React-native-firebase: Firestore: Caller does not have permission to execute on iOS but not Android with same codebase

[noahtallen]

I'm having a nifty bug where I get this error: "Firestore: The caller does not have permission to execute the specified operation. (firestore/permission-denied)." in iOS only, but not in Android using identical versions of the codebase. In fact, I have both iOS and Android emulators going to the same node server and I'm going back and forth between them and setting breakpoints to see where it's happening. I don't have any native code that would make the difference other than the config stuff required to set up the packges I have installed for the project. Here's a snippet of the query:

let query = momentsRef.where('uid', '==', uid)
query.get().then((snapshot) => { /*etc*/ }).catch((e) => /*fails here on iOS with the error above*/)

The security rules in Firestore for momentsRef (which points to 'user_activity') are:

    match /user_activity/{activityId} {
        allow write: if request.auth.uid != null;
    allow read: if request.auth.uid != null;
    }

This code is called after the user has successfully logged in with the same method on both iOS and Android. I have also double checked that uid is defined on iOS when the where query is generated.

Environment

Only on iOS, not on Android. Tested using an iPhone 6 emulator on iOS 11.2 and a Nexus 5X emulator on Nougat.

1. Application Target Platform: ?

2. Development Operating System: This was built and tested on macOS 10.13.2 using node v9.3.0

3. Build Tools: Android build tools

4. React Native version: "react-native": "0.51.0"

5. RNFirebase Version: "react-native-firebase": "3.2.2"
   The gradle configuration. Note that we add com.google.android.gms elsewhere and exclude it here so that the same version is used across the app.

    implementation(project(':react-native-firebase')) {
        transitive = false
        exclude group: "com.google.android.gms"
    }
    compile "com.google.firebase:firebase-core:11.8.0"
    compile "com.google.firebase:firebase-auth:11.8.0"
    compile "com.google.firebase:firebase-analytics:11.8.0"
    compile "com.google.firebase:firebase-firestore:11.8.0"

The pod configuration for iOS:

  pod 'RNFirebase', :path => '../node_modules/react-native-firebase/iOS'
  pod 'Firebase/Analytics'
  pod 'Firebase/Auth' , '~> 4.8.1'
  pod 'Firebase/Firestore'

1. Firebase Module: Firestore

[chrisbianca]

What’s the reasoning for fixing the version of Auth to 4.8.1?

This version was actually dropped from release by Firebase due to issues - I’d suggest removing the version restriction, updating your pods and seeing whether this is the cause of the problem.

[noahtallen]

Nice! One of our developers had added that to try to fix a different bug, but it seems that it was not needed. I removed that line, ran pod install, and then deleted the app from the emulator. I also deleted and cleaned the npm cache. Then after running react-native run-ios again, it seems to be working perfectly. Thanks!

[chrisbianca]

Awesome, glad it's resolved!