React native app stuck on splash screen on device but works in simulator

Question

My React Native app works in the XCode simulator with no issues, but when I run in a physical device, my iPhone, there\'s a problem. The app launches and gets stuck on the React

Answer 1

It should be perfectly possible to run the app in debug, on the device, without the packager attached! You have to use react-native bundle to create an offline bundle, and add it to your Xcode project. Then your app should fall back to that bundle when the packager is not available.

This used to be in the Deploying to Device FB docs, not sure why it's not there anymore.

Sample call (our index.ios.js is placed in ./dist by TypeScript):

react-native bundle --dev true --assets-dest ./ios --entry-file ./dist/index.ios.js --platform ios --bundle-output ios/main.jsbundle

Also, it's apparently necessary to tell your app to run directly from the bundle rather than try to access the development server, which seems to cause the timeout (we had the same issue as OP).

Comment out this line:

jsCodeLocation = // whatever

And add this line:

jsCodeLocation = [[NSBundle mainBundle] URLForResource:@"main" withExtension:@"jsbundle"];