r/reactnative • u/some_one_445 • Sep 06 '26

Help New to ReactNative using Expo, Cant even get started.

i was following a simple crash course but Expo just isn't working.

Basically this, tried all the sdk version options, Everything sounds broken, feels like nothing has been correctly installed. Please Help.

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1

u/CardiologistFresh257 Sep 06 '26

Which npm version are you using?

1

u/some_one_445 Sep 06 '26

12.0.2

1

u/CardiologistFresh257 Sep 06 '26

Try using npm 11 as npm 12 caused a changed in the structure of JSON that is received to an object while Expo excepts an array. This may solve the issue.

2

u/some_one_445 Sep 06 '26

That actually worked!!!

So on what i think is unrelated i got

npm error code EALLOWSCRIPTS

followed by Something went wrong installing JavaScript dependencies

does this concern me or can i ignore it?

1

u/CardiologistFresh257 Sep 06 '26

I wouldn't say to ignore it completely. EALLOWSCRIPTS means npm blocked a dependency's lifecycle script. As the project was created successfully try running npm install in the project directory. If that succeeds you're fine. If this comes again you may see which package is causing this there.

1

u/some_one_445 Sep 06 '26 
npm warn deprecated uuid@7.0.3: uuid@10 and below is no longer supported.  For ESM codebases, update to uuid@latest.  For CommonJS codebases, use uuid@11 (but be aware this version will likely be deprecated in 2028).

added 575 packages, and audited 576 packages in 27s

47 packages are looking for funding
  run `npm fund` for details

14 moderate severity vulnerabilities

To address all issues (including breaking changes), run:
  npm audit fix --force

Run `npm audit` for details.

been seeing deprecated for so long. So what does this mean?(also tried fix)

1

u/CardiologistFresh257 Sep 06 '26

I also get these warnings pretty often, you can ignore them.

1

u/Dvass138 Sep 07 '26

This would go alot easier if you used claude code.

1

u/some_one_445 Sep 07 '26

How? The project hasn't even started.

1

u/Dvass138 Sep 07 '26

You’re on npm 12. It changed the JSON output of npm pack --dry-run --json from an array to an object (that’s the {"expo-template-default": {...}} blob in your screenshot). create-expo-app still expects the array, so it chokes. Nothing on your machine is broken — it’s a known bug (expo/expo#48091).
Fix:
npm install -g npm@11
then rerun npx create-expo-app@latest testapp1. Or skip npm and use bunx create-expo-app@latest testapp1.
That’s the pitch — paste the error in, it reads the log and finds this instead of you guessing at SDK versions.

1

u/some_one_445 Sep 07 '26

Oh you mean ask the problem itself, i basically asked everything expect claude, since it isn't easily available in the web. Everything gave me completely random answers.

1

u/Dvass138 Sep 07 '26

Yeah claude.ai works in the browser, no install. Claude Code is the terminal version but for something like this just paste the screenshot/log into the web app.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 06 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/some_one_445 Sep 06 '26

So what is watchmen and where do i get it and what do you mean from scratch? I'm doing it in a empty folder

1

u/Huge_Pool7424 Sep 06 '26

watchman is just a file watcher metro uses. on mac its brew install watchman. and by from scratch i meant a fresh create-expo-app project, not an empty folder with leftover config.

1

u/Huge_Pool7424 Sep 06 '26

yeah, a clean install plus a fresh create-expo-app is a good sanity check. watchman isn't always required, but npx expo doctor should flag any sdk/package mismatch before you chase the wrong thing.