Road to v0.65 Discussion

[nadiia]

The branch cut has happened.
Current latest release: v0.64.2

Highlighted Changes

• Hermes 0.8
  • New Garbage Collector https://twitter.com/tmikov/status/1387126479801126913
  • Hermes Intl support on Android Intl Support facebook/hermes#23 (comment)
  • HV32 (SMI + Pointer compression): https://twitter.com/tmikov/status/1385629737121243140
  • An important perf fix : Performance drop using cloneDeep of lodash facebook/hermes#471 (comment)

Work Required

• Merge #31128
• Rename unstable_RootTagContext to RootTagContext
• Make RootTag's type opaque
• RC cut 0.65-stable
• Work before RC.0
  • Revert legacy rootTag just on 0.65 branch. PR is here to merge
  • Support for Xcode 12.5 (alternately, skip these and use the same patch as used on 0.64)
    • facebook/react-native@8eceee7
    • facebook/react-native@36b58a8
    • facebook/react-native@b9243e0
  • Hermes published 0.8
    • Pin Hermes pod to 0.8: Pin hermes-engine to 0.8.x for RN 0.65 facebook/react-native#31456
    • Bump Hermes npm to 0.8: facebook/react-native@2b67631
    • Show Hermes version on NewAppScreen: facebook/react-native@c54aecc
  • Security Related Fix: facebook/react-native@33ef82c
  • Bump CLI (and Metro): facebook/react-native@0d32aef
  • fix(hermes): fixed hermes build on iOS: facebook/react-native@59abb5f
  • Bump flipper deps to 0.91 (iOS) to support XCode 12.5 out of the box: facebook/react-native@4246c75
  • Bump flipper deps to 0.91 (android): Bump Android deps to 0.91 facebook/react-native#31675
  • Gradle 6.9, Android Gradle Plugin 4.2.1: facebook/react-native@547b4c9
  • bump buildToolsVersion to 30.0.2 facebook/react-native@5d01110
  • Upgrade jsc-android to 250230.2.1: facebook/react-native@341f061
  • remove jcenter: facebook/react-native@70da640
  • find-node.sh supports Homebrew on M1 facebook/react-native@502b819
• Publish RC.0
• Update Docs
  • New Docs for RootTagContext
• Changelog draft
• Upgrade helper update

Optional Picks

• Hermes published 0.8.1
  • Hermes Support for ARM64 simulator & Catalyst: arm64 simulators & catalyst support facebook/hermes#475
• Hermes inspector improvement: facebook/react-native@7579ed3
• Fix for UIManager module not found: facebook/react-native@b0e8c1e
• Add onPressIn & onPressOut props to Text: facebook/react-native@1d92454
• localeIdentifier missing from flow type of I18nManager: facebook/react-native@6b91ae7
• use maven-publish plugin: facebook/react-native@fc6fc63
• fix: update to @jest/create-cache-key-function@27 facebook/react-native@2f477b1
• [iOS] Custom NSURLSession configuration facebook/react-native@58444c7

Dates

We are thinking about these rough dates for this release:

• Cut Release Candidate: TBC
• Publish as Release Candidate: TBC
• Publish as Stable: TBC

[grabbou]

There's work happening in Hermes to support Catalyst facebook/hermes#475. It's a pretty important update to Hermes, I would recommend we wait for it to land before releasing 0.65.

[TheSavior]

I dug into the two Hermes related picks that @grabbou and @dulinriley flagged with the Hermes team to understand if they are required for 0.65. Neither of them fix regressions introduced in this release, but rather add additional features or support. So I think 0.65 could proceed without them so that we aren't blocked.

I've updated the OP with the requested picks that are critical, and moved some down to another section that are non critical picks.

For the Xcode 12.5 support, it sounds like there is one remaining issue that @PeteTheHeat has flagged. It sounds like if you are using Hermes without Flipper on iOS, you might run into this error. Peter is still working on this. A reasonable workaround to unblock 0.65 though would be to use the same temporary patch used for 0.64. Then the real fix will hopefully land in time for 0.66.

[kelset]

hey folks, here's an update: me and @tido64 spent the last couple hours cherry picking all the pickable stuff from the top comment plus a few more commits that were needed (you can see the full list here: https://github.com/facebook/react-native/commits/0.65-stable), plus we did a round of testing.

As part of it, and with the help of @Titozzz we have identified a problem caused by caching, which we fixed locally: facebook/react-native@cae0637 (this will need to be backported to main via a proper PR).

After doing that we were able to do the full round of testing, and while on my machine everything was ✅ both on one of @Titozzz's machine (the other one was ✅) and on @tido64's there was an Android crash on the RNTestProject very similar to this one: facebook/flipper#515

Since it's so inconsistent (on 2 machines it works, on two it crashes), I think it's safe to proceed with the RC0 so that more folks can get their hands on it and we can get to the bottom of that Android/Flipper-related problem; moreover, there are a couple of PRs still waiting to be merged:

• Bump Android deps to 0.91 facebook/react-native#31675
• arm64 simulators & catalyst support facebook/hermes#475

So for sure at least an RC1 will be needed.

Me and @tido64 will most likely publish RC0 tomorrow late-morning EU time.

[danilobuerger]

@kelset would it be possible to cherry pick facebook/react-native@4d40b53 into rc0 as it resolves more find node issues on m1?

[birkir]

Can we cherrypick the High contrast mode for DynamicColorIOS: facebook/react-native@4b9d9dd

[kelset]

@danilobuerger @birkir given the amount of time it takes to cherry-pick + test, we will do RC0 today without those commits, but we'll try to cherry pick them for next RC

[danilobuerger]

@kelset sure I understand. Please keep in mind that people on m1 using nvm (or other node managers) will not be able to build for iOS devices without that patch. It will error out.

[tido64]

Hi folks, a quick update: We tried to publish RC0 but are hitting this issue:

#!/bin/bash -eo pipefail
./scripts/circleci/buck_fetch.sh
+ buck fetch ReactAndroid/src/test/java/com/facebook/react/modules
Not using buckd because watchman isn't installed.
Picked up _JAVA_OPTIONS: -XX:+UnlockExperimentalVMOptions -XX:+UseCGroupMemoryLimitForHeap
No build file at ReactAndroid/src/main/third-party/java/robolectric/4.4/BUCK when resolving target //ReactAndroid/src/main/third-party/java/robolectric/4.4:robolectric.

This error happened while trying to get dependency '//ReactAndroid/src/main/third-party/java/robolectric/4.4:robolectric' of target '//ReactAndroid/src/test/java/com/facebook/react/modules:modules'

Exited with code exit status 1
CircleCI received exit code 1

You can find the full log here: https://app.circleci.com/pipelines/github/facebook/react-native/9356/workflows/f434e5f7-2845-4d11-b180-45a665dba6a5/jobs/204995

We're currently investigating it, but essentially won't be able to publish until this is fixed.

[a-eid]

RC0:

• android crashes on startup
• iOS builds successfully on M1 machine ( using n node version manager & xcode 12.4 ).

[kelset]

Hey folks, after many tweaks and roadblocks we managed to get to the point of publishing RC0. Sadly, the problem that during testing was inconsistently happening (in 2 out of 4 machines that tested locally) about Android crash on startup seems to be happening way more.

To keep the conversation swift and reduce the overhead of comments, let's move the conversation about RC0 here: #235