Updating Expo SDK for your project

I wrote before, that I’m trying building mobile apps using different technologies. For the latest my IOS app - Polski Kodeks Pracy I wanted to try React Native and found Expo. I really liked it. Really quick start and comfortable building to .ipa.

For the next my app I decided to use Expo too (using my existing project) and integrate Admob banners. After an investigation, I found, that’s Admob SDK was added in new Expo SDK version and it’s outdated in my project. The question arose before me - How to update Expo SDK in the existing project?

After spending a little time, I want to share with you my step by step flow, how to update Expo in an existing project:

The first thing you probably need to do is check the latest version of Expo SDK here. Guys from Expo write posts about each new version of SDK (i.e. upgrading Expo SDK from 20.0.0 to 21.0.0) for updating it in the projects, but after upgrading it I had some issues. Maybe someone will have similar an errors and I can help with this article.

Steps:

1. Check all points before “removing .node_modules folder” in an official post about new version on Expo Blog.
2. Remov the .node_modules folder in your project. You can do it using this command in your project directory: sudo rm -rf .node_modules.
3. Install dependencies using sudo npm i command
4. Run chmod -R 777 node_modules command in the project directory. It means all users can read, edit and run these files
5. Run react-native link. It’s using for linking all libraries with native dependencies in your project.
6. Now, you can open XDE, choose your project and press “Restart”.
7. If all is ok in XDE, but your app shows a red screen with errors, go to point 3 and run sudo yarn install in the project directory.

After all these simple steps, everything should be up to date.