Application not loading when downloaded from Play Store but installing the generated APK works fine

Question

The Problem

I've released latest version of application to production on Play Store.

• If I download and install the generated APK, it works fine.
• But if I download the same version from Play Store, the application doesn't load or crash. While making the release I uploaded the Android App Bundle and not the APK and did not upload debug symbols on Play console.
• I've tried running the application, (both the APK and from Play Store), on physical devices as well as Android simulators.
• Since the application is running fine in debug mode and by installing the APK (and works on iOS), I think that issue is not related to react code but to some configuration issue??
• Built with React Native 0.60.4

Logs

Below are the logs from logcat while running the app downloaded from Play Store in Android Studio Simulator. There are a couple errors in the end where the execution stops. It seems that the error is shown whenever it is not able to find a native dependency in any of the predetermined locations.

Even while running the APK, I get the same logs but the execution continues and finishes to launch the application and fetch data from the server.

> 2020-08-17 22:39:02.997 4719-4719/? D/SoLoader: libyoga.so not found on /data/data/com.abc.testapp/lib-main
> 2020-08-17 22:39:02.997 4719-4719/? D/SoLoader: libyoga.so not found on /data/data/com.abc.testapp/lib-0
> 2020-08-17 22:39:02.997 4719-4719/? D/SoLoader: libyoga.so found on /data/data/com.abc.testapp/lib-1
> 2020-08-17 22:39:03.002 4719-4719/? D/SoLoader: libjsinspector.so not found on /data/data/com.abc.testapp/lib-main
> 2020-08-17 22:39:03.002 4719-4719/? D/SoLoader: libjsinspector.so not found on /data/data/com.abc.testapp/lib-0
> 2020-08-17 22:39:03.002 4719-4719/? D/SoLoader: libjsinspector.so found on /data/data/com.abc.testapp/lib-1
> 2020-08-17 22:39:03.003 4719-4719/? D/SoLoader: libfolly_json.so not found on /data/data/com.abc.testapp/lib-main
> 2020-08-17 22:39:03.003 4719-4719/? D/SoLoader: libfolly_json.so not found on /data/data/com.abc.testapp/lib-0
> 2020-08-17 22:39:03.003 4719-4719/? D/SoLoader: libfolly_json.so found on /data/data/com.abc.testapp/lib-1
> 2020-08-17 22:39:03.011 4719-4719/? D/SoLoader: libjsc.so not found on /data/data/com.abc.testapp/lib-main
> 2020-08-17 22:39:03.011 4719-4719/? D/SoLoader: libjsc.so not found on /data/data/com.abc.testapp/lib-0
> 2020-08-17 22:39:03.011 4719-4719/? D/SoLoader: libjsc.so not found on /data/data/com.abc.testapp/lib-1
> 2020-08-17 22:39:03.011 4719-4719/? D/SoLoader: libjsc.so not found on /data/data/com.abc.testapp/lib-2
> 2020-08-17 22:39:03.011 4719-4719/? D/SoLoader: libjsc.so not found on /data/app/com.abc.testapp-ue_qPUdXT8TbbZBF3aKjsA==/lib/x86
> 2020-08-17 22:39:02.977 4719-4719/? W/abc.testapp: type=1400 audit(0.0:559): avc: granted { execute } for path="/data/data/com.abc.testapp/lib-1/libfb.so" dev="vdc" ino=147513 scontext=u:r:untrusted_app_27:s0:c146,c256,c512,c768 tcontext=u:object_r:app_data_file:s0:c146,c256,c512,c768 tclass=file
> 2020-08-17 22:39:02.977 4719-4719/? W/abc.testapp: type=1400 audit(0.0:560): avc: granted { execute } for path="/data/data/com.abc.testapp/lib-1/libglog.so" dev="vdc" ino=147516 scontext=u:r:untrusted_app_27:s0:c146,c256,c512,c768 tcontext=u:object_r:app_data_file:s0:c146,c256,c512,c768 tclass=file
> 2020-08-17 22:39:02.977 4719-4719/? W/abc.testapp: type=1400 audit(0.0:561): avc: granted { execute } for path="/data/data/com.abc.testapp/lib-1/libglog_init.so" dev="vdc" ino=147518 scontext=u:r:untrusted_app_27:s0:c146,c256,c512,c768 tcontext=u:object_r:app_data_file:s0:c146,c256,c512,c768 tclass=file
> 2020-08-17 22:39:03.381 1814-1814/? E/Layer: [Surface(name=AppWindowToken{ab7a8d4 token=Token{81bde27 ActivityRecord{9318e6 u0 com.abc.testapp/.MainActivity t205}}})/@0x356d6b1 - animation-leash#0] No local sync point found
> 2020-08-17 22:39:03.381 1814-1814/? E/Layer: [Surface(name=AppWindowToken{ab7a8d4 token=Token{81bde27 ActivityRecord{9318e6 u0 com.abc.testapp/.MainActivity t205}}})/@0x356d6b1 - animation-leash#0] No local sync point found

Stuff that I've looked into:

• Fixing the error shown above

  • I've tried following this answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/56778060/12246335 but it started producing APK with sizes twice as before and app kept crashing.

  • This answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/59626013/12246335 suggests enabling cleartext traffic. I went through the docs but couldn't see how this would be useful, also it mentioned security issues upon adding this option.

  • The configuration in AndroidManifest.xml shows that currently the cleartext traffic is enabled for debug mode and not for release mode.

• Updating gradle and gradle plugin version

  • I have tried updating gradle and plugin versions to the latest releases. The APK builds and runs fine but the error above is still there in the logcat. So, I feel that the Play Store release with this will be no different and will stop execution with the above errors.

Any help/suggestion is appreciated. Thank you.

Answer 1

I've found the fix.

Turns out the issue was with Hermes being enabled.

https://github.com/facebook/react-native/issues/26400#issuecomment-539395814

The above answer fixed it for me.