Could not resolve '...' from state ''

This kind of error usually means that some parts of (JS) code were not loaded. That the state which is inside of ui-sref is missing.

There is a working example

I am not an expert in ionic, so this example should show that it would be working, but I used some more tricks (parent for tabs)

This is a bit adjusted state def:

.config(function($stateProvider, $urlRouterProvider){
  $urlRouterProvider.otherwise("/index.html");

    $stateProvider

    .state('app', {
      abstract: true,
      templateUrl: "tpl.menu.html",
    })

  $stateProvider.state('index', {
    url: '/',
    templateUrl: "tpl.index.html",
    parent: "app",
  });


  $stateProvider.state('register', {
    url: "/register",
    templateUrl: "tpl.register.html",
    parent: "app",
  });

  $urlRouterProvider.otherwise('/');
}) 

And here we have the parent view with tabs, and their content:

<ion-tabs class="tabs-icon-top">

  <ion-tab title="Index" icon="icon ion-home" ui-sref="index">
    <ion-nav-view name=""></ion-nav-view>
  </ion-tab>

  <ion-tab title="Register" icon="icon ion-person" ui-sref="register">
    <ion-nav-view name=""></ion-nav-view>
  </ion-tab>

</ion-tabs>

Take it more than an example of how to make it running and later use ionic framework the right way...Check that example here

Here is similar Q & A with an example using the named views (for sure better solution) ionic routing issue, shows blank page

Improved version with named views in a tab is here: http://plnkr.co/edit/Mj0rUxjLOXhHIelt249K?p=preview

  <ion-tab title="Index" icon="icon ion-home" ui-sref="index">
    <ion-nav-view name="index"></ion-nav-view>
  </ion-tab>

  <ion-tab title="Register" icon="icon ion-person" ui-sref="register">
    <ion-nav-view name="register"></ion-nav-view>
  </ion-tab>

targeting named views:

  $stateProvider.state('index', {
    url: '/',
    views: { "index" : { templateUrl: "tpl.index.html" } },
    parent: "app",
  });


  $stateProvider.state('register', {
    url: "/register",
    views: { "register" : { templateUrl: "tpl.register.html", } },
    parent: "app",
  });

Just came here to share what was happening to me.
You don't need to specify the parent, states work in an document oriented way so, instead of specifying parent: app, you could just change the state to app.index

.config(function($stateProvider, $urlRouterProvider){
    $urlRouterProvider.otherwise("/index.html");

$stateProvider.state('app', {
  abstract: true,
  templateUrl: "tpl.menu.html"
});

$stateProvider.state('app.index', {
    url: '/',
    templateUrl: "tpl.index.html"
});

$stateProvider.state('app.register', {
    url: "/register",
    templateUrl: "tpl.register.html"
});

EDIT Warning, if you want to go deep in the nesting, the full path must me specified. For example, you can't have a state like

app.cruds.posts.create

without having a

app
app.cruds
app.cruds.posts

or angular will throw an exception saying it can't figure out the rout. To solve that you can define abstract states

.state('app', {
     url: "/app",
     abstract: true
})
.state('app.cruds', {
     url: "/app/cruds",
     abstract: true
})
.state('app/cruds/posts', {
     url: "/app/cruds/posts",
     abstract: true
})

I've just had this same issue with Ionic.

It turns out nothing was wrong with my code, I simply had to quit the ionic serve session and run ionic serve again.

After going back into the app, my states worked fine.

I would also suggest pressing save on your app.js file a few times if you are running gulp, to make sure everything gets re-compiled.