Custom Expo module works in dev build, but cannot be imported into EAS build and crashes.

ilyazonov · July 24, 2023, 9:27am

Hello!

Here’s my setup:

eas-cli/3.16.0 win32-x64 node-v16.13.0
Expo managed workflow
Rreact-Native 0.70.8

I’ve made a custom module (Expo Modules API) which provides functionality to create Android home screen shortcuts. When I build the app in dev mode and run it with the dev server (with command “expo run:android”), it works perfectly — I’m able to create home screen shortcuts on my phone. However, when I create an EAS APK-file build (with command “eas build -p android --profile preview”), pressing the shortcut creation button crashes the app. According to the logs (below), this happens because the custom module cannot be imported.

Here’s the function that, when invoked, leads to a crash:

const createDynamicShortcut = async (shortcutId: string, shortLabel: string, deepLink: string) => {

    if (isExpoGo() !== true) {

      const longLabel = 'This is a dynamic shortcut'
      const targetClass = 'expo.modules.devlauncher.launcher.DevLauncherActivity'
      const iconName = 'splashscreen_image'

      try {
        const { createPinnedShortcut } = await import('../../modules/home-screen-shortcut')
        await createPinnedShortcut(shortcutId, shortLabel, longLabel, targetClass, iconName, deepLink)
      } catch (error) {
        console.error('Failed to create dynamic shortcut:', error)
      }
    } else {
      console.log('expoGO is active - no custom modules allowed')
    }
  }

I’ve tried:

import module not dynamically, but with: “import { createPinnedShortcut } from ‘…/…/modules/home-screen-shortcut’”
import module with modified metro.cofig.js with: “import { createPinnedShortcut } from ‘home-screen-shortcut’”
modify app.json to add custom module as dependency “dependencies”: {
“expo-home-screen-shortcut”: “~11.0.0”
}
checking with ChatGPT / GglBard

Here’s crash log:

07-23 12:12:36.464 20599 20640 E ReactNativeJS: Error: Cannot find native module 'HomeScreenShortcut'
07-23 12:12:36.468 20599 20640 E ReactNativeJS: Invariant Violation: Failed to call into JavaScript module method AppRegistry.runApplication(). Module has not been registered as callable. Registered callable JavaScript modules (n = 11): Systrace, JSTimers, HeapCapture, SamplingProfiler, RCTLog, RCTDeviceEventEmitter, RCTNativeAppEventEmitter, GlobalPerformanceLogger, JSDevSupportModule, HMRClient, RCTEventEmitter.
07-23 12:12:36.468 20599 20640 E ReactNativeJS:         A frequent cause of the error is that the application entry file path is incorrect. This can also happen when the JS bundle is corrupt or there is an early initialization error when loading React Native.
07-23 12:12:36.470 20599 20641 E AndroidRuntime: FATAL EXCEPTION: mqt_native_modules
07-23 12:12:36.470 20599 20641 E AndroidRuntime: Process: com.eggbro.startable, PID: 20599
07-23 12:12:36.470 20599 20641 E AndroidRuntime: com.facebook.react.common.JavascriptException: Error: Cannot find native module 'HomeScreenShortcut', stack:
07-23 12:12:36.470 20599 20641 E AndroidRuntime: <unknown>@401:291
07-23 12:12:36.470 20599 20641 E AndroidRuntime:
07-23 12:12:36.470 20599 20641 E AndroidRuntime:        at com.facebook.react.modules.core.ExceptionsManagerModule.reportException(ExceptionsManagerModule.java:72)
07-23 12:12:36.470 20599 20641 E AndroidRuntime:        at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Native Method)

Please let me know if you have ideas, how to fix this issue. Thank you!

tphilip · July 30, 2023, 10:10pm

I am having the exact same issue. Did you ever figure out a solution? I’ve been banging my head on my desk for days … I have no clue what is going wrong. If I do “yarn expo run:android” everything works just fine. If I do “eas build --local -e development -p android” the build says it can’t load the module.

