Why is Linking.getInitialURL always returning null?

Question

I'm successfully using deep linking to open my app from a share extension. If the app is already running, then I get the information in ComponentDidMount using Linking.addEventListener('url', this.handleOpenURL);

If the app isn't already running, I expect to be able to use Linking.getInitialURL(); per the docs (https://facebook.github.io/react-native/docs/linking). Except it is always coming up null for me. The link is how my app is being opened, but no matter what, comes out as null. I have that code in componentDidMount in App.js.

I'm on react-native 59.2.

Here is my AppDelegate.m

#import "AppDelegate.h"

#import <React/RCTBundleURLProvider.h>
#import <React/RCTRootView.h>
#import <React/RCTLinkingManager.h>

@implementation AppDelegate

- (BOOL)application:(UIApplication *)application didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:(NSDictionary *)launchOptions
{
  NSURL *jsCodeLocation;

  jsCodeLocation = [[RCTBundleURLProvider sharedSettings] jsBundleURLForBundleRoot:@"index" fallbackResource:nil];

  RCTRootView *rootView = [[RCTRootView alloc] initWithBundleURL:jsCodeLocation
                                                      moduleName:@"MYMODULENAME"
                                               initialProperties:nil
                                                   launchOptions:launchOptions];
  rootView.backgroundColor = [UIColor blackColor];

  self.window = [[UIWindow alloc] initWithFrame:[UIScreen mainScreen].bounds];
  UIViewController *rootViewController = [UIViewController new];
  rootViewController.view = rootView;
  self.window.rootViewController = rootViewController;
  [self.window makeKeyAndVisible];
  return YES;
}

- (BOOL)application:(UIApplication *)application
            openURL:(NSURL *)url
            options:(NSDictionary<UIApplicationOpenURLOptionsKey,id> *)options
{
  return [RCTLinkingManager application:application openURL:url options:options];
}

- (BOOL)application:(UIApplication *)application continueUserActivity:(NSUserActivity *)userActivity
 restorationHandler:(void (^)(NSArray * _Nullable))restorationHandler
{
  return [RCTLinkingManager application:application
                   continueUserActivity:userActivity
                     restorationHandler:restorationHandler];
}

@end

If the app is already running in background, getInitialURL() returns the link that launched it, otherwise I get null. I expect to get the link that launched the app even if it wasn't running.

Answer 1

The response was always null if I was debugging remotely. If the remote debugger was off, then I would get the correct url. I used an Alert to confirm since I couldn't console.log.