Integrating React Native with RapidAPI Image Enhancement Service - Upload Issues

Other Questions RapidAPI
1

I’m trying to connect my React Native app to an image processing API through RapidAPI but running into some problems. The API changed from accepting base64 strings to requiring file uploads, and I can’t figure out how to make it work properly.

I’m using react-native-image-picker to select photos from the device gallery. Here’s what the API documentation shows:

import fetch from "node-fetch";

const formData = new FormData();
formData.append("photo", "");
formData.append("quality", "30");

const config = {
  method: 'POST',
  url: 'https://image-enhancer.p.rapidapi.com/process-image-endpoint',
  headers: {
    'content-type': 'multipart/form-data',
    'x-rapidapi-host': 'image-enhancer.p.rapidapi.com',
    'x-rapidapi-key': 'YOUR_API_KEY'
  },
  body: formData
};

fetch(config).then(res => res.json()).then(data => {
    console.log(data);
}).catch(err => {
    console.error(err);
});

My current implementation looks like this:

import React, {useState} from 'react';
import {View, Alert, StyleSheet} from 'react-native';
import {TouchableOpacity} from 'react-native-gesture-handler';
import LoadingSpinner from 'react-native-loading-spinner-overlay';
import {launchImageLibrary} from 'react-native-image-picker';
import axios from 'axios';

const ImageProcessor = () => {
  const [isVisible, setIsVisible] = useState(true);
  const [resultData, setResultData] = useState(null);
  const [isProcessing, setIsProcessing] = useState(false);
  const [imageData, setImageData] = useState(null);
  const [imageName, setImageName] = useState(null);

  const pickImageFromGallery = () => {
    const pickerOptions = {
      includeBase64: true,
      mediaType: 'photo'
    };
    
    launchImageLibrary(pickerOptions, result => {
      if (result.didCancel) {
        console.log('User cancelled picker');
      } else if (result.errorMessage) {
        console.log('Picker error occurred');
      } else {
        setImageData(result.assets[0].base64);
        setImageName(result.assets[0].fileName);
        processSelectedImage();
      }
    });
  };

  const processSelectedImage = () => {
    const requestForm = new FormData();
    requestForm.append('photo', imageName);
    requestForm.append('quality', '15');

    setIsVisible(false);
    console.log('Processing image');
    
    axios({
      method: 'POST',
      url: 'https://image-enhancer.p.rapidapi.com/process-image-endpoint',
      headers: {
        'content-type': 'multipart/form-data',
        'x-rapidapi-host': 'image-enhancer.p.rapidapi.com',
        'x-rapidapi-key': 'MY_SECRET_KEY',
      },
      data: requestForm,
    })
    .then(res => {
      setIsProcessing(false);
      setResultData(res.data);
    })
    .catch(err => {
      console.error(err);
    });
  };

  return (
    // component JSX here
  );
};

export default ImageProcessor;

I keep getting a 500 error and I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong. The test endpoint works fine but doesn’t show example responses. Any ideas on how to properly send the image file?

2

Been wrestling with the same RapidAPI file upload issues. It’s not just the FormData - you’re missing error handling for RapidAPI’s specific response codes. When I got those 500 errors, it was malformed requests plus hitting API limits I didn’t know about.

Besides fixing the file object like others said, check your RapidAPI dashboard logs. That 500 might actually be a masked 413 (file too big) or auth problem. Wrap your axios call in try-catch and log the full error response, not just the error. RapidAPI usually puts helpful details in the response body even with generic status codes.

What saved me tons of debugging time: test the exact FormData structure in Postman first, then copy that working format to React Native. File handling between environments gets weird.

3

you’re appending just the filename instead of the file object. try this instead: requestForm.append('photo', {uri: result.assets[0].uri, type: result.assets[0].type, name: result.assets[0].fileName}). that’s likely what’s causing your 500 errors.

4

This goes way beyond just fixing FormData. You’re juggling multiple API calls, file handling, error management, and response processing - and that gets messy fast in mobile apps.

I’ve built similar image processing workflows. Handling RapidAPI integrations directly in React Native creates tons of headaches. Network timeouts, file format issues, API rate limits, debugging problems - they pile up quickly.

What worked way better? Moving this entire flow to an automation platform. Set up a workflow that handles the image upload, processes it through RapidAPI, manages errors, and stores results or sends notifications.

Your React Native app just sends the image to one endpoint and gets the processed result back. No more FormData debugging, no API key management in the client. You can add features like image resizing, format conversion, or multiple enhancement services without touching your mobile code.

You also get built-in retry logic, logging, and can easily add webhooks or database storage.

Check out Latenode - it handles RapidAPI integrations really well and you can build the whole image processing pipeline visually: https://latenode.com

5

Had this exact issue last month. You’re calling processSelectedImage() right after setting state, but state hasn’t updated yet when it runs. Need to handle the async part properly. Your FormData is also missing the actual file data - you’re just appending the filename instead of creating a proper file object. This fixed it for me:

requestForm.append('photo', {
  uri: result.assets[0].uri,
  type: result.assets[0].type,
  name: result.assets[0].fileName
});

Also, ditch the content-type header when using FormData with axios. Let the browser handle it automatically with the proper boundary. That was breaking things for me too. Fix the file object structure and those 500 errors should go away.