Could not find root view for a given ancestor with tag

Description

We are seeing the following crash on Android:

com.facebook.react.bridge.JSApplicationIllegalArgumentException: Could find root view for a given ancestor with tag 3199
    at com.swmansion.gesturehandler.react.RNGestureHandlerModule.tryInitializeHandlerForReactRootView(RNGestureHandlerModule.java:18)
    at com.swmansion.gesturehandler.react.RNGestureHandlerModule.attachGestureHandler(RNGestureHandlerModule.java:1)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java)
    at com.facebook.react.bridge.JavaMethodWrapper.invoke(JavaMethodWrapper.java:18)
    at com.facebook.react.bridge.JavaModuleWrapper.invoke(JavaModuleWrapper.java:2)
    at com.facebook.react.bridge.queue.NativeRunnable.run(NativeRunnable.java)
    at android.os.Handler.handleCallback(Handler.java:869)
    at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:101)
    at com.facebook.react.bridge.queue.MessageQueueThreadHandler.dispatchMessage(MessageQueueThreadHandler.java:1)
    at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:206)
    at com.facebook.react.bridge.queue.MessageQueueThreadImpl$4.run(MessageQueueThreadImpl.java:8)
    at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:764)

Screenshots

Steps To Reproduce

I was not able to reproduce it consistently, but it seems to happen after the app goes to foreground.

Package versions

• React: 17.0.1
• React Native: >= 0.64.2
• React Native Gesture Handler: 1.10.3
• React Navigation: 5.14.4

[rdeift]

+1

[jbaudanza]

I was able to resolve this issue in my project. The problem is that Codepush.restartApp doesn’t actually restart the app. Instead, it uses the ReactNativeInstanceManager class to reload the bundle:

https://github.com/facebook/react-native/blob/4fb49cd555942caba1515b6a03f8ccea931dfc90/ReactAndroid/src/main/java/com/facebook/react/ReactInstanceManager.java#L435

This means that if any RN-GestureHandler components begin initializing before a Codepush.restartApp, there is a very good chance that when they finish., the RootNode doesn’t exist anymore. This is what causes the crash.

To solve this, you have to make sure there are no instances of RN-GestureHandler in the process of loading before a Codepush.restartApp operation. This includes things like react-navigation, which will mount gesture handlers behind the scenes.

In our case, when our app loads we begin a codepush sync. While the codepush is in any of these states, we render a simple View with no gesture handlers or react-navigation are mounted: CHECKING_FOR_UPDATE, DOWNLOADING_PACKAGE, UPDATE_INSTALLED, INSTALLING_UPDATE.

Only after the codepush is completely finished, it’s safe to mount any react-navigation components.