[Fabric] IOS - New Chat/New Group - The avatar jumps and flashes when opening a chat with a new user.

[dylanexpensify]

Action Performed:

1. Log in to NewDot with any type of account
2. Click on the green + button
3. Click on the "New Chat" option
4. Search for a user that you don't have any messages with and open the chat.

Expected Result:

Transaction should be smooth when opening a new group

Actual Result:

The avatar jumps and flashes when opening a chat with a new user.

Workaround:

Unknown

Platforms:

Which of our officially supported platforms is this issue occurring on?

• IOS / native

Version Number: 1.2.49.0

Reproducible in staging?: Yes

Reproducible in production?: No

If this was caught during regression testing, add the test name, ID and link from TestRail:

Email or phone of affected tester (no customers):

Logs: https://stackoverflow.com/c/expensify/questions/4856

Notes/Photos/Videos: Any additional supporting documentation

Bug5887845_jump_ios_0601.mp4

Expensify/Expensify Issue URL:

Issue reported by: Applause - Internal Team

Slack conversation:

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[dylanexpensify]

Coming from here. Context here!

[trjExpensify]

I wonder how much this is down to caching avatars, @roryabraham? 🤔

[roryabraham]

First things first, I clarified that this issue is only happening on the Fabric branch by adding the [Fabric] prefix to the issue title. That seems worth doing for all the Fabric-only issues.

I wonder how much this is down to caching avatars, @roryabraham? 🤔

Doesn't look related to avatar caching to me. If I had to guess, I would guess that this is happening when the CREATED action is updated to be "finalized":

1. Report opens with optimistic CREATED action (w/ `pendingAction: 'add')
2. OpenReport API command sent.
3. The API command completes, and the pendingAction field of the CREATED action is set to null. This causes ReportActionItem to re-render, which is causing a flash for some unknown reason.

[roryabraham]

Looks like @WoLewicki may be on the case of this bug already: https://expensify.slack.com/archives/C04878MDF34/p1673978560875489

[trjExpensify]

First things first, I clarified that this issue is only happening on the Fabric branch by adding the [Fabric] prefix to the issue title. That seems worth doing for all the Fabric-only issues.

Yes, great idea! Let's communicate that somewhere more widely. We could even be more explicit with [Fabric-only] as it might get mixed up with simply noting it's part of the project.

Doesn't look related to avatar caching to me

Okay, great. Sounds good!

[WoLewicki]

I am working on this issue now.

[JmillsExpensify]

Nice! Assigned @WoLewicki as well.

[JmillsExpensify]

Moved to weekly since that's the speed this project is moving at.

[j-piasecki]

This issue was caused by the reportActionID of action with type CREATED being different each time the chat was opened, causing rerender of that component. This has been fixed on the main branch and merged into the one with fabric integration.

[JmillsExpensify]

@roryabraham @trjExpensify It'd be good to align on what our ideal process here from here on out for Fabric improvement issues like this one, where the fix is already on the main branch?

[trjExpensify]

Oh, so what happened? There was actually a bug on main that was causing this?

[roryabraham]

Not exactly. What was happening was:

• Optimistic CREATED action was shown
• PHP hack inserted CREATED action with a random ID
• Created action is received by front-end with new ID
• New reportActionID causes component to re-render (because reportActionID is the key of the item in FlatList)
• UI flashes on Fabric (unclear why)

The migration that added CREATED actions to the DB fixed this problem because:

• Optimistic CREATED action is shown with client-generated canonical reportActionID
• Since the reportActionID remains the same, there is no re-render caused, and therefore no flash

[roryabraham]

I think we can close this now.

[melvin-bot]

@JmillsExpensify Be sure to fill out the Contact List!

[JmillsExpensify]

Say what? Not sure what that's referring to.