APK size got increased almost double after upgrading to RN 0.66.0

[ursnj]

Description

APK Size got increased almost double after upgrading to React Native 0.66.0

OLD APK Size: 18Mb
NEW APK Size: 41Mb

Version

0.66.0

Output of react-native info

info Fetching system and libraries information...
System:
OS: macOS 10.15.6
CPU: (4) x64 Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-5350U CPU @ 1.80GHz
Memory: 33.75 MB / 8.00 GB
Shell: 5.7.1 - /bin/zsh
Binaries:
Node: 14.15.0 - /usr/local/bin/node
Yarn: 1.17.3 - /usr/local/bin/yarn
npm: 7.16.0 - /usr/local/bin/npm
Watchman: 4.9.0 - /usr/local/bin/watchman
Managers:
CocoaPods: Not Found
SDKs:
iOS SDK: Not Found
Android SDK:
API Levels: 23, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30
Build Tools: 23.0.1, 25.0.3, 26.0.1, 28.0.2, 28.0.3, 29.0.2, 29.0.3, 30.0.2
System Images: android-26 | Google Play Intel x86 Atom, android-29 | Google APIs Intel x86 Atom
Android NDK: Not Found
IDEs:
Android Studio: 4.1 AI-201.8743.12.41.6953283
Xcode: /undefined - /usr/bin/xcodebuild
Languages:
Java: 1.8.0_201 - /usr/bin/javac
Python: 3.8.5 - /Users/nj/opt/anaconda3/bin/python
npmPackages:
@react-native-community/cli: Not Found
react: 17.0.2 => 17.0.2
react-native: 0.66.0 => 0.66.0
npmGlobalPackages:
react-native: Not Found

Steps to reproduce

Upgrade to react native latest version

Build APK.

Snack, code example, screenshot, or link to a repository

[github-actions]

⚠️	Missing Environment Information
ℹ️	Your issue may be missing information about your development environment. You can obtain the missing information by running react-native info in a console.

[Smiche]

Similar experience here after upgrading from react-native 0.64 to 0.66

[cortinico]

What's your minSdkVersion? By any chance have you bumped from 21 to 23?

[Smiche]

minSdkVersion 24 and have not changed it while upgrading react-native.

[shubhamdeol]

I am also facing similar issue. App size on Playstore increased from 12 mb to 25 mb.

[shubhamdeol]

@cortinico can it be due to all libraries staring to support api 30 from 29 ?

[cortinico]

So what could have happened is that in your bump, the minSdk version got moved from 21 to 23 (or above).
The change could have been imposed by one of the transitive dependency in your project.

React Native is specifying minSdkVersion 21, but if any of your library or your project is specifying a higher number, that will prevail.

Specifically with api lvl 23, the native libraries are uncompressed in the APK, resulting in the an apparent bigger size of the APK (see here https://stackoverflow.com/a/63417612).

The best to investigate this is if someone could create a reproduce on Github, adding a base commit on RN 0.64 and a subsequent commit with the bump to 0.66. That would greatly help investigate what happened.

[github-actions]

⚠️	Missing Reproducible Example
ℹ️	It looks like your issue is missing a reproducible example. Please provide a Snack or a repository that demonstrates the issue you are reporting in a minimal, complete, and reproducible manner.

[anirudhagarwal1]

To help better debug, attaching the screenshot of the diff in the size increase of libs.

[cortinico]

To help better debug, attaching the screenshot of the diff in the size increase of libs.

From which version are you migrating from @anirudhagarwal1

[anirudhagarwal1]

To help better debug, attaching the screenshot of the diff in the size increase of libs.

From which version are you migrating from @anirudhagarwal1

I am upgrading from 0.63.4.

Also one more question. The above screenshot is of a release build, then why do I see some debug .so files(for ex: libhermes-executor-common-debug.so)? Is that expected?

[liamjones]

This is also what we experienced upgrading from 0.63.4 to 0.66.3 too - about 6MB of new libs (including hermes/debug ones in non-Hermes release builds).

[cortinico]

The above screenshot is of a release build, then why do I see some debug .so files(for ex: libhermes-executor-common-debug.so)? Is that expected?

Nope is not. The react.gradle script has a specific section for removing the .so that are not relevant to your build. Specifically:

react-native/react.gradle

Lines 360 to 379 in a03bd2f

	if (enableHermes) {
	// For Hermes, delete all the libjsc* files
	include "**/libjsc*.so"
	if (cleanup) {
	// Reduce size by deleting the debugger/inspector
	include '**/libhermes-executor-debug.so'
	} else {
	// Release libs take precedence and must be removed
	// to allow debugging
	include '**/libhermes-executor-release.so'
	}
	} else {
	// For JSC, delete all the libhermes* files
	include "**/libhermes*.so"
	// Delete the libjscexecutor from release build
	if (cleanup) {
	include "**/libjscexecutor.so"
	}
	}

The best would be to try on an empty project on RN 0.66.0 and verify if it's working correctly or not.