I created a brand new expo react app and added a -local module in there, and it works just fine. I even created a brand new module in my app and it also fails in the exact same way, so it is clearly something with my project setup.

Interestingly, if I put a syntax error into the module code, the local dev build will fail, but the eas builds (both local and submitted) will “succeed”, so I don’t think there is anything wrong with the modules, the eas build system just isn’t building them, and I have no idea why.

This is my eas.json file … any thoughts?

{
    "cli": {
        "version": ">= 3.14.0",
        "promptToConfigurePushNotifications": false,
        "appVersionSource": "local"
    },
    "build": {
        "development": {
            "developmentClient": true,
            "distribution": "internal",
            "android": {
                "gradleCommand": ":app:assembleDebug"
            },
            "ios": {
                "buildConfiguration": "Debug"
            }
        },
        "preview": {
            "distribution": "internal"
        },
        "production": {
            "autoIncrement": true // auto-increment build number
        }
    },
    "submit": {
        "production": {}
    }
}

ilyazonov · August 3, 2023, 11:01am

Hi, there is no solution on my end yet . I will post back if I find something. Please let me know if you find a solution.

tphilip · August 3, 2023, 5:18pm

Uh, yeah, mine was rather embarrassing. I was tired of getting conflicts in the ios folder when I checked in my project, so I added this to my .gitignore in the root of my project a little while back:

ios/
android/

As it turns out, when the eas build gathers your project, compresses it and sends it to the build folder (or server), it applies the .gitignore throughout all of your project directories, so this caused it to ignore these folders:

modules/MyModule/ios/...
modules/MyModule/android/...

So as far as the build was concerned, I was giving it a module with no native code.

This page has some helpful commands to let you see what exactly the build is using to build your project. I inspected those and realized those folders were empty and then worked backwards.

github.com

expo/fyi/blob/main/eas-build-archive.md

# How projects are uploaded to EAS Build

When you run `eas build`, we need to get your source code from your development machine to one of our macOS or Linux build workers. In order to do this, EAS CLI will collect and compress project files into a single archive, and then upload that archive to private cloud storage that is accessible only to the build worker. By default, EAS CLI will produce the archive by copying all files starting from the root of the git repository with the exception of `.git`, `node_modules`, and all files matched by rules from `.gitignore` (or `.easignore` if it exists).

> `.easignore` supports [the same path patterns as `.gitignore` files](http://git-scm.com/docs/gitignore), but it can only be located in the root of your git repository and, if it is present, none of the existing `.gitignore` files will be respected by EAS CLI.

## What files are included in the archive?

You likely do not want to upload your `node_modules` directory, or maybe you have a `.env` file that is ignored by source control. EAS CLI always respects `.gitignore` files, but depending on your configuration there might be certain edge cases where EAS behavior is not 100% compliant with git.

You can run `eas build:inspect --platform [ios|android] --stage archive --output ~/target/output/path --profile production` and inspect the output directory (in this case `~/target/output/path`) to see which files are included.

#### EAS CLI 

By default, or if you set the `EAS_NO_VCS` environment variable, EAS CLI will use its own packaging algorithm that approximates `git clone --depth 1 ...` and allows you to build with a dirty git working tree. The following limitations apply when using this approach: 
  - If you have multiple `.gitignore` files, they are applied in isolation starting from the root, so if you have an ignore rule like `test/example` in the parent directory and `!example/example1` in the `test` directory then the entire `example` directory will still be ignored.
  - The `node_modules` directory is ignored by default.
  - Even if you are using `git-crypt`, all the files are uploaded as they are in your project directory. This means all sensitive files could be uploaded to EAS Build in a non-encrypted state.
  - The `.git` directory is not uploaded to EAS Build. So if you are using any tools that depend on the state of the Git repository, this might result in unexpected behavior (e.g. sentry reads the commit hash when uploading the source maps).
  - The content of the submodules will be included as they are in your working directory.

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I updated my .gitignore to this and all is well:

/ios
/android

ilyazonov · August 4, 2023, 8:06am

Wow, it works! Thank you very much!!!

system · August 24, 2023, 8:06am

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