iOS main.jsbundle will not create automatically or update without manual react-native bundle

[nickmccally]

• I have reviewed the documentation
• I have searched existing issues
• I am using the latest React Native version

React native is not creating a main.jsbundle for ios automatically. One must manually be created, even though the scheme set as release. The code used to create a bundle manually:
react-native bundle --entry-file index.js --platform ios --dev false --bundle-output ios/main.jsbundle --assets-dest ios

Update this exact issue is happening on android now for us as well during our Jenkins build process. We are able to manually bundle using: react-native bundle --entry-file index.js --platform android --dev false --bundle-output android/main.jsbundle --assets-dest android

No errors occur when this is run, and a bundle is created/updated. From this point forward no bundle updates occur. The following is in Bundle React Native code and images:
export NODE_BINARY=node ../node_modules/react-native/scripts/react-native-xcode.sh

Environment

Environment:
OS: macOS High Sierra 10.13.3
Node: 8.9.4
Yarn: 1.3.2
npm: 5.7.1
Watchman: 4.9.0
Xcode: Xcode 9.2 Build version 9C40b
Android Studio: 3.0 AI-171.4443003

Packages: (wanted => installed)
react: ^16.3.0-alpha.1 => 16.3.0-alpha.2
react-native: 0.54.2 => 0.54.2

Steps to Reproduce

I have been experiencing this with an existing project. I even created a new react native project, and opened the xcode project. It shows main.jsbundle as a missing file. I modified the project scheme to Release, and from there -> Build. No main.jsbundle was created in the iOS project folder. One can manually be created with the code above without an error message.

Expected Behavior

A new main.jsbundle would update on build when the following is run: build from xcode OR react-native run-ios --configuration Release

Actual Behavior

No main.jsbundle is created/updated

[nickmccally]

We still have to manually create our bundle for iOS, Android bundle is working fine.

[yashafromrussia]

We had the same issue, the file was checked into the iOS project. We had to remove it & add a new build step Bundle React Native code and images:

export NODE_BINARY=node
../node_modules/react-native/scripts/react-native-xcode.sh

[m-vdb]

Experiencing the same issue (RN version 0.52.2). Ran into it after removing a package with native dependencies (I just removed Realm). I am still struggling to fix it. react-native-xcode.sh is called properly but the bundle is not created (failing at this line).

Edit:
In my case, my issue was 100% linked to #17610
I managed to find out by adding an echo command in react-native-xcode.sh to print the bundling command, and I actually saw the error.

I think that this can fail for various reasons BUT it should definitely display the content of the errors on the screen, otherwise we are just lost when this happens... (and people get confused, add completely different resolution steps on bug reports, etc...)

[jsina]

@m-vdb I couldn't realize your workaround. in fact my problem is when I run app on simulator with command react-native run-ios everything works fine but when I try to run the app on real device first I have to create the bundle, because bundle not created automatically and even after creating bundle with command react-native bundle --entry-file='index.js' --bundle-output='./ios/main.jsbundle' --dev=false --platform='ios' --assets-dest='./ios' the static images not shows on ios, although everything works fine in Android devices.

[m-vdb]

@jsina you must have another problem that prevents the automatic bundling. Try to debug the execution of react-native-xcode.sh to see what is the problem exactly. Maybe you are missing some ios setup with an external library or something like that. Sadly, the same symptom (bundle not created automatically) has a multitude of possible causes.

[KouSyurei]

我只想知道为什么明明需要main.jsbundle文件，框架却不自动生成。。。。。

[nickmccally]

It is my opinion that this should not be such a widespread issue, and there should be solid documentation to resolving this. I will report back when I have resolved our issue, but currently our CI/CD builds are manually running the bundle script. I've read a bit about some having the wrong path to react-native-xcode.sh, but this has never been the case with our project.

[nickmccally]

Update - our CI/CD process is now reverting to an old version of the main.jsbundle on android and requires a separate command to create the bundle. We are using react-native bundle --entry-file index.js --platform android --dev false --bundle-output android/main.jsbundle --assets-dest android in this build process to resolve for it at the moment. We will review further and see why bundling has broken on android as well and report back. This may save some folks research time, as it was a bit hidden on our end.

[jsina]

My problem is I've install node with fishshell
I've change the Bundle React Native code and image on Build Phases to:

export NODE_BINARY=$(fish -c 'which node')
../node_modules/react-native/scripts/react-native-xcode.sh

then run react-native bundle --entry-file='index.js' --bundle-output='./ios/main.jsbundle' --dev=false --platform='ios' --assets-dest='./ios'
now actually I have images on real device.

[mjmasn]

We have the same issue building an android app - building 4 or 5 build types with ./gradlew assembleX where X is dev/int/beta/release etc and often some or all of the builds will have the wrong js bundle (an old one magically reappears from the depths of some cache) or the APK will be e.g. 15MB instead of the usual 40MB (presumably by having no js bundle at all) and just crash on start. I've tried many things starting with running ./gradlew clean before each build and using --reset-cache but nothing seems to help. Even deleting the two build directories, running watchman watch-del-all and deleting everything in /tmp seems to have no effect. It's becoming somewhat infuriating!

It appears the bundler is working correctly, as in the generated js and map files are correct but somehow the APK includes an old bundle (from god knows where) or possible none at all (when we have the APKs that crash instantly).

Build issues like this have now consumed ~100 hours of my life since starting work with RN at the start of the year so I'm dying for a way that will guarantee a 100% fresh build of our dev/int/beta/release builds and for it to be reproducible! If I repeat the build enough times it (usually) eventually works but the fact that it can give completely different output without any code being changed is worrying.

Since 0.56 at least running in dev mode locally seems to have mostly been fixed (just the async storage issue once every 20 or so refreshes) but building APKs remains a big problem (possibly even slightly worse since 0.56 but that's just a gut feeling, I don't have any concrete data).

[mjmasn]

Just had the APK size issue again where the first build succeeded and the other 3 failed. From diffing the contents of two of the APKs it looks like none of the assets (images) were copied to the failed one. So that's probably a separate issue to the out of date bundle issue...