Expo plugin duplicates tools:replace entries for backup rules and breaks Android manifest merge

[manticarodrigo]

Hey team,

I ran into an Android build failure after re-running expo prebuild in a React Native / Expo app that uses both react-native-appsflyer and expo-secure-store.

The problem seems to be in the Expo config plugin here:

• expo/withAppsFlyerAndroid.js

It always appends:

• android:dataExtractionRules
• android:fullBackupContent

into tools:replace, even when those keys are already present.

In our app, expo-secure-store is also configuring those same backup attributes, so after expo prebuild the generated AndroidManifest.xml ended up with:

tools:replace=\"android:dataExtractionRules, android:fullBackupContent, android:dataExtractionRules, android:fullBackupContent\"

That causes Android manifest merge to fail with:

Execution failed for task ':app:processDebugMainManifest'.
> Multiple entries with same key: android:dataExtractionRules=REPLACE and android:dataExtractionRules=REPLACE

Environment

• react-native-appsflyer: 6.17.7
• Expo SDK: 55
• expo-secure-store: 55.0.8
• React Native: 0.83.2

Repro

1. Create an Expo app that uses react-native-appsflyer and expo-secure-store
2. Run expo prebuild --platform android
3. Build Android
4. Manifest merge fails on :app:processDebugMainManifest

Expected

The plugin should only add each tools:replace key once.

Actual

The plugin concatenates duplicate values into tools:replace, which breaks manifest merge.

What fixed it locally

I patched the plugin to dedupe the values before joining them:

const existingReplace = application['$']['tools:replace'];
const replaceValues = new Set([
  ...(existingReplace?.split(',').map((value) => value.trim()).filter(Boolean) ?? []),
  'android:dataExtractionRules',
  'android:fullBackupContent',
]);
application['$']['tools:replace'] = Array.from(replaceValues).join(', ');

After that, expo prebuild generated:

tools:replace=\"android:dataExtractionRules, android:fullBackupContent\"

and Android built normally again.

Happy to open a PR if that helps.

[github-actions]

👋 Hi @manticarodrigo and Thank you for opening this issue.
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[erenkulaksiz]

same issue here. Also, I fricking hate patching appsflyer package every time I update the expo/appsflyer sdk versions. Stop with this bs

Creating this plugin and applying it solved this issue. Please fix your goddamn library.

const { withAndroidManifest } = require("@expo/config-plugins");

module.exports = (config) =>
  withAndroidManifest(config, (config) => {
    const manifest = config.modResults;
    const app = manifest.manifest.application[0];

    manifest.manifest.$["xmlns:tools"] = "http://schemas.android.com/tools";

    const existing = app.$["tools:replace"] || "";
    const toAdd = ["android:fullBackupContent", "android:dataExtractionRules"];
    const merged = [
      ...new Set([
        ...existing
          .split(",")
          .map((s) => s.trim())
          .filter(Boolean),
        ...toAdd,
      ]),
    ];
    app.$["tools:replace"] = merged.join(",");

    return config;
  });

[github-actions]

This issue is stale because it has been open for 60 days with no activity.