What to do when you need remote debugging enabled for your expo app to work and you need your expo app to work to enable remote debugging

The problem:

I found that adding redux to my expo app would make my app error out if I didn't choose “Debug Remote JS” in Expo’s developer menu (the one you open by shaking your device). It would say something like “main is not registered” when it’s actually been registered. The issue is that the developer menu cannot be opened when the app is in this crashed state and the developer menu appears to be the only way to enable remote debugging for JS.

The solution was to register a dummy, redux-free component in my index.js file (scaffolded by the expo-cli) in place of my App.js file. (that initialized a redux store).

So you have an index.js file that looks like this:

Here’s the content of the FakeApp file

Once that loads, I shake my phone and choose “Debug Remote JS” and carry on.