Reloading the app with fast-refresh disabled does not work

[jmurp]

Problem Description

The immediate problem here is that when fast refresh is disabled, reloading the app causes it to close instead of reload. Then you have to run 'npx react-native run-windows' again to get it restarted.

I would appreciate help finding a way to make developing an app manageable in addition to the immediate issue being fixed from someone with a better understanding of react-native + metro + react-native-windows:

I am targeting react native windows using clojurescript which is compiled to javascript. I am new to react-native but have been using clojurescript + react for a while.

Note that in the starter project with fast-refresh enabled:

• editing the contents of App.tsx will cause a fast-refresh
• editing index.js will cause a message to appear saying that the app is reloading the bundle and takes a long time, much longer than an html refresh, I am unsure what is happening here.

I use clojurescript + shadow-cljs build tool to compile to ./app/index.js. It is from this file that the root component is registered. From the starter project's ./index.js, I import this file. Whenever the clojurescript is compiled to javascript (updating ./app/index.js), the app has to 'reload the bundle', so fast-refresh is not an option.

I noticed that the application will immediately and accurately update when app/index.js is changed even when fast-refresh is disabled... then it thinks it need to 'reload the bundle' and screws it up. So I thought that disabling fast-refresh would be the way to go and then I could manually reload the app whenever I needed a hard reload. This led me to the immediate issue I am reporting.

Steps To Reproduce

npx react-native init testProj --template react-native@^0.71.0
cd testProj
npx react-native-windows-init --overwrite --language cs
npx react-native run-windows
(open the developer menu and disable fast-refresh -- alternatively edit the App.xaml.cs ctor line InstanceSettings.UseFastRefresh = true to InstanceSettings.UseFastRefresh = false before building)
(press r in the metro terminal or press Reload App in the debugging tab)

Expected Results

the same thing that happens when you reload the app with fast-refresh enabled

CLI version

npx react-native -v
10.0.0

Environment

npx react-native info
System:
    OS: Windows 10 10.0.19045
    CPU: (16) x64 AMD Ryzen 7 3800X 8-Core Processor
    Memory: 10.66 GB / 15.95 GB
  Binaries:
    Node: 18.15.0 - C:\Program Files\nodejs\node.EXE
    Yarn: 1.22.19 - ~\AppData\Roaming\npm\yarn.CMD
    npm: 9.5.0 - C:\Program Files\nodejs\npm.CMD
    Watchman: Not Found
  SDKs:
    Android SDK: Not Found
    Windows SDK:
      AllowDevelopmentWithoutDevLicense: Enabled
      AllowAllTrustedApps: Enabled
      Versions: 10.0.19041.0, 10.0.22000.0
  IDEs:
    Android Studio: Not Found
    Visual Studio: 17.4.33213.308 (Visual Studio Community 2022)
  Languages:
    Java: 17.0.6 - C:\Program Files\Eclipse Adoptium\jdk-17.0.6.10-hotspot\bin\javac.EXE
  npmPackages:
    @react-native-community/cli: Not Found
    react: 18.2.0 => 18.2.0
    react-native: 0.71.0 => 0.71.0
    react-native-windows: 0.71.4 => 0.71.4
  npmGlobalPackages:
    *react-native*: Not Found

Target Platform Version

None

Target Device(s)

Desktop

Visual Studio Version

2022

Build Configuration

None

Snack, code example, screenshot, or link to a repository

No response

[chrisglein]

Note: When we add tests to cover fast refresh (#8609), the inverse should be covered (tests for when fast refresh is disabled). In our normal flow we don't generally disable fast refresh and then hit reload.

reloading the app causes it to close instead of reload

That sounds like the app crashed. Do you get anything in the logs for this from the bundler? And/or can you attach a debugger and get the callstack?

[microsoft-github-policy-service]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has been marked as requiring author feedback but has not had any activity for 7 days. It will be closed if no further activity occurs within 7 days of this comment.