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
Related
I am developing an application in React Native. I just installed the release apk in my phone and all the fetch() responses are same as expected one.
But then I did changes in code. I built the release apk again. I installed the application without uninstalling the old one. Now the fetch responses are totally different.
It works fine if I reinstall it.
I don't know what is wrong in that. Is there anything like clearing caches or something needed to update the app?
I have created a react native using app and created an apk for that using expo. Now I have to make some modification in that app. So do I need to build that again using build:android? or Is there any method to modify content in bundled app
If you have the over-the-air updates that expo offers enabled (I believe it's enabled by default), then whenever you publish your app (expo publish), the app on your phone will update automatically (you don't need to download the new apk). That also works when the app is on Play Store.
The way this works, is basically the app requests an updated js file from a public url on launch and runs that js instead of the old one. I personally dislike this approach so I disabled OTA updates for my app. In case you do too, then, you either need to manually listen for updates in your app (please refer to the above link) or install the new apk every time you build a new version (this is only useful in development).
I developed an app with React Native and distributed it with Expo. I published the final version into Google Play and Apple Store.
Some time later I discovered in Expo's docs on Publishing that expo publish allows you to create an OTA ("over the air") update that is built into Expo and updates the app automatically, according to this answer:
The standalone app knows to look for updates at your app's published url.
This I tested and worked very well.
However, now I see that people downloading the app from the stores (that is, either Google Play or Apple Store) apparently get the initial version of the app, not the updated one.
What is the exact workflow for the OTA updates? Do they go and "replace" the existing version in Google Play and Apple Store the first time they open it? Or do they need to open it over again to get the update?
And what exactly triggers the update of the app?
We've been having similar problems. I can see two things which might be causing this in your case:
Check in app.json if updates.fallbackToCacheTimeout is set. If it's set, that's how long expo will try to download the latest update before showing the last downloaded version (which will be the initial version after initial download).
If you have a large update, expo will try downloading the update for 30s before showing the last version of your app.
Check here for more info: https://docs.expo.io/versions/latest/guides/configuring-ota-updates/
OTA updates do not replace the version downloaded from the app store, they are stored first in the device's cache before being run on app start after download. Source https://docs.expo.io/versions/latest/sdk/updates/
Update downloads are automatically triggered on app start, then, depending on the settings it will either wait (as long as updates.fallbackToCacheTimeout allows) before showing the app, or show it immediately.
You can force the app to run the latest update (if you have one waiting) by just force quitting the app, then restarting.
Hope this helps!
I'm using react-native-code-push for my app.
I had released several versions that change only a few of js bugs, which worked fine.
Recently I realized that if a code pushed release involves any change of native code other than javascript, the app crashes while updating. I added several react native packages that need manual linking such as react-native-maps, and released update to some targeted versions hoping them to take those, but no luck.
Then what if an update only involves adding light libraries (using npm install) which don't require native linking? I wonder to what extent exactly the code push allows client-side code updating.
Basically, when you want to add some native code involving link you will have to rebuild your apk / ipa and re-upload it to the stores. If you want to add a new plugin without link there should not be any problem
One advice I could give is to only push bug fixes to your production app. You should not push new features with codepush since apple review (almost) all the applications.
I saw somewhere that you can update your code live in production with react-native (I can't remember where I saw it)
However, the javascript is bundled and packaged with the app, I don't think you can update javascript code without a new release.
Does react-native enable you to live update your js code in production or not?
Ya you can manage it with expo or you can use third party continuous deployment tools like code-push from Microsoft.
https://github.com/Microsoft/react-native-code-push
you can easily manage Staging and Production and environment.
you can roll out to some percentage.
can revert back.
all the js code can be updated but no native code.Otherwise you may face crashing issues.