Fix crash on release versions after AGP 7.3 bump

[cortinico]

Summary

Release versions are currently broken on main. This happened once we bumped the AGP version to 7.3. It seems like that the path we used to use for assets has changed.

The app build successfully but it fails to start as it can't load the bundle.

This is also causing the hermes e2e test to fail: facebook/hermes#821

Changelog

[Android] [Fixed] - Fix crash on release versions after AGP 7.3 bump

Test Plan

Tested this locally and it works fine with RN Tester (can run a release version of it).

Plus, inspecting the zip:

Before

$ unzip -l packages/rn-tester/android/app/build/outputs/apk/hermes/release/app-hermes-arm64-v8a-release.apk | grep android.bundle
  1248608  01-01-1981 01:01   assets/mergeHermesReleaseAssets/RNTesterApp.android.bundle

After

$ unzip -l packages/rn-tester/android/app/build/outputs/apk/hermes/release/app-hermes-arm64-v8a-release.apk | grep android.bundle
  1248608  01-01-1981 01:01   assets/RNTesterApp.android.bundle

[facebook-github-bot]

@cortinico has imported this pull request. If you are a Meta employee, you can view this diff on Phabricator.

[react-native-bot]

This pull request was successfully merged by @cortinico in 6125f1f.

^{When will my fix make it into a release? | Upcoming Releases}

[mattijsf]

Thanks for this. I updated from 7.2.1 to 7.3.1 and ran into this. React Native 0.70.3 still does not have this patch included so for now used patch-package to make it work.

[cortinico]

Thanks for this. I updated from 7.2.1 to 7.3.1 and ran into this. React Native 0.70.3 still does not have this patch included so for now used patch-package to make it work.

I would highly encourage you to don't use patch-package. What's the reason why you bumped AGP to 7.3?

[mattijsf]

I thought it was needed due to a library that I included that relies on the newest kotlin version. Android Studio complained that it requires a more recent version of the gradle plugin.

[cortinico]

I thought it was needed due to a library that I included that relies on the newest kotlin version. Android Studio complained that it requires a more recent version of the gradle plugin.

Nope it's not. Android Studio is really eager in asking you to always update AGP, resulting in actually breaking your project sadly :/ I'm investigating if we can turn off those dialogs for React Native projects by hiding the AGP version.

[hotaryuzaki]

i got this issue this week, I upgraded RN to 0.70.7 and set buildToolsVersion to 33 because I make postnotifications permission requests for Android 13.
When I build, there is a strong warning that suggests I update Gradle to a version higher than 7.2.1, so i set 7.3.1
Then the app will crash when opening either AAB or APK.

My temporary solution is downgrade to 7.2.1

[cortinico]

i got this issue this week, I upgraded RN to 0.70.7 and set buildToolsVersion to 33 because I make postnotifications permission requests for Android 13. When I build, there is a strong warning that suggests I update Gradle to a version higher than 7.2.1, so i set 7.3.1 Then the app will crash when opening either AAB or APK.

My temporary solution is downgrade to 7.2.1

Or you can update React Native to 0.71 which has supports for this out of the box

[hotaryuzaki]

i got this issue this week, I upgraded RN to 0.70.7 and set buildToolsVersion to 33 because I make postnotifications permission requests for Android 13. When I build, there is a strong warning that suggests I update Gradle to a version higher than 7.2.1, so i set 7.3.1 Then the app will crash when opening either AAB or APK.
My temporary solution is to downgrade to 7.2.1

Or you can update React Native to 0.71 which has support for this out of the box

My app is a bare expo and the SDK version is currently 47. maybe I need to hold it until I upgrade to SDK 48.