Expo dev client cannot connect to the dev server

Question

A development build that uses expo-dev-client and Expo Application Service seems to be having trouble connecting to the dev server.

The dev client app hangs on the splash screen after running npx expo start --dev-client. The JavaScript bundle process also doesn't start.

After a while, I get the error screen on the app saying that its request to connect to the dev client timed out.

There was a problem loading the project.

This development build encountered the following error:

Failed to load app from http://172.20.1.160:8081
with error: The request timed out.

What might be the reason?

Answer 1

Adding --tunnel to the expo start comment solved the issue.

npx expo start --dev-client --tunnel

More information on "tunneling" at this expo-cli doc page.