Appcenter-sdk-react-native: Manually linked appcenter not packing properly

[zzorba]

I followed the instructions to link the appcenter library manually, despite the strong warnings at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/appcenter/sdk/getting-started/react-native#32-ios-only-integrate-the-ios-sdk-manually. We are not currently using CocoaPods, and would rather not start at this point in time.

At first it seemed like the project was working properly (we were able to deploy a build to AppCenter), but when we added the appcenter-crashes module our package would no longer archive (either in appcenter or in xcode).

I'm getting this error:
.../nativeapp/node_modules/appcenter-crashes/ios/AppCenterReactNativeCrashes/AppCenterReactNativeCrashesUtils.m:3:9: Module 'AppCenterCrashes' not found

Which seems to correspond to this line of code:
@import AppCenterCrashes.MSErrorReport;

The problem (as far as I can make out), seems to be that the npm controlled node_modules/appcenter-crashes/ios/AppCenterReactNativeCrashes.xcodeproj has its framework search path set only to look for frameworks in the $(SRCROOT)/../../../ios/Pods folder. Which would be great if I was using CocoaPods. And while I could edit this, the changes wouldn't be committed since this lives in node_modules.

Is there some workaround for this that I've missed, or is CocoaPods effectively required at this point?

Environment:
OS: macOS Sierra 10.12.6
Node: 9.2.0
Yarn: 1.3.2
npm: 5.5.1
Watchman: 4.9.0
Xcode: Xcode 9.2 Build version 9C40b
Android Studio: 3.0 AI-171.4443003

Packages: (wanted => installed)
react: 16.2.0 => 16.2.0
react-native: 0.54.2 => 0.54.2

[zzorba]

And of course, as soon as I posted this I came up with a possible solution:

If instead of calling the folder with 3rd party dependencies 'Vendor' I name it 'Pods' it is able to archive/build. But that doesn't seem like a great solution?

[achocron]

Sorry about the delay!

It seems to me that fixing this is just a matter of adding the Vendor folder to framework search paths (while leaving Pods as is) in the xcodeproj files that we use (so we would update on the SDK side). I'll investigate this a bit more and get back to you.

[guperrot]

We will include a fix to search for Vendor folder in the next release, but in the meantime, you can rename Vendor folder as Pods like you already found out.

[zzorba]

Thanks!

[krystiansliwa]

When do you plan to release version with that fix?

[guperrot]

A release is coming this week or early next week @krystiansliwa @zzorba.

[krystiansliwa]

Hi, sorry for spamming but what is the status of release? Linking problem is currently blocker for me. I need to decide if I will use AppCenterSDK or Crashlytics this week.
I saw also that there is new version of AppCenter Apple SDK, new release will use that one?

[dhei]

@zzorba @krystiansliwa App Center React Native v1.5.0 is released with fix of this issue. I am going to close this issue for now, please let us know if the issue still exists.