Enabling hermes, crashes expo development build instantly.

Summary

I’m trying to enable the hermes on my app. I followed expo using hermes instructions to enable hermes. But when i change the expo.jsEngine=jsc to expo.jsEngine=hermes in build.properties and build the app it crashes instantly with below error.

Managed or bare workflow? If you have made manual changes inside of the `ios/` or `android/` directories in your project, the answer is bare!

bare

What platform(s) does this occur on?

Android

Package versions

“dependencies”: { “@ampproject/remapping”: “^2.2.0”, “@expo/config-plugins”: “^4.1.0”, “@expo/prebuild-config”: “^4.0.0”, “@jridgewell/trace-mapping”: “^0.3.13”, “@react-native-community/netinfo”: “8.2.0”, “@react-native-google-signin/google-signin”: “^7.2.2”, “@react-navigation/drawer”: “^6.4.1”, “@react-navigation/native”: “^6.0.10”, “@react-navigation/native-stack”: “^6.6.2”, “@react-navigation/stack”: “^6.2.1”, “@robinbobin/react-native-google-drive-api-wrapper”: “^1.2.3”, “docx”: “^7.3.0”, “eas-cli”: “^0.54.1”, “expo”: “~45.0.0”, “expo-build-properties”: “~0.2.0”, “expo-cli”: “^5.5.1”, “expo-clipboard”: “~3.0.1”, “expo-dev-client”: “~1.0.1”, “expo-file-system”: “~14.0.0”, “expo-in-app-purchases”: “~13.0.0”, “expo-modules-autolinking”: “^0.8.1”, “expo-navigation-bar”: “~1.2.0”, “expo-permissions”: “^13.2.0”, “expo-splash-screen”: “~0.15.1”, “expo-system-ui”: “^1.2.0”, “formik”: “^2.2.9”, “global”: “^4.4.0”, “hermes-engine”: “^0.5.2-rc1”, “moti”: “^0.18.0”, “nanoid”: “^3.3.4”, “react”: “17.0.2”, “react-dom”: “17.0.2”, “react-native”: “0.68.2”, “react-native-actions-sheet”: “^0.6.1”, “react-native-appearance”: “^0.0.0”, “react-native-document-picker”: “^8.1.1”, “react-native-draggable-flatlist”: “^3.1.2”, “react-native-fs”: “^2.20.0”, “react-native-gesture-handler”: “~2.2.1”, “react-native-get-random-values”: “~1.8.0”, “react-native-google-drive-api-wrapper”: “^1.4.0”, “react-native-google-mobile-ads”: “^6.3.0”, “react-native-mmkv”: “^2.4.3”, “react-native-navigation-bar-color”: “^2.0.1”, “react-native-paper”: “^4.12.1”, “react-native-reanimated”: “~2.8.0”, “react-native-restart”: “^0.0.24”, “react-native-safe-area-context”: “4.2.4”, “react-native-screens”: “~3.11.1”, “react-native-select-dropdown”: “^2.0.0”, “react-native-svg”: “12.3.0”, “react-native-system-navigation-bar”: “^1.0.4”, “react-native-tags”: “^2.2.1”, “react-native-toast-notifications”: “^3.2.3”, “react-native-web”: “0.17.7”, “rn-fetch-blob”: “^0.12.0”, “xlsx”: “^0.18.5”, “yup”: “^0.32.11”

Environment

expo-env-info 1.0.4 environment info: System: OS: Windows 10 10.0.22000 Binaries: Node: 16.16.0 - C:\Program Files\nodejs\node.EXE Yarn: 1.22.19 - C:\Program Files (x86)\Yarn\bin\yarn.CMD npm: 8.11.0 - C:\Program Files\nodejs\npm.CMD SDKs: Android SDK: API Levels: 28, 31 Build Tools: 30.0.2, 31.0.0, 33.0.0 System Images: android-31 | Google Play Intel x86 Atom_64 IDEs: Android Studio: AI-212.5712.43.2112.8609683 npmPackages: expo: ~45.0.0 => 45.0.6 react: 17.0.2 => 17.0.2 react-dom: 17.0.2 => 17.0.2 react-native: 0.68.2 => 0.68.2 react-native-web: 0.17.7 => 0.17.7 Expo Workflow: bare

Reproducible demo

app.json

  "expo": {
    "jsEngine": "hermes",
}

app/build.gradle

project.ext.react = [
    enableHermes: (findProperty('expo.jsEngine') ?: "jsc") == "hermes",
]

...

def enableHermes = project.ext.react.get("enableHermes", false);

...

if (enableHermes) {
      debugImplementation files(new File(["node", "--print", "require.resolve('hermes-engine/package.json')"].execute(null, rootDir).text.trim(), "../android/hermes-debug.aar"))
      releaseImplementation files(new File(["node", "--print", "require.resolve('hermes-engine/package.json')"].execute(null, rootDir).text.trim(), "../android/hermes-release.aar"))
    } else {
      implementation jscFlavor
    }

...

gradle.properties

# The hosted JavaScript engine
# Supported values: expo.jsEngine = "hermes" | "jsc"
expo.jsEngine=hermes

Stacktrace (if a crash is involved)

No response

Issue Analytics

State:
Created a year ago
Comments:6

Top GitHub Comments

1reaction

BalogunofAfricacommented, Oct 9, 2022

I don’t know how expo handled hermes on SDK 46 for managed workflows. The above solution is for the bare workflows. You cannot change build.gradle file with managed workflow. Depends on the release notes in SDK 46, it uses Bundled Hermes now. Therefore the code above in app/build.gradle file needs to change.
 if (enableHermes) {
-       def hermesPath = "../../node_modules/hermes-engine/android/";
-       debugImplementation files(hermesPath + "hermes-debug.aar")
-       releaseImplementation files(hermesPath + "hermes-release.aar")

+      implementation("com.facebook.react:hermes-engine:+") {
+      exclude group:'com.facebook.fbjni'
    } else {
        implementation jscFlavor
    }
Like I said before, this solution is for the bare workflows.

I am having the same issue with bare expo app, release builds crash immediately and I have changed the implementation to use bundled hermes in build.gradle

0reactions

somaestrategiascommented, Oct 14, 2022

For anyone still having issues, none of the above solutions worked for me. This was a long shot but it worked.

1 - remove packaging options from “expo-build-properties” in your app.json expo plugins. 2 - run expo prebuild --clean 3 - cd into android and run ./gradlew 4- - run expo run:android

And it worked. Hope it helps anyone.

        "expo-build-properties",
        {
          "android": {
            "compileSdkVersion": 31,
            "targetSdkVersion": 31,
            "minSdkVersion": 24,
            "buildToolsVersion": "31.0.0",
            #REMOVE HERE
            "packagingOptions": {
              -"pickFirst": [
                -"lib/arm64-v8a/libc++_shared.so",
                -"lib/armeabi-v7a/libc++_shared.so",
                -"lib/x86/libc++_shared.so",
                -"lib/x86_64/libc++_shared.so"
              -]
            }
          #END OF REMOVE 
          },
          "ios": {
            "deploymentTarget": "13.0"
          }
        }