Why are images not showing on apk after expo build:android? (React Native)

Question

I created an app (using React Native Expo) that has some images like:

<Image source={require('../assets/facebook_button.png')} />

The images are in the assets directory and I can see them using the npm publish or the npm start functionalities.

The problem is when building the app with exp build:android, now the apk is not showing the static images (but some other images I'm loading from the Internet are being showed).

This is my app.json:

{
  "expo": {
    "name": "my-interesting-app",
    "description": "My Interesting App",
    "slug": "my-interesting-app",
    "privacy": "public",
    "sdkVersion": "29.0.0",
    "platforms": ["ios", "android"],
    "version": "1.0.0",
    "orientation": "portrait",
    "icon": "./assets/icon.png",
    "splash": {
      "image": "./assets/splash.png",
      "resizeMode": "contain",
      "backgroundColor": "#ffffff"
    },
    "updates": {
      "fallbackToCacheTimeout": 0
    },
    "assetBundlePatterns": [
      "**/*",
      "assets/*"
    ],
    "ios": {
      "supportsTablet": true,
      "bundleIdentifier": "com.myinteresting.myinterestingapp"
    },
    "android": {
      "package": "com.myinteresting.myinterestingapp"
    },
    
  }
}

Thanks for the help

Answer 1

Try to cache the image before loading.

import React from 'react';
import { Image, Text, View } from 'react-native';
import { Asset, AppLoading } from 'expo';

export default class App extends React.Component {
  state = {
    isReady: false,
  };

  render() {
    if (!this.state.isReady) {
      return (
        <AppLoading
          startAsync={() => this._cacheResourcesAsync()}
          onFinish={() => this.setState({ isReady: true })}
          onError={console.warn}
        />
      );
    }

    return (
      <View style={{ flex: 1 }}>
        <Image source={require('./assets/images/expo-icon.png')} />
        <Image source={require('./assets/images/slack-icon.png')} />
      </View>
    );
  }

  async _cacheResourcesAsync() {
    return Asset.loadAsync([
      require('./assets/images/expo-icon.png'),
      require('./assets/images/slack-icon.png'),
    ]);
  }
}

References:

• https://docs.expo.io/versions/latest/sdk/app-loading.html#app-loading
• https://docs.expo.io/versions/latest/sdk/asset.html#expoassetloadasyncmodules