fix(ios): force-apply all view props on a component view's first updateProps (blank view after react-freeze recreation)

[rlods]

Symptom

On iOS (new architecture), a Nitro view renders permanently blank after navigating away from its screen and coming back, when the app uses react-native-screens with enableFreeze(true) (react-freeze / Suspense). The native view is laid out correctly (size, background) but no props are ever applied to the fresh hybrid, and hybridRef never fires — so JS keeps a ref to the dead old hybrid and imperative calls silently no-op.

Originally reproduced and analyzed with RiveView from rive-app/rive-nitro-react-native — full write-up in rive-app/rive-nitro-react-native#365 (opened against the generated file committed there; this PR is the durable fix in the template, as suggested in that PR's description).

Root cause

When a screen is frozen, Fabric deletes its native views; on return it recreates them from the same, unchanged ShadowNodes — calling updateProps:oldProps: on the brand-new component view with the same cached Props object as before.

The generated updateProps guards every prop with isDirty and, after applying it, mutates the shared props object (newViewProps.<prop>.isDirty = false; via const_cast). Those flags were already consumed by the previous view instance, so on recreation updateProps applies nothing:

• the fresh HybridView keeps all its default values (unconfigured);
• hybridRef never re-fires, so JS still holds the ref to the old, dead hybrid.

Nothing ever marks the props dirty again unless a prop changes identity on the JS side, so the view stays broken forever.

The same "consumed flags on a shared Props object" mechanism also affects recycled views being remounted for a different ShadowNode — the stale-props family of #1050.

Fix

In SwiftHybridViewManager.ts (the template for Hybrid*Component.mm):

• track BOOL _didApplyInitialProps on the component view;
• force-apply every prop (and hybridRef) on the first updateProps of each view instance, keeping the isDirty fast path for all subsequent updates;
• reset the flag in prepareForRecycle, so a recycled view force-applies the next node's props on remount.

First-ever mounts are unaffected (all flags are dirty there anyway). Regenerated the committed react-native-nitro-test fixtures.

We've been running the equivalent patch (minus the recycle part) in production (several Rive scenes behind frozen tab/stack screens) and it fixes the blank-view repro deterministically.

Android's JNI state updater has the same consumed-isDirty pattern in theory, but we could not reproduce the bug there and fixing it needs a JNI signature change (updateViewProps(view, state, forceApply)), so this PR is iOS-only — happy to follow up on Android if you think it's worth it.

Repro

1. RN app with new architecture + react-native-screens, enableFreeze(true)
2. Screen A renders a Nitro view with props; push any screen B on top (freeze unmounts A's native views)
3. Go back to A → the recreated view has no props applied; hybridRef never fired; only a prop identity change revives it

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

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1 Skipped Deployment

Project	Deployment	Actions	Updated (UTC)
nitro-docs	Skipped		Aug 18, 2026 1:36pm

[rlods]

Closing as duplicate of #1479, which handles never-set props (hasValue()), covers Android, and adds a regression test.