Expo 49 Runtime Error on Android

Expo Development Tools
1

I upgraded Expo from v47 to v49.0.10 and now creating a development build with npx expo start or building with eas build --platform android --profile preview results in the app crashing right after launching, without any error message showing up. Building for iOS works as expected. Also running locally with npx expo start --go works as expected. Any ideas on how to fix or debug?

EDIT: Here’s logs from ~/Android/Sdk/platform-tools$ adb logcat, which looks like an error:

09-11 15:33:33.907 12898 12898 E EmbeddedManifest: Could not read embedded manifest
09-11 15:33:33.907 12898 12898 E EmbeddedManifest: java.lang.NullPointerException
09-11 15:33:33.907 12898 12898 E EmbeddedManifest: 	at expo.modules.updates.manifest.BareUpdateManifest$Companion.fromBareManifest(BareUpdateManifest.kt:97)
09-11 15:33:33.907 12898 12898 E EmbeddedManifest: 	at expo.modules.updates.manifest.ManifestFactory.getEmbeddedManifest(ManifestFactory.kt:36)
09-11 15:33:33.907 12898 12898 E EmbeddedManifest: 	at expo.modules.updates.manifest.EmbeddedManifest.get(EmbeddedManifest.kt:30)
09-11 15:33:33.907 12898 12898 E EmbeddedManifest: 	at expo.modules.updates.launcher.NoDatabaseLauncher.<init>(NoDatabaseLauncher.kt:70)
09-11 15:33:33.907 12898 12898 E EmbeddedManifest: 	at expo.modules.updates.launcher.NoDatabaseLauncher.<init>(NoDatabaseLauncher.kt:23)
09-11 15:33:33.907 12898 12898 E EmbeddedManifest: 	at expo.modules.updates.UpdatesController.start(UpdatesController.kt:243)
09-11 15:33:33.907 12898 12898 E EmbeddedManifest: 	at expo.modules.updates.UpdatesController$Companion.initialize(UpdatesController.kt:603)
09-11 15:33:33.907 12898 12898 E EmbeddedManifest: 	at expo.modules.updates.UpdatesPackage$createReactNativeHostHandlers$handler$1.onWillCreateReactInstanceManager(UpdatesPackage.kt:56)
09-11 15:33:33.907 12898 12898 E EmbeddedManifest: 	at expo.modules.ReactNativeHostWrapperBase.createReactInstanceManager(ReactNativeHostWrapperBase.kt:27)
09-11 15:33:33.907 12898 12898 E EmbeddedManifest: 	at com.facebook.react.ReactNativeHost.getReactInstanceManager(ReactNativeHost.java:42)
09-11 15:33:33.907 12898 12898 E EmbeddedManifest: 	at org.<placeholder>.<placeholder>.MainApplication.onCreate(MainApplication.java:71)
09-11 15:33:33.907 12898 12898 E EmbeddedManifest: 	at android.app.Instrumentation.callApplicationOnCreate(Instrumentation.java:1182)
09-11 15:33:33.907 12898 12898 E EmbeddedManifest: 	at android.app.ActivityThread.handleBindApplication(ActivityThread.java:6460)
09-11 15:33:33.907 12898 12898 E EmbeddedManifest: 	at android.app.ActivityThread.access$1300(ActivityThread.java:219)
09-11 15:33:33.907 12898 12898 E EmbeddedManifest: 	at android.app.ActivityThread$H.handleMessage(ActivityThread.java:1859)
09-11 15:33:33.907 12898 12898 E EmbeddedManifest: 	at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:107)
09-11 15:33:33.907 12898 12898 E EmbeddedManifest: 	at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:214)
09-11 15:33:33.907 12898 12898 E EmbeddedManifest: 	at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:7356)
09-11 15:33:33.907 12898 12898 E EmbeddedManifest: 	at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Native Method)
09-11 15:33:33.907 12898 12898 E EmbeddedManifest: 	at com.android.internal.os.RuntimeInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(RuntimeInit.java:492)
09-11 15:33:33.907 12898 12898 E EmbeddedManifest: 	at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:930)
09-11 15:33:33.907 12898 12898 D AndroidRuntime: Shutting down VM
09-11 15:33:33.908 12898 12898 E AndroidRuntime: FATAL EXCEPTION: main
2

Same problem here

3

I uninstalled expo-updates with npm uninstall expo-updates and it resolved the issue for me. Note that this only applies if you do not need expo-updates. This comment pointed out that Sentry is not requiring expo-updates in their latest versions, so that’s why my project doesn’t need it anymore. However, if you need expo-updates, you can try if this comment works for you, it suggests to run eas update:configure.