React Native - Additional notes

Polyfills

Before you proceed, ensure you have polyfills for TextEncoder/TextDecoder.

Insecure connection issue in Android

Recent versions of Android SDK do not allow insecure (not HTTPS) HTTP connections. This is likely to show up in production builds only. You will notice STOMP connection not getting established and reconnect attempt being made.

To bypass the checks, please follow suggestions at https://github.com/stomp-js/stompjs/issues/149#issuecomment-633734719 and https://blog.usejournal.com/6-daily-issues-in-android-cleartext-traffic-error-52ab31dd86c2.

Null Chopping

Some versions of React Native (including the current production version as on June 10, 2019) have an underlying issue that prevents these libraries from working correctly. Please see:

• react-native/issues/12731
• react-native/issues/22043
• metro/issues/365

Reported in stompjs:

• stompjs/issues/55
• stompjs/issues/89

The best solution would have been for the underlying issue to be fixed. However, it seems there is not much interest in that.

It has been observed that NULL chopping happens only with strings, buffers works correctly. Workaround 2, avoids using strings altogether by using binary for both incoming and outgoing packets. Workaround 1, uses outgoing binary packets and tries to reverse the damage by appending the missing NULL.

Workaround 1:

This approach has been reported to work by multiple users.

• Upgrade to the latest version of stompjs (at least 5.4.1).
• In you configuration set both forceBinaryWSFrames and appendMissingNULLonIncoming to true.

The forceBinaryWSFrames is completely safe — it will not cause any data loss or incorrect protocol behavior.

However, the appendMissingNULLonIncoming flag may cause data loss or unexpected connection termination. If you are only using small messages (which do not cause fragmentation), you should be fine.

Workaround 2:

This approach has been reported to work by one user.

If your broker supports forcing binary frames, you may try this approach.

• Upgrade to the latest version of stompjs (at least 5.4.1).
• In you configuration set forceBinaryWSFrames to true.
• Force the broker to send only binary frames. (For example, in RabbitMQ set web_stomp.ws_frame = binary in rabbitmq.conf)

The approach is completely safe — it will not cause any data loss or incorrect protocol behavior.