I am not able to set a different root page than Tabs

Ionic Framework ionic-v3
1

Running under RC6/2.0
Under beta, I used to be able to select the root page and bypass my tabs for testing purposes. It seems now the following is totally ignored and it still launches the app with all tabs. What am I doing wrong in app.components.ts ?

export class MyApp {
  player;
  rootPage : any = AMSViewTESTER ; // TabsPage;
  platform_ : Platform
  //---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
  constructor(
     platform : Platform
    // , public NavController: NavController
  ) {
    this.platform_ = platform ;

    // TNOTE: changing the rootPage allows for direct jump into the various Views
    // this.rootPage = PlyrView;  // for testing...
    this.rootPage = AMSViewTESTER ;  // for testing...
    //
    platform.ready().then(() => {
        //
        StatusBar.styleDefault();
        // Splashscreen.hide();
      });
  }

I have restarted the ionic serve as it appears the auto building and refreshing in the browser does not reload the latest code/app. Anyways I get error regardless which page I set including the HomePage

Runtime Error
Error in :0:0 caused by: No provider for HomePage!

I get this error just by including HomePage in the constructor parameters eventhough rootPage is still set to TabsPage, why is that?

Thank you.