[liamjones]

Yep, doesn't look like it's working:

 ~/code  npx react-native init RNReleaseTest                                                                                                                                                                                                                    ∞
Need to install the following packages:
  react-native
Ok to proceed? (y) y
[snip]
 ~/code  cd RNReleaseTest                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           ∞
 ~/code/RNReleaseTest  cd android                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   ∞
 ~/code/RNReleaseTest/android  ./gradlew assembleRelease                                                                                                                                                                                                            ∞
Starting a Gradle Daemon (subsequent builds will be faster)
[snip]
BUILD SUCCESSFUL in 1m 6s
38 actionable tasks: 38 executed
 ~/code/RNReleaseTest/android  grep "enableHermes:" app/build.gradle                                                                                                                                                                                                ∞
    enableHermes: false,  // clean and rebuild if changing
 ~/code/RNReleaseTest/android  zip -sf app/build/outputs/apk/release/app-release.apk | grep libhermes                                                                                                                                                               ∞
  lib/arm64-v8a/libhermes-executor-common-debug.so
  lib/arm64-v8a/libhermes-executor-common-release.so
  lib/arm64-v8a/libhermes-executor-debug.so
  lib/arm64-v8a/libhermes-executor-release.so
  lib/arm64-v8a/libhermes-inspector.so
  lib/armeabi-v7a/libhermes-executor-common-debug.so
  lib/armeabi-v7a/libhermes-executor-common-release.so
  lib/armeabi-v7a/libhermes-executor-debug.so
  lib/armeabi-v7a/libhermes-executor-release.so
  lib/armeabi-v7a/libhermes-inspector.so
  lib/x86/libhermes-executor-common-debug.so
  lib/x86/libhermes-executor-common-release.so
  lib/x86/libhermes-executor-debug.so
  lib/x86/libhermes-executor-release.so
  lib/x86/libhermes-inspector.so
  lib/x86_64/libhermes-executor-common-debug.so
  lib/x86_64/libhermes-executor-common-release.so
  lib/x86_64/libhermes-executor-debug.so
  lib/x86_64/libhermes-executor-release.so
  lib/x86_64/libhermes-inspector.so
 ~/code/RNReleaseTest/android  zip -sf app/build/outputs/apk/release/app-release.apk | grep libjscexecutor                                                                                                                                                          ∞
  lib/arm64-v8a/libjscexecutor.so
  lib/armeabi-v7a/libjscexecutor.so
  lib/x86/libjscexecutor.so
  lib/x86_64/libjscexecutor.so

[anirudhagarwal1]

@cortinico Do you need anything else from my end to help you debug the issue?

[cortinico]

@cortinico Do you need anything else from my end to help you debug the issue?

Nope, thanks for the input 👍. I was able to reproduce, and the bug is effectively there on 0.66.0. I've also tested on 0.67.0-rc.6 and the regression got already fixed.

From @liamjones command, running on 0.67:

$ zip -sf android/app/build/outputs/apk/release/app-release.apk | grep libhermes
  lib/arm64-v8a/libhermes-executor-common-release.so
  lib/arm64-v8a/libhermes-executor-release.so
  lib/arm64-v8a/libhermes.so
  lib/armeabi-v7a/libhermes-executor-common-release.so
  lib/armeabi-v7a/libhermes-executor-release.so
  lib/armeabi-v7a/libhermes.so
  lib/x86/libhermes-executor-common-release.so
  lib/x86/libhermes-executor-release.so
  lib/x86/libhermes.so
  lib/x86_64/libhermes-executor-common-release.so
  lib/x86_64/libhermes-executor-release.so
  lib/x86_64/libhermes.so

The fix is most likely this #32257 which haven't been included in 0.66.0. Given that 0.67 is really close to be released, I think we should be good to go with that.

Should there be blockers for 0.67.0, we can consider backporting #32257 to a point release for 0.66.x

Closing as this was essentially resolved. Feel free to re-open or comment if needed 👍

EDIT: typo

[ursnj]

This issue not resolved in 0.67 also, im seeing same bundle size with newer version also.

[weihangChen]

after upgrading from 0.66 to 0.67 it went down for 30MB, but there is still a 40MB up compared to previous version. But I did have android minsdk bumped from 21 to 23, as others suggested, it also contributes to the increases of size

[mokshmodi96]

I bumped my minSdkVersion to 23 from 21 and apk size doubled but i found a workaround-ish on stackoverflow linked below here