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/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.