React Native project, sometimes getting 'connect ECONNREFUSED 127.0.0.1:19001' using expo start

Question

I'm using expo-cli 2.6.14, react-native 0.57.1, Expo SDK 31.0.0. In order to start the project to run on the Expo app, I use expo start. Sometimes it works, sometimes I get an error and I have no idea why. If I just keep running expo start over and over again, eventually it will work, but that's a lot of wasted time.

This is the error that I get:

Could not get status from Metro bundler. connect ECONNREFUSED 127.0.0.1:19001 Connecting to Metro bundler failed. Set EXPO_DEBUG=true in your env to view the stack trace. error Command failed with exit code 1. 

I'm not sure why this happens. I've been ignoring it since it doesn't happen consistently, but it's become a nuisance. Any thoughts on what the issue might be?

Edit: This is a known issue that still has not been fixed.

Edit 2: Still occurring with expo-cli 2.12.2, and Expo SDK 33.0.0

Answer 1

I faced this issue too, here is what I did finally:

First try to use "expo start -c" to clear the cache when launching, this is the option that works every time.

Try to delete your .expo folder if it doesn't work and retry.