Livereload on device (Android) - Cordova not Available

[argalasjr]

Bug Report

Problem

What is expected to happen?

cordova is expected to load on android platform when using option --livereload

What does actually happen?

cordova is not available when using option --livereload on android platform

Information

Command or Code

ionic cordova run android --livereload

Environment, Platform, Device

Windows 10,
Android 9
Xioami Redmi 7

Version information

For example:
@ionic/angular: 5.0.0
@ionic/cli: 6.1.0
cordova: 9.0.0
cordova-android:8.1.0
@angular-devkit/build-angular: 0.900.2
@angular/core: 9.0.1

Checklist

• I searched for existing GitHub issues
• [ x] I updated all Cordova tooling to most recent version
• [ x] I included all the necessary information above

[BigBalli]

A couple of things to check here:

1. This is run through Ionic CLI (ionic cordova run android --livereload), so the livereload server setup is handled by Ionic, not Cordova directly. It might be worth opening this on the Ionic CLI repo if you haven't already.

2. The "Cordova not available" error during livereload usually means the device's WebView is loading from the dev server but cordova.js isn't being served or injected properly. A few things to try:

   • Make sure your phone and dev machine are on the same network and the phone can reach your machine's IP
   • Try --livereload --external to force the dev server to bind to your external IP
   • Check that cordova.js is listed in your index.html — livereload replaces the local file serving, so if cordova.js isn't in the served directory it won't load

3. The versions listed here are quite old (cordova 9.0.0, cordova-android 8.1.0). A lot has changed since then — have you had a chance to try with current versions?

[breautek]

I'm going to close this issue because there is likely nothing actionable by Cordova to address this issue.

The Cordova CLI does not facilitate any live reloading feature, so if there is an issue with it, it likely has to do with third-party tooling.

If through analysis, turns out the root issue is indeed within Cordova, then an issue noting those details can be tracked, but until then I don't think there is anything Cordova members can do to address this issue.