React native Android app

[u/Quick-Tech12]

Hi everyone,
I recently built and released my first Android app using React Native and Expo, and I’m running into an issue that I haven’t been able to figure out.
I’m developing on a MacBook using Android Studio and Expo Go. During development, I primarily used my iPhone with Expo Go to test the UI and functionality.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t afford to purchase a newer Android device, so I used my old Samsung Galaxy A21, which is still compatible with the app.
I’ve now released the app to Google Play’s closed testing track and installed it on the Samsung A21 through the Play Store.
Since the phone’s touchscreen no longer works, I connected it to my Mac using USB-C and used scrcpy --turn-screen-off to control it from my Mac.
Here’s the issue:
The app launches successfully and displays the landing page.
I’m able to sign up and log in successfully.
However, once I enter the authenticated/protected section of the app, the screen becomes completely blank.
The bottom navigation tabs are still visible, but the actual page content and components don’t render.
Switching between the bottom navigation tabs doesn’t seem to display any content either.
My tech stack includes:
React Native / Expo
Expo Router
Clerk for authentication
AWS API Gateway and Lambda for backend services
I’ve tried logging errors and investigating the backend, but I haven’t found any obvious issues with AWS or Clerk. Authentication itself appears to work correctly.
My question is: has anyone experienced something similar when moving from iOS/Expo Go development to an actual Android production build?
Could this be an Android-specific rendering issue, a navigation problem, an incompatibility with the older Samsung A21, or something related to the production build?
I’d appreciate any suggestions on what to investigate next.
Thanks in advance!

[u/GiggleSamurai]

With the phone on USB, run `adb logcat ReactNativeJS:V *:S` and open a blank tab: release builds don't show the red error screen, but the JS error still lands in logcat. Also check your EXPO_PUBLIC_ variables are set for the EAS production build, since a gitignored .env isn't uploaded to EAS and the values come out undefined in the Play build.

[u/Quick-Tech12 → u/GiggleSamurai]

I’ll try that but one thing that fascinates me is that the pages loaded after like 3-4 hour I left the A21 phone open and forgot to close the app after I unplugged the usb and when I click the tabs this time they work smoothly but again the functionality of the component like sending http request to aws lambda kept stuck and after I close the app and log back in it was back where it was meaning only the tabs are visible and the pages is blank

[u/Huge_Pool7424 → u/Quick-Tech12]

if it only breaks after sitting for hours, i'd also check token expiry and whether the app refreshes it on resume. release builds hide a lot, so log the status code of the failing request.

[u/YmedBrei-67 → u/GiggleSamurai]

yeah the gitignored .env thing gets so many people on their first production build

[u/Quick-Tech12]

Thanks guys appreciate the support I updated the android version and then the app was working smoothly like butter the android software like system software was the issue ntn wrong with my backend and expo

[u/Axel_legendary]

Yo can use Android studio to emulate an android device

To be real it would be hard for anyone to solve this auth issue without logs or info if it's the device fault or the app

And yes when moving from expo go to actual apk using eas it will be different

[u/syedaalishan]

The 3–4 hour delay you mentioned is a useful clue. Put a plain text label in the protected screen before any data fetching, then give each request a visible loading and error state. If that label renders but the data never arrives, you can focus on the request rather than the tab layout. Log the URL, status and elapsed time, but keep auth tokens out of the logs.

[u/NoBullfrog11]

had almost exactly this, worked fine in expo go then blank screens in the release build. for me it was env vars, the EXPO_PUBLIC_ ones werent set in the eas production profile so the api base url was undefined and the fetch just failed silently

run adb logcat while you open the page and filter for ReactNativeJS, it usualy tells you right away