Android – Previous screen flashing when using shift transition after upgrading to Expo SDK 54

Hi,

After upgrading from Expo SDK 53 → 54, I'm experiencing a visual glitch on Android only when navigating with React Navigation.

On Android, there's a flash of the previous screen when switching tabs.
It’s not exactly a flicker — it looks more like a single-frame flash of the previous route during the transition.
On iOS, everything works perfectly.

I had very hard time (almost 5 hours) to create a reproducible example that reproduces the issue. Looks like it's related having "big" screens with reanimated animations that changed the state of the screen during focus/blur as you will see in the repository.

I'm using the latest versions of all react-navigation packages.

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/9dacabf2-6022-41ee-bfc7-94d5bcff8122

Look at seconds 1,12 & 28

What I tried :

• Changing the transition animation from shift → none
  → The issue disappears when using none.
• Setting detachInactiveScreens={false}
  → No effect, the glitch still happens

Expected behavior

The transition should behave normally without flashing the previous screen for a frame.

Reproduction

https://github.com/yonitou/mre-react-navigation

Platform

• Android
• iOS
• Web
• Windows
• MacOS

Packages

• @react-navigation/bottom-tabs
• @react-navigation/drawer
• @react-navigation/material-top-tabs
• @react-navigation/stack
• @react-navigation/native-stack
• react-native-drawer-layout
• react-native-tab-view

Environment

"@react-navigation/bottom-tabs": "^7.8.6",
		"@react-navigation/drawer": "^7.7.4",
		"@react-navigation/elements": "^2.3.1",
		"@react-navigation/native": "^7.1.21",
		"@react-navigation/native-stack": "^7.6.4",

Start with the linked mre-react-navigation reproduction and run it on Android with the reported Expo SDK 54 and bottom-tabs versions. Compare the shift and none transitions, then inspect how focus/blur state changes interact with the transition. Done means switching tabs no longer shows a frame of the previous route while preserving the expected shift animation.