
I think your best bet is to release multiple apps from 1 source code. We ran into this problem as well and ended up releasing separate test (internal testing), beta (external testing) and production apps. Each with their own app logo, app name and expo release channel. As far as I know, there is no way to switch release channel after your app has been built.
Alternatively you could (beta) test your app by pointing your users to https://exp.host/#username/yourApp?release-channel=. This way your testers can test most of your app’s functionally in the Expo Go app.
You can use iOS Build Configurations and Android Build Variants to easily create different apps within one project.
I have a react-native application which is using Expo. When I want a build on my iOS device, I run
expo build:ios
then I upload the build to my appstoreconnect account and manage the build version through Testflight. Then on my iOS device I'm able to download it.
This all makes sense, as it mirrors the android process of building, creating a downloadable link, and having the end user download the latest link. But if I make a change and run "expo publish"... the app downloaded on my iOS device automatically has the changes that I made to the source code. How is that possible? Why don't I need to rebuild and reupload the .ipa to Apple for them to distribute through Testflight?
Thank you in advance!
It's happening because of the Expo "OTA" updates system (over the air).
When you publish to a release channel, users will automatically get the new update.
If you make some changes in app.json, or if you updated some native codes, you will need to re-build your app. The OTA updates only works for JS updates.
I have a react-native app that is using Expo.
In the beginning of the project I pushed some code to the default publishing channel that was never intended to be used in production.
Since then I have released dozens of versions to production and mostly all works as expected. (New installs gets the latest JS code)
However, a few users still gets old versions of the code, even though they literally just downloaded the app from App Store / Google Play.
This is extremely frustrating. How can I make sure that fresh downloads of the app will download the correct/latest version och my JS?
Note that this is not related to the app detecting new code that might be available for download. It is the fact that the wrong code is downloaded and used to begin with. Is there any way to remove all JS-code except the very last version that I published? I imagine that would solve my issue
Turns out, expo don’t always do this successfully. You need to rebuild the react native bundle before publishing.https://proandroiddev.com/bundling-react-native-during-android-release-builds-ec52c24e200d
This is what expo gives as a feature known as Over the Air updates (OTA). Whenever a new version is built with expo channel, it automatically updates even in the app store and play store. But there is a way to disable the updates. the expo documentation for disabling:
It is possible to entirely disable OTA JavaScript updates in a standalone app, by setting updates.enabled to false in app.json. This will ignore all code paths that fetch app bundles from Expo's servers. In this case, all updates to your app will need to be routed through the iOS App Store and/or Google Play Store.
This setting is ignored in the Expo client.
And I do recommend you to read the documents of OTA, which is a good feature when you get to know all of it.
The expo link is expo OTA
I published my first app to AppStore last night.
I just want to know if there is code change in my app,
Should I have to re-build and upload .ipa file to itunes connect again?
(Currently, I do not use CodePush and I build app with exp)
Thanks.
Expo comes with a built in CodePush equivalent.
Whenever you publish to expo (using exp publish, the XDE etc), expo builds new JS bundles and uploads them to their servers.
Users who downloaded the app from the stores will get those updates - while iOS users will get them as soon as they open the app, Android users will get them in the second time (iOS is does this syncly while Android asyncly).
Note that this does not apply to changes in the app config (app.json), including sdk upgrades or any other configuration changes.
Yes, you will need to rebuild the release version of your app and upload to the App Store as a new version.