Getting Error: 'Use process(css).then(cb) to work with async plugins'

Matthew C.

—September 15, 2024

The ProblemThe Problem

Attempts to bundle JavaScript code in Reactive Native return the following error when NativeWind is used to incorporate Tailwind CSS to style components:

Bundling failed
error: Use process(css).then(cb) to work with async plugins

The SolutionThe Solution

This error is due to the Tailwind CSS version 3.3.3 update, which made the PostCSS plugin asynchronous to improve performance. This is a breaking change for NativeWind. NativeWind does not work with Tailwind CSS versions 3.3.3 and above.

There are two ways to work around this breaking change:

• Upgrade to the alpha version of NativeWind version 4, which will be released soon. Note that using the alpha version may result in a higher incidence of bugs and other issues.

• Downgrade to Tailwind CSS version 3.3.2 as follows:

  Click to Copy

  Click to Copy

  npm install --save-dev tailwindcss@3.3.2
  

  In your package.json file, remove the caret character (^) version prefix for tailwindcss, so that the version doesn’t get a patch version bump to version 3.3.3 if you use npm-version to make non-breaking dependency updates.