React Native iOS screens stop rendering after navigation (works fine on Android)

I’ve built a small Amazon Price Tracker app in React Native. The app is fairly lightweight and not CPU-intensive:

  • Uses React Navigation

  • Screens:

    • Home Screen → lists tracked products

    • Item Edit Screen → shows product details + price history chart

    • Deals Screen → lists available deals

  • All processing happens on the server

  • API calls are async

  • No heavy local computation

  • App has been live on Android for ~1 year without issues

Problem (iOS only):

On iOS devices:

  • Initial load works perfectly

  • After a few navigations between screens:

    • Some screens don’t render at all

    • Some screens partially render

    • UI becomes inconsistent/unpredictable

  • Android has zero issues

This happens on real devices, not just the simulator.

I’ve searched Google, StackOverflow, and Reddit but couldn’t find a clear solution.

Question:

What are the most common causes of this behavior on iOS in React Native apps?
What are the best practices to prevent iOS screens from failing to render after navigation?

Specifically looking for:

  • iOS-specific rendering pitfalls

  • React Navigation lifecycle issues

  • memory/view recycling problems

  • known RN + iOS rendering constraints

  • production-grade best practices for stability

1
Jan 29 at 6:50 AM
User Avatarmlg
#android#ios#reactjs#react-native#performance

Accepted Answer

Most of the these iOS -blank or half-rendered after a few navigations issues in React Native come from react-native-screens or native-stack detaching or freezing views or from silent runtime errors maybe even memory issue.

You could try a few of these things, maybe it’ll help:

  1. Try temporarily setting detachInactiveScreens: false and also disable
     freezeOnBlur/enableFreeze if you used. If it fixes it then update React Navigation & react-native-screens to compatible versions and keep detaching/freeze off for the affected navigator.

  2. Add crash/JS error reporting + an ErrorBoundary which is a hidden exception in iOS release often looks like a blank screen.

  3. Check for iOS-specific rendering pitfalls and avoid removeClippedSubviews on iOS lists, cap/heavily memoize chart data and also clean up all listeners, timers or requests on unmount to prevent memory leaks.

    Also keep upgrade react-native-screens, react-navigation, and react-native-safe-area-context together to same or latest version.

User AvatarAbdul_Basit
Jan 29 at 7:41 AM
1