React Native Expo App: Firebase Cloud function Call Error: Could not connect to the server

I'm using "@react-native-firebase/firestore": "^23.1.1", "@react-native-firebase/functions": "23.1.1" "@react-native-firebase/app": "^23.1.1", on my expo client side code development build.

I tried to call my deployed cloud function like this but it throws this error:{"error": [Error: Could not connect to the server.]}

import { httpsCallable, getFunctions } from '@react-native-firebase/functions';

const functions = getFunctions();

const checkAuth = httpsCallable(functions, 'checkAuth');

// And then I have this onPress somewhere:
        onPress: async () => {
          try {
            const result = await checkAuth();
            console.log({ result: result.data });
            Alert.alert(
              'Success',
              `Operation successful! Fetched ${
                (result?.data as []).length
              } products.`,
            );
          } catch (error) {
            console.log({ error });
            Alert.alert('error', 'check error');
          }
        }

I'm using React-native-firebase SDK which does not require an initializeapp() call as it uses google-services.json and GoogleService-Info.plist for Android and IOS.

The cloud function is also deployed sucessfully on my firebase console at us-centrel (default).

expected to return the output I wrote for the cloud function. here's the actual function:

/**
 * Import function triggers from their respective submodules:
 *
 * import {onCall} from "firebase-functions/v2/https";
 * import {onDocumentWritten} from "firebase-functions/v2/firestore";
 *
 * See a full list of supported triggers at https://firebase.google.com/docs/functions
 */

import { setGlobalOptions } from 'firebase-functions';
import { onCall } from 'firebase-functions/v2/https';
import * as logger from 'firebase-functions/logger';

// The Firebase Admin SDK to access Firestore.
import { initializeApp } from 'firebase-admin/app';
import { getFirestore } from 'firebase-admin/firestore';

// Start writing functions
// https://firebase.google.com/docs/functions/typescript

// For cost control, you can set the maximum number of containers that can be
// running at the same time. This helps mitigate the impact of unexpected
// traffic spikes by instead downgrading performance. This limit is a
// per-function limit. You can override the limit for each function using the
// `maxInstances` option in the function's options, e.g.
// `onRequest({ maxInstances: 5 }, (req, res) => { ... })`.
// NOTE: setGlobalOptions does not apply to functions using the v1 API. V1
// functions should each use functions.runWith({ maxInstances: 10 }) instead.
// In the v1 API, each function can only serve one request per container, so
// this will be the maximum concurrent request count.
setGlobalOptions({ maxInstances: 10 });
initializeApp();

exports.checkAuth = onCall(async (request, response) => {
  logger.info(request?.auth?.token);
  logger.info(request?.auth?.uid);

  return {
    auth: request.auth,
  };
});

update: update: httpsCallableFromUrl() works if I pass the URL to my cloud function, but httpsCallable() doesn't work, I'm not sure why const functions = getFunctions(); const checkAuth = httpsCallableFromUrl( functions, 'path-to-my-app.app', );