[$250] Expense - Report turns to skeleton loader after merging expenses offline

[jponikarchuk]

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Version Number: 9.2.27-0
Reproducible in staging?: Yes
Reproducible in production?: Yes
If this was caught during regression testing, add the test name, ID and link from TestRail: #71747
Email or phone of affected tester (no customers): jsdoijnsojsonidjsij@gmail.com
Issue reported by: Applause Internal Team
Device used: Mac 15.5 / Chrome
App Component: Money Requests

Action Performed:

1. Go to staging.new.expensify.com
2. Go to workspace chat.
3. Create an expense in workspace chat.
4. Create a second report via + > Create report.
5. On the second report, click Add expense > Create expense.
6. Create an expense on the second report.
7. Open the second report.
8. Go offline.
9. Click More > Merge.
10. Select the first expense from Step 3 > Continue.
11. Select all the second options for each section.
12. Click Continue > Merge expenses.

Expected Result:

The report will show the merged expense.

Actual Result:

The report turns to skeleton loader.

Workaround:

Unknown

Platforms:

• Android: App
• Android: mWeb Chrome
• iOS: App
• iOS: mWeb Safari
• iOS: mWeb Chrome
• Windows: Chrome
• MacOS: Chrome / Safari
• MacOS: Desktop

Screenshots/Videos

11.mp4

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Upwork Automation - Do Not Edit

• Upwork Job URL: https://www.upwork.com/jobs/~021976820760776060646
• Upwork Job ID: 1976820760776060646
• Last Price Increase: 2025-10-11

Issue Owner

Current Issue Owner: @neil-marcellini

Issue Owner

Current Issue Owner: @neil-marcellini

[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to @brianlee-expensify (Bug), see https://stackoverflow.com/c/expensify/questions/14418 for more details. Please add this bug to a GH project, as outlined in the SO.

[paulnjs]

🚨 Edited by proposal-police: This proposal was edited at 2025-10-15 14:17:44 UTC.

Proposal

Please re-state the problem that we are trying to solve in this issue.

The report turns to skeleton loader.

What is the root cause of that problem?

We have two transactions called A and B.

When starting the merge flow with transaction B and select transaction A, the transaction A is sourceTransaction and the transaction B is targetTransaction. But if we select the report of transaction A, we still clear the transaction A's expense report here

App/src/libs/actions/MergeTransaction.ts

Lines 221 to 230 in 52e92f7

	const optimisticSourceReportData: OnyxUpdate[] =
	transactionsOfSourceReport.length === 1
	? [
	{
	onyxMethod: Onyx.METHOD.SET,
	key: `${ONYXKEYS.COLLECTION.REPORT}${sourceTransaction.reportID}`,
	value: null,
	},
	]
	: [];

Which causes the skeleton appears in offline because the report data is cleared

App/src/pages/TransactionMerge/ConfirmationPage.tsx

Lines 67 to 75 in 52e92f7

	const handleMergeExpenses = useCallback(() => {
	if (!targetTransaction || !mergeTransaction || !sourceTransaction) {
	return;
	}
	const reportID = mergeTransaction.reportID;
	setIsMergingExpenses(true);
	mergeTransactionRequest(transactionID, mergeTransaction, targetTransaction, sourceTransaction);

What changes do you think we should make in order to solve the problem?

With the flow in the RCA, if we select the report of transaction A, the targetTransaction now is transaction A and transaction B is sourceTransaction and we should clear the transaction B's expense report instead if this report only has one transaction

We should swap the source and target transaction if the selected report is the source transaction report

const currentSourceTransaction = reportID === targetTransaction.reportID ? sourceTransaction : targetTransaction;
const currentTargetTransaction = reportID === targetTransaction.reportID ? targetTransaction : sourceTransaction;

mergeTransactionRequest(transactionID, mergeTransaction, currentTargetTransaction, currentSourceTransaction);

App/src/pages/TransactionMerge/ConfirmationPage.tsx

Lines 67 to 75 in 52e92f7

	const handleMergeExpenses = useCallback(() => {
	if (!targetTransaction || !mergeTransaction || !sourceTransaction) {
	return;
	}
	const reportID = mergeTransaction.reportID;
	setIsMergingExpenses(true);
	mergeTransactionRequest(transactionID, mergeTransaction, targetTransaction, sourceTransaction);

What specific scenarios should we cover in automated tests to prevent reintroducing this issue in the future?

If we go with alternative solution, we can update mergeTransactionRequest test and assert the selected report is not cleared.

What alternative solutions did you explore? (Optional)

We can do the swap logic inside this function. By calculating transactionsOfSourceReport, iouActionOfSourceTransaction based on mergeTransaction.reportID. We can rename this to reportTransactionToDelete, iouActionToDelete to avoid the confusion. And then we need to update the correct the onyx data of the report which must be deleted

const reportIDOfTransactionToDelete = mergeTransaction.reportID === targetTransaction.reportID ? sourceTransaction.reportID : targetTransaction.reportID;
const transactionIDOfReportToDelete = mergeTransaction.reportID === targetTransaction.reportID ? sourceTransaction.transactionID : targetTransaction.transactionID;

const transactionsOfSourceReport = getReportTransactions(reportIDOfTransactionToDelete);
const iouActionOfSourceTransaction = getIOUActionForReportID(reportIDOfTransactionToDelete, transactionIDOfReportToDelete);

App/src/libs/actions/MergeTransaction.ts

Lines 221 to 230 in 52e92f7

	const optimisticSourceReportData: OnyxUpdate[] =
	transactionsOfSourceReport.length === 1
	? [
	{
	onyxMethod: Onyx.METHOD.SET,
	key: `${ONYXKEYS.COLLECTION.REPORT}${sourceTransaction.reportID}`,
	value: null,
	},
	]
	: [];

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[melvin-bot]

Job added to Upwork: https://www.upwork.com/jobs/~021976820760776060646

[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to Contributor-plus team member for initial proposal review - @parasharrajat (External)

[brianlee-expensify]

reproduced on staging.new.expensify.com

2025-10-10_18-28-00.mp4