[iOS 17] Keyboard flickering on a back gesture

[kirillzyusko]

Description

The keyboard flickers when you do a back swipe navigation gesture.

I think it's kind of known issue in RN community and it seems like it's iOS 17 specific only. Initially I thought it'll be fixed in subsequent iOS releases, but it's already iOS 17.3 and the issue is still there 😬

Also it's worth to note, that the native iOS apps developed by Apple work correctly, if we test for example "Messages" app - it works well even on latest iOS versions. Below is comparison between two apps:

Messages (expected behavior)	RN (actual behavior)

Let me know what do you think - whether it should be fixable in RNS or we should wait more for new OS releases 👀

Steps to reproduce

1. Open provided repo app
2. Press "Go to Details"
3. Try to swipe back

See how keyboard is flickering.

Snack or a link to a repository

https://github.com/kirillzyusko/RNNativeStackIOSKeyboard

Screens version

3.29.0

React Native version

0.73.2

Platforms

iOS

JavaScript runtime

Hermes

Workflow

React Native (without Expo)

Architecture

Paper (Old Architecture)

Build type

Debug mode

Device

Real device

Device model

iPhone 11

Acknowledgements

Yes

[WoLewicki]

Did you try making a nativeiOS app with a simple configuration to see if it also happens there? It might be patched only on the apps coming from Apple itself.

[kirillzyusko]

@WoLewicki I've tried, but I couldn't achieve a behavior when keyboard is associated with a screen (using Swift UI). I. e. every time when I did a back gesture -> keyboard was closing automatically, and if screen is not dismissed -> then keyboard appears instantly (I think the same behavior as if I specify hideKeyboardOnSwipe).

If you can give me a direction on what I need to do in order to have an associated keyboard within a screen, then I can give a try again 👀

[WoLewicki]

Hmm I don't know how to handle it with Swift UI tbh 😕 I'd go with a simple swift/obj-c project and align it with how hideKeyboardOnSwipe works in RNScreens.

[kirillzyusko]

Okay @WoLewicki I'll try and let you know 👀

[tboba]

Hi @kirillzyusko, did you manage to make any solution with SwiftUI? 😄 From my side, I can confirm this happens in Screens - a good reproducer also might be #77 (snack).

[kirillzyusko]

Hello @tboba

No, we didn't have enough time to investigate this problem, so I didn't create a reproduction example with SwiftUI (but in general I think @WoLewicki is right and such behavior is hard to achieve in SwiftUI).

Most likely we need to go to pure ObjC/Swift project. I was trying to find ready examples on GitHub and just run them, but no luck - almost all of them are very old and can not be opened using new XCode version.