react-navigation/native-stack not working on Android

Question

I get the following error:

E/unknown:ReactNative: Exception in native call
    java.lang.IllegalStateException: In order to use RNScreens components your app's activity need to extend ReactActivity
        at com.swmansion.rnscreens.ScreenContainer.setupFragmentManager(ScreenContainer.kt:169)
        at com.swmansion.rnscreens.ScreenContainer.onAttachedToWindow(ScreenContainer.kt:199)
        at android.view.View.dispatchAttachedToWindow(View.java:21304)
        at android.view.ViewGroup.dispatchAttachedToWindow(ViewGroup.java:4239)
        at android.view.ViewGroup.dispatchAttachedToWindow(ViewGroup.java:4246)
        at android.view.ViewGroup.addViewInner(ViewGroup.java:6001)
        at android.view.ViewGroup.addView(ViewGroup.java:5777)
        at android.view.ViewGroup.addView(ViewGroup.java:5717)
        at com.facebook.react.uimanager.ViewGroupManager.addView(ViewGroupManager.java:37)
        at com.facebook.react.uimanager.NativeViewHierarchyManager.manageChildren(NativeViewHierarchyManager.java:533)
        at com.facebook.react.uimanager.UIViewOperationQueue$ManageChildrenOperation.execute(UIViewOperationQueue.java:217)
        at com.facebook.react.uimanager.UIViewOperationQueue$1.run(UIViewOperationQueue.java:915)
        at com.facebook.react.uimanager.UIViewOperationQueue.flushPendingBatches(UIViewOperationQueue.java:1026)
        at com.facebook.react.uimanager.UIViewOperationQueue.access$2600(UIViewOperationQueue.java:47)
        at com.facebook.react.uimanager.UIViewOperationQueue$DispatchUIFrameCallback.doFrameGuarded(UIViewOperationQueue.java:1086)
        at com.facebook.react.uimanager.GuardedFrameCallback.doFrame(GuardedFrameCallback.java:29)
        at com.facebook.react.modules.core.ReactChoreographer$ReactChoreographerDispatcher.doFrame(ReactChoreographer.java:175)
        at com.facebook.react.modules.core.ChoreographerCompat$FrameCallback$1.doFrame(ChoreographerCompat.java:85)
        at android.view.Choreographer$CallbackRecord.run(Choreographer.java:997)
        at android.view.Choreographer.doCallbacks(Choreographer.java:797)
        at android.view.Choreographer.doFrame(Choreographer.java:728)
        at android.view.Choreographer$FrameDisplayEventReceiver.run(Choreographer.java:984)
        at android.os.Handler.handleCallback(Handler.java:883)
        at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:100)
        at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:237)
        at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:8167)
        at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Native Method)
        at com.android.internal.os.RuntimeInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(RuntimeInit.java:496)
        at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:1100)

When I try to change: public class RnActivity extends Activity implements DefaultHardwareBackBtnHandler { to public class RnActivity extends ReactActivity implements DefaultHardwareBackBtnHandler { , as the error suggests, I get a new error:

E/mk_d : Utils: Error: java.lang.RuntimeException: Unable to start activity ComponentInfo{com.android.rn_management.RnActivity}: java.lang.ClassCastException: com.android.Application cannot be cast to com.facebook.react.ReactApplication
        at android.app.ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:3654)

When I remove react-navigation/native-stack from my RN bundle, everything works just fine. In addition I receive the following error (is it related?): E/ThemeUtils: View class com.facebook.react.views.text.ReactTextView is and AppCompat widget that can only be used with a Theme.AppCompat theme (or descendant)

Answer 1

Are you on an older version of React Native? check your android/app/src/main/java/com/(your app)/MainActivity.java file & change the first class line to extend ReactActivity if it doesn't already -

public class MainActivity extends ReactActivity {
  ...

That should satisfy the error you're getting - ReactActivity also extends a compat class so it will possibly fix your other issue too

Answer 2

React-native-screens is one of the react-navigation dependencies so you need to use it in order to get the navigation to work. Extend your Activity with ReactActivity and create or edit your Application class in native Android code:

class YourApplication : Application(), ReactApplication, LifecycleObserver {...}

This link here https://reactnative.dev/docs/integration-with-existing-apps is useful if you want to integrate react-native into already existing app and do not want to implement ReactApplication and ReactActivity.