[Due for payment 2025-03-21] [$250] Expense - Saving multiline description with mark down with no edit triggers system message

[izarutskaya]

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Version Number: 1.4.81-1
Reproducible in staging?: Y
Reproducible in production?: Y
Logs: https://stackoverflow.com/c/expensify/questions/4856
Issue reported by: Applause-Internal team

Action Performed:

1. Go to staging.new.expensify.com
2. Go to workspace chat.
3. Submit an expense to workspace chat containing multiline description with mark down on each line.
   Example:

• hello *
• hellloo *

4. Go to transaction thread.
5. Wait for the expense to be completely created (sometimes the expense is created but not sent).
6. Click on the description.
7. Without changing the description, click Save.

Expected Result:

No system message for description edit will show up because no edit is made to the description.

Actual Result:

System message for description edit shows up when no edit is made to the description.
When repeating Step 6 and 7, the transaction thread turns blank with the error "There was an error loading more messages."

Workaround:

Unknown

Platforms:

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

• Android: Native
• Android: mWeb Chrome
• iOS: Native
• iOS: mWeb Safari
• MacOS: Chrome / Safari
• MacOS: Desktop

Screenshots/Videos

Bug6508340_1718036856778.bandicam_2024-06-11_00-22-35-147.mp4

View all open jobs on GitHub

Upwork Automation - Do Not Edit

• Upwork Job URL: https://www.upwork.com/jobs/~018d19307f19622d14
• Upwork Job ID: 1800742519908507814
• Last Price Increase: 2024-08-08
• Automatic offers:
• mkhutornyi | Reviewer | 102884170
• dominictb | Contributor | 102884171

Issue Owner

Current Issue Owner: @kadiealexander

[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to @kadiealexander (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.

[izarutskaya]

We think this issue might be related to the #collect project.

[Krishna2323]

Proposal

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

Expense - Saving multiline description with mark down with no edit triggers system message

What is the root cause of that problem?

The backend returns *b*\r\n*b*, the \r is counted as extra character which isn't present in the form value, and as a result, the check below doesn't become true, so we don't return early and update description api is called.

App/src/pages/iou/request/step/IOURequestStepDescription.tsx

Lines 115 to 121 in 2929a91

	const newComment = value.moneyRequestComment.trim();
	// Only update comment if it has changed
	if (newComment === currentDescription) {
	navigateBack();
	return;
	}

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

To make the currentDescription same as the form value we need to first use parser.replace and then parser.htmlToMarkdown for currentDescription.

    const currentDescription =
        isEditingSplitBill && !lodashIsEmpty(splitDraftTransaction)
            ? splitDraftTransaction?.comment.comment ?? ''
            : parser.htmlToMarkdown(parser.replace(transaction?.comment.comment ?? '')).trim();

We should also check for similar bug in other similar components.

What alternative solutions did you explore? (Optional)

We can replace \r in currentDescription with "" and then compare.

[dominictb]

Proposal

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

System message for description edit shows up when no edit is made to the description.
When repeating Step 6 and 7, the transaction thread turns blank with the error "There was an error loading more messages."

What is the root cause of that problem?

The description that is returned by back-end includes \r character which doesn't exist in value of input. It leads this check here isn't true and then the update API is called that makes the system message appears.

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

1. As other description field, we should accept to store the description of money request as html instead of markdown. Update here to convert the description to html before saving

comment: ReportUtils.getParsedComment(comment),

We need back-end change to accept the description of money request can be stored as htm.

2. Update the default value here to parser.htmlToMarkdown(currentDescription) and update the condition here to newComment === parser.htmlToMarkdown(currentDescription). This is the same way as we do for other description field like task description field, room description field,...

What alternative solutions did you explore? (Optional)

[melvin-bot]

Job added to Upwork: https://www.upwork.com/jobs/~018d19307f19622d14

[melvin-bot]

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

[mkhutornyi]

reviewing proposals

[mkhutornyi]

If this issue doesn't happen on other multiline fields like task description, room description, we should apply same logic to be consistent.

[kadiealexander]

@mkhutornyi is anything wrong with the current proposals?

[melvin-bot]

@kadiealexander, @mkhutornyi Uh oh! This issue is overdue by 2 days. Don't forget to update your issues!

[mkhutornyi]

@dominictb thanks for the proposal.

We need back-end change to accept the description of money request can be stored as htm.

Is backend already doing this on task description and room description?

[dominictb]

@mkhutornyi Yes.

[melvin-bot]

📣 It's been a week! Do we have any satisfactory proposals yet? Do we need to adjust the bounty for this issue? 💸

[mkhutornyi]

@dominictb's proposal looks good to me.
🎀👀🎀 C+ reviewed

[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to @MariaHCD, see https://stackoverflow.com/c/expensify/questions/7972 for more details.

[melvin-bot]

@MariaHCD @kadiealexander @mkhutornyi this issue was created 2 weeks ago. Are we close to approving a proposal? If not, what's blocking us from getting this issue assigned? Don't hesitate to create a thread in #expensify-open-source to align faster in real time. Thanks!

