Orkhan Alikhanov
## Summary
expo-doctor
should detect when the same package exists multiple times in
node_modules
at different paths (e.g.
node_modules/@react-navigation/native
and
node_modules/expo-router/node_modules/@react-navigation/native
), even when they resolve to the same version.
## Problem
After upgrading from Expo SDK 55 beta to stable, I hit this runtime error:
Error: Couldn't find the prevent remove context. Is your component inside NavigationContent?
The root cause was
@react-navigation/native
being installed twice — once at the root and once nested inside
expo-router/node_modules
. Even though both resolved to the same version (
7.1.34
), they created separate React contexts, breaking navigation.
This was caused by a package manager hoisting issue (bun in my case) and was fixed by a clean
rm -rf node_modules && bun install
. The issue was hard to diagnose because:
  • expo-doctor
    reported no problems
  • The versions matched, so version-based checks wouldn't catch it
  • The error message pointed to a missing context, not a duplicate package
## Proposed check
Add a check that scans for packages that appear at multiple paths in
node_modules
(particularly React/React Native ecosystem packages where duplicate instances break context sharing). When detected, suggest a clean reinstall.