Android build fails: ReactTextShadowNode & ReactTextViewManager are final in latest React Native

[alham0046]

Issue Description
Hi, I’m getting a build failure when running npm run android in a React Native project that uses react-native-animateable-text. The Android build crashes with the following errors:

error: cannot inherit from final ReactTextShadowNode
error: cannot inherit from final ReactTextViewManager
error: createShadowNodeInstance(...) overridden method is final

Error Log (full)

> Task :react-native-animateable-text:compileDebugJavaWithJavac FAILED
F:\rnprojects\testtveventhandler\node_modules\react-native-animateable-text\android\src\main\java\com\reactnativereanimatedtext\JBTextShadowNode.java:17: error: cannot inherit from final ReactTextShadowNode
public class JBTextShadowNode extends ReactTextShadowNode {
                                      ^
F:\rnprojects\testtveventhandler\node_modules\react-native-animateable-text\android\src\main\java\com\reactnativereanimatedtext\JBTextViewManager.java:16: error: cannot inherit from final ReactTextViewManager
  extends ReactTextViewManager {
          ^
F:\rnprojects\testtveventhandler\node_modules\react-native-animateable-text\android\src\main\java\com\reactnativereanimatedtext\JBTextViewManager.java:31: error: createShadowNodeInstance(...) overridden method is final
  public JBTextShadowNode createShadowNodeInstance(
                          ^
3 errors

Cause

Starting in React Native 0.72+, the underlying classes:

ReactTextShadowNode
ReactTextViewManager

were changed to final in the new Fabric & Paper architecture migration. Because of that, this library’s Android code attempts to extend these classes, which is no longer allowed. So RN marks them as:

final class ReactTextShadowNode
final class ReactTextViewManager
final createShadowNodeInstance()

This makes the library incompatible with the latest RN versions.

Environment

• react-native-animateable-text version: 0.17.1
• react : 19.1.0
• React Native Tvos version: 0.81.0.0

[WadhahEssam]

@alham0046 Hello friend, that's true, but the react native team re-enabled extending the classes in 0.81.5, so if you upgrade to that, it should work

[alham0046]

Thanks for the update!
I tested with React Native tvOS 0.81.5-0, and as you mentioned, the build works correctly there.

However, after upgrading to the latest stable react-native-tvOS release (0.82.1-0), the issue appears again — the same ReactTextShadowNode / ReactTextViewManager final-class errors return.

It looks like the ability to extend these classes might have been removed or changed once more in 0.82.x.

[WadhahEssam]

I honestly not sure, will have to test that myselft but here are few points

• we follow expo versions, so we won't work on new versions until at least expo beta version is ready, (but PRs are welcomed)
• react native reanimated themselves are workingon a way to enable the behaviour of this packages without the need for a third party package, so hopefully that's good news.

[janicduplessis]

We reintroduced allowing extending as a temporary workaround only for 0.81, in 0.82 we will need to find a better solution. The recommended approach from the RN team is to use composition instead of inheritance.