React Native White Screen on iOS Simulator

Question

Up until recently, my app was running on iOS. I am now running into a white screen issue when running npx run-ios.

When running npx run-ios, the simulator starts up and builds the application, but Metro bundler says warn No apps connected. Sending "reload" to all React Native apps failed. Make sure your app is running in the simulator or on a phone connected via USB. on the terminal. Which is odd as the command itself opens the simulator and builds the application.

I am also unable to access the developer menu in both the terminal and on the simulator. So I can't access/edit bundler configs.

Things I've tried:

1. I've tried to delete the node_modules and run npm-install.
2. Deleting the Pods folder and Podfile.lock and then running pod install.
3. As I was working in a development branch, so I checked out to the main branch, which was working fine before, but the same issue persists, so I am doubtful that it's my code (I might be wrong however".
4. Doing Clear device and settingson the simulator.
5. Trying a different simulator.
6. I've seen on different similar posts that the simulator and my dev environment should be on the same network. However, this was never an issue before, and there is also no wifi edit function on the simulator.
7. Running the iOS application from Xcode instead