Shipping to Google Play: What Actually Broke (And How We Fixed It)

Today, Build 10 of Big Bang Smugglers published to Google Play internal testing. The app launches. Google Sign-In works. It’s real.

Getting here took six broken builds and several sessions of ADB log archaeology. This post is the full story — what broke, why it broke, and what actually fixed it.

The Setup

Big Bang Smugglers is built on Expo SDK 54 with React Native 0.81.5. We use Firebase Web SDK for auth and Firestore, @react-native-google-signin/google-signin for native Google auth, and EAS Build for production AAB generation. The app targets Android initially with Google Play distribution.

On paper, this is a well-supported stack. In practice, we hit three completely distinct production bugs that looked like one problem.

Six Builds, Three Problems

Build 3 — The First AAB (Never Tested)

Our first production build went straight to Play Console without device testing. Mistake. It had expo-dev-client in production dependencies (not devDependencies). That package injects Expo’s developer menu into the app. In a production binary, it tries to initialize and fails hard.

The symptom was a kotlin.UninitializedPropertyAccessException: lateinit property devMenuHost has not been initialized crash in expo.modules.devmenu.DevMenuActivity. We didn’t know this at the time. We couldn’t get useful ADB logs.

Builds 4-6 — Chasing the Wrong Problem

We saw “crashes on open” and started modifying the Firebase native SDK configuration, toggling newArchEnabled, removing @react-native-firebase entirely. Each change introduced a new failure mode. Build 6 (Firebase completely removed) crashed faster than Build 3 — immediate crash with zero logcat output.

# The regression chart
Build 3: crash after splash (devMenuHost)
Build 4: same crash
Build 5: crash after opening (different cause)
Build 6: immediate crash, no logs at all

We had lost ground while fixing the wrong thing.

Getting Useful ADB Logs

The key to breaking through was finally getting a clean ADB capture. Three previous attempts produced nothing but Samsung system service noise (SLPASVC, EuiccConnector, etc.) because the app process wasn’t spawning during the capture window.

The working sequence:

adb shell am force-stop com.bbsgames.bigbangsmugglers
adb logcat -c
adb logcat > C:\Users\gregs\launch.log
# NOW open the app

Force-stopping first is critical. Without it, the app may already be running from a previous hang — no new process spawns, logcat captures nothing relevant.

Root Cause #1: expo-dev-client in Production

The first ADB log that actually captured our app (Build 8, which had Firebase restored) showed the devMenuHost crash clearly in entries from weeks prior. Once we confirmed expo-dev-client was in production dependencies, we removed it and kept it out.

// package.json — wrong
"dependencies": {
  "expo-dev-client": "~6.0.20"  // ❌ production crash
}

// either remove entirely or move to devDependencies

Also check eas.json:

{
  "build": {
    "production": {
      "developmentClient": false  // must be false or absent
    }
  }
}

Root Cause #2: Missing EAS Environment Variable

Build 8 launched. That was progress. But the app showed a loading screen and never progressed — the classic “sits there forever” hang.

The culprit was in AuthContext.tsx:

GoogleSignin.configure({
  webClientId: process.env.EXPO_PUBLIC_GOOGLE_WEB_CLIENT_ID,
  offlineAccess: true,
});

const unsubscribe = onAuthStateChanged(auth, async (user) => {
  // ...
});

EXPO_PUBLIC_GOOGLE_WEB_CLIENT_ID was in .env.local for local development but never set as an EAS production environment variable. In the production build, it was undefined. When GoogleSignin.configure({ webClientId: undefined }) threw a native exception synchronously, the entire useEffect aborted before onAuthStateChanged was ever subscribed. loading stayed true forever.

Fix: set the variable in EAS and add a defensive try/catch:

npx eas-cli env:create \
  --name EXPO_PUBLIC_GOOGLE_WEB_CLIENT_ID \
  --value "YOUR_WEB_CLIENT_ID_HERE" \
  --environment production \
  --type string \
  --visibility plaintext \
  --non-interactive

// AuthContext.tsx — defensive configure
try {
  GoogleSignin.configure({
    webClientId: process.env.EXPO_PUBLIC_GOOGLE_WEB_CLIENT_ID,
    offlineAccess: true,
  });
} catch (e) {
  console.warn('GoogleSignin.configure failed:', e);
}

// Safety net: if Firebase Auth never fires, unblock after 10s
const loadingTimeout = setTimeout(() => setLoading(false), 10000);

const unsubscribe = onAuthStateChanged(auth, async (user) => {
  clearTimeout(loadingTimeout);
  // ...
});

return () => {
  clearTimeout(loadingTimeout);
  unsubscribe();
};

Build 9 launched and reached the sign-in screen. 🎉

Root Cause #3: Play App Signing SHA-1

Google Sign-In failed. The sign-in flow opened, but authentication was rejected. This is a classic Play App Signing gotcha.

Google Play re-signs your app with its own certificate when you use Play App Signing (the default for new apps). The SHA-1 fingerprint that Firebase and Google Sign-In validate against is Google’s signing certificate, not your upload certificate. If you only register the EAS build keystore fingerprint in Firebase, it won’t work in production.

The fix:

1. Go to Play Console → Your App → Release → Setup → App integrity
2. Find “App signing key certificate” — copy the SHA-1 (not the upload key)
3. Go to Firebase Console → Project Settings → Your Android app → Add fingerprint
4. Paste the SHA-1, save, download the updated google-services.json
5. Commit and rebuild

# After updating google-services.json
git add app/google-services.json
git commit -m "fix: add Play App Signing SHA-1 fingerprint for Google Sign-In"
git push
npx eas-cli build --platform android --profile production --non-interactive

Build 10 shipped. Google Sign-In works. App is live on internal testing.

The Three-Problem Summary

Problem	Symptom	Fix
expo-dev-client in prod deps	Crash on devMenuHost	Remove from dependencies
Missing EAS env var	Infinite loading screen	Set EXPO_PUBLIC_GOOGLE_WEB_CLIENT_ID in EAS production
Play App Signing SHA-1 not in Firebase	Google Sign-In rejected	Add Play signing cert SHA-1 to Firebase

Lessons

Test on a real device before uploading to Play Console. Build 3 went straight to the store untested. Three problems would have been caught immediately.

ADB is your friend, but timing is everything. Force-stop the app, clear the buffer, start logcat, then launch. In that order, every time.

EAS env vars are not your local env vars. Anything in .env.local needs to be explicitly set in EAS environments. Check all EXPO_PUBLIC_* variables before any production build.

Play App Signing changes the signing identity. If you’re using Play App Signing (you probably are), the SHA-1 in Firebase must come from Play Console’s App integrity page, not from your keystore.

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Big Bang Smugglers is a space trading game currently in internal testing. If you want early access, it’ll be on the Play Store soon. Follow along at bigbangsmugglers.com.