[melvin-bot]

@MariaHCD, @kadiealexander, @mkhutornyi Uh oh! This issue is overdue by 2 days. Don't forget to update your issues!

[dominictb]

@mountiny We all agreed to update UpdateMoneyRequestDescription API to accept and return HTML description (or comment) #43403 (comment) (instead of markdown as currently) to align with other flows like EditTask or UpdateRoomDescription. It was completed by you #43403 (comment). So now the money request's description should always be HTML.

We need to do the same for RequestMoney API as well because it currently only accepts and returns markdown description (comment).

[mountiny]

Made a PR https://github.com/Expensify/Web-Expensify/pull/45170

[dominictb]

@mountiny How's the PR going?

[mountiny]

@dominictb the PR was merged and deployed, can you test now?

[dominictb]

@mountiny I just tested all the expense flows and found 1 problem. Same reason as #43403 (comment). We need to make all the expense creation APIs to accept HTML description like you did with UpdateMoneyRequestDescription and RequestMoney. These are the endpoints that need updating that I've found so far:

• TrackExpense
• ConvertTrackedExpenseToRequest
• AddTrackedExpenseToPolicy
• ShareTrackedExpense
• CategorizeTrackedExpense

Correct me if I missed any.

[mountiny]

In addition to those you have mentioned above, we have (not all might be used in the App right now):

• CreateDistanceRequest
• UpdateDistanceRequest
• SplitBill
• SplitBillAndOpenReport
• StartSplitBill
• CompleteSplitBill
• SendInvoice

Can you make sure to update the code there accordingly too?

[mountiny]

Backedn Pr is up

[dominictb]

@mountiny Notify us when they are done.

[mountiny]

@dominictb deployed

[melvin-bot]

This issue has not been updated in over 15 days. @mountiny, @kadiealexander, @mkhutornyi, @dominictb eroding to Monthly issue.

P.S. Is everyone reading this sure this is really a near-term priority? Be brave: if you disagree, go ahead and close it out. If someone disagrees, they'll reopen it, and if they don't: one less thing to do!

[dominictb]

PR was merged.

[mountiny]

@dominictb Please be on a look out for any deploy blockers related to this as it was a large change

[akinwale]

Deployed to production 2025-03-12. Payment due 2025-03-19.

[melvin-bot]

Reviewing label has been removed, please complete the "BugZero Checklist".

[melvin-bot]

The solution for this issue has been 🚀 deployed to production 🚀 in version 9.1.12-7 and is now subject to a 7-day regression period 📆. Here is the list of pull requests that resolve this issue:

• fix: save IOU request description in html #44523

If no regressions arise, payment will be issued on 2025-03-21. 🎊

For reference, here are some details about the assignees on this issue:

• @mkhutornyi requires payment automatic offer (Reviewer)
• @dominictb requires payment automatic offer (Contributor)

[melvin-bot]

@dominictb @kadiealexander @dominictb The PR fixing this issue has been merged! The following checklist (instructions) will need to be completed before the issue can be closed. Please copy/paste the BugZero Checklist from here into a new comment on this GH and complete it. If you have the K2 extension, you can simply click: [this button]

[akinwale]

@kadiealexander I took over as C+ on this issue for the PR review.

[akinwale]

BugZero Checklist:

• [@akinwale] Classify the bug:

Bug classification

Source of bug:

• 1a. Result of the original design (eg. a case wasn't considered)
• 1b. Mistake during implementation
• 1c. Backend bug
• 1z. Other:

Where bug was reported:

• 2a. Reported on production (eg. bug slipped through the normal regression and PR testing process on staging)
• 2b. Reported on staging (eg. found during regression or PR testing)
• 2d. Reported on a PR
• 2z. Other:

Who reported the bug:

• 3a. Expensify user
• 3b. Expensify employee
• 3c. Contributor
• 3d. QA
• 3z. Other:

• [@akinwale] The offending PR has been commented on, pointing out the bug it caused and why, so the author and reviewers can learn from the mistake.

  Link to comment: N/A

• [@akinwale] If the regression was CRITICAL (e.g. interrupts a core flow) A discussion in #expensify-open-source has been started about whether any other steps should be taken (e.g. updating the PR review checklist) in order to catch this type of bug sooner.

  Link to discussion: N/A

• [@akinwale] If it was decided to create a regression test for the bug, please propose the regression test steps using the template below to ensure the same bug will not reach production again.

• [BugZero Assignee] Create a GH issue for creating/updating the regression test once above steps have been agreed upon.

  Link to issue:

Regression Test Proposal

Test:

1. Launch Expensify
2. Open a workspace chat
3. Go offline
4. Submit an expense to workspace chat with a multiline description with mark down on each line.
   Example:
   > test
   _test_
   *test*
5. Navigate to the transaction thread.
6. Verify that the description is correctly formatted
7. Go online
8. Wait for the expense to be successfully created
9. Click on the description field
10. Without changing the description, click Save
11. Verify that a system message indicating that the description was updated is not displayed

Do we agree 👍 or 👎?