Stuck with a React Native bug? Here are the best places to find help
React Native hasn’t yet reached version 1. It is not a stable platform. That can lead to hours of frustration whilst you scan the web for a fix. However, not all information is available from a Google search…
Stack Overflow
Most library authors want users to get help via Stack Overflow before they raise a bug/question in the library’s own issue page. SO also incentivises people to respond to questions. Write a good question and the community should provide you with some good answers.
Top tip: leverage SO’s tag functionality to make your search React Native specific. Here’s the link: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/react-native
GitHub
The vast majority of RN packages and libraries have their source code and issues pages hosted on GitHub — this is the place where you can directly contact the library authors. These people are usually the shining light of the community, so please don’t waste their time.
Golden rules for getting help this way:
- Make sure your issue is definitely caused or closely related to the GitHub page in question.
- Make sure your issue hasn’t been raised before.
- Always follow the issue template if one has been provided.
Top tip: when searching GitHub issues, remove the default filtering to view closed issues that have been answered before.
Expo Slack
Most of our customers use Expo to help manage their React Native project, and with good reason. Expo can massively reduce the complexity of running a React Native project.
If your app is simple then you can probably use Expo’s ‘managed’ workflow. This means that Expo carries out the build process for you — good bye Xcode! Be sure to investigate this option if you are not currently using Expo.
If you are using Expo then the Expo Slack chatrooms are a great place to ask a question about React Native. So long as you are concise, friendly and open you’ll be sure to find help. You can join the Slack via this link — https://slack.expo.io/
Top tip: tag myself (Tom Riglar) or our in-house React Native expert (Charles Killer) in your question and we will try our best to help you out.
Professional Help
Sometimes the internet isn’t enough! It can take years to build up enough React Native experience to fix complex problems.
At App Sapiens we offer engineering help from as little as four hours. Our React Native specialists will work with you to identify the problem and provide a fix. Once your problem has been solved, we will tell you how we did it and what to look out for in future.
We find that a lot of issues occur when projects don’t follow best practices — we’d love to share our insights with you and help make your app the best it can be.
Check out our reviews on Clutch or drop us a message via our website to find out more.
