[Due for Payment 2026-02-17] [$250] IOS - Import Tag - Unable to import txt. file

[izarutskaya]

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Version Number: 9.2.65-5
Reproducible in staging?: Yes
Reproducible in production?: Yes
Email or phone of affected tester (no customers): minevich_av@mail.ru
Issue reported by: Applause Internal Team
Device used: iPhone 14 Pro Max
App Component:

Action Performed:

1. Open Expensify app
2. Sign in
3. Go to Workspaces
4. Add New workspace
5. Click "More Features"
6. Add "Tags"
7. Click "Tags'
8. Click "Import"
9. Select "Single level of tags"
10. Click choose file and select any .txt file

Expected Result:

User can select any .txt file and import it

Actual Result:

Unable to import .txt file as no action is triggered after selecting the file

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

Bug7001767_1762959033177.6111946144474315004.mp4

File txt.

View all open jobs on GitHub

Upwork Automation - Do Not Edit

• Upwork Job URL: https://www.upwork.com/jobs/~021994448330109541196
• Upwork Job ID: 1994448330109541196
• Last Price Increase: 2025-12-19
• Automatic offers:
• FitseTLT | Reviewer | 109940109

Issue Owner

Current Issue Owner: @trjExpensify

[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to @trjExpensify (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.

[melvin-bot]

Job added to Upwork: https://www.upwork.com/jobs/~021994448330109541196

[melvin-bot]

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

[ShridharGoel]

Proposal

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

Selecting a .txt file for tag import on iOS does nothing.

What is the root cause of that problem?

The import flow reads the chosen file with fetch, which does not work for local iOS file URIs, so the workbook never loads and navigation never happens.

App/src/components/ImportSpreadsheet.tsx

Lines 60 to 134 in 5d3d7ef

	const setUploadFileError = (isInvalid: boolean, title: TranslationPaths, reason: TranslationPaths) => {
	setIsAttachmentInvalid(isInvalid);
	setAttachmentInvalidReasonTitle(title);
	setAttachmentValidReason(reason);
	};
	const validateFile = (file: FileObject) => {
	const {fileExtension} = splitExtensionFromFileName(file?.name ?? '');
	if (!CONST.ALLOWED_SPREADSHEET_EXTENSIONS.includes(fileExtension.toLowerCase() as TupleToUnion<typeof CONST.ALLOWED_SPREADSHEET_EXTENSIONS>)) {
	setUploadFileError(true, 'attachmentPicker.wrongFileType', 'attachmentPicker.notAllowedExtension');
	return false;
	}
	if ((file?.size ?? 0) <= 0) {
	setUploadFileError(true, 'attachmentPicker.attachmentTooSmall', 'spreadsheet.sizeNotMet');
	return false;
	}
	return true;
	};
	const readFile = (file: File) => {
	if (!validateFile(file)) {
	return;
	}
	let fileURI = file.uri ?? URL.createObjectURL(file);
	if (!fileURI) {
	return;
	}
	if (Platform.OS === 'ios') {
	fileURI = fileURI.replaceAll(/^.*\/Documents\//g, `${RNFetchBlob.fs.dirs.DocumentDir}/`);
	}
	const {fileExtension} = splitExtensionFromFileName(file?.name ?? '');
	const shouldReadAsText = CONST.TEXT_SPREADSHEET_EXTENSIONS.includes(fileExtension as TupleToUnion<typeof CONST.TEXT_SPREADSHEET_EXTENSIONS>);
	setIsReadingFile(true);
	import('xlsx')
	.then((XLSX) => {
	const readWorkbook = () => {
	if (shouldReadAsText) {
	return fetch(fileURI)
	.then((data) => {
	return data.text();
	})
	.then((text) => XLSX.read(text, {type: 'string'}));
	}
	return fetch(fileURI)
	.then((data) => {
	return data.arrayBuffer();
	})
	.then((arrayBuffer) => XLSX.read(new Uint8Array(arrayBuffer), {type: 'buffer'}));
	};
	readWorkbook()
	.then((workbook) => {
	const worksheet = workbook.Sheets[workbook.SheetNames[0]];
	const data = XLSX.utils.sheet_to_json(worksheet, {header: 1, blankrows: false}) as string[][] | unknown[][];
	const formattedSpreadsheetData = data.map((row) => row.map((cell) => String(cell)));
	setSpreadsheetData(formattedSpreadsheetData, fileURI, file.type, file.name, isImportingMultiLevelTags ?? false)
	.then(() => {
	Navigation.navigate(goTo);
	})
	.catch(() => {
	setUploadFileError(true, 'spreadsheet.importFailedTitle', 'spreadsheet.invalidFileMessage');
	});
	})
	.finally(() => {
	setIsReadingFile(false);
	});
	})
	.catch((error) => {
	console.error('Failed to load XLSX library:', error);
	setUploadFileError(true, 'spreadsheet.importFailedTitle', 'spreadsheet.importSpreadsheetLibraryError');
	setIsReadingFile(false);
	});

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

• Read spreadsheets on native platforms through react-native-blob-util (UTF-8 for text files, base64 for others) and only use fetch on web/desktop. This ensures local .txt files are parsed and the flow continues to the next screen.
• Normalize native file paths and convert base64 to bytes before handing the data to xlsx, and surface an error modal if parsing fails.

Updated ImportSpreadsheet.tsx (inside readFile method):

setIsReadingFile(true); // Existing

// New
const isNativePlatform = Platform.OS === CONST.PLATFORM.IOS || Platform.OS === CONST.PLATFORM.ANDROID;
const normalizeFilePath = (path: string) => (isNativePlatform ? decodeURI(path.replace('file://', '')) : path);
const base64ToUint8Array = (base64: string) => {
    const binaryString = atob(base64);
    const bytes = new Uint8Array(binaryString.length);
    for (let i = 0; i < binaryString.length; i += 1) {
        bytes[i] = binaryString.charCodeAt(i);
    }
    return bytes;
};

const readWorkbook = () => {
    // New
    if (isNativePlatform) {
        const normalizedFilePath = normalizeFilePath(fileURI);
        if (shouldReadAsText) {
            return RNFetchBlob.fs.readFile(normalizedFilePath, 'utf8').then((text) => XLSX.read(text, {type: 'string'}));
        }
        return RNFetchBlob.fs
            .readFile(normalizedFilePath, 'base64')
            .then(base64ToUint8Array)
            .then((arrayBuffer) => XLSX.read(arrayBuffer, {type: 'buffer'}));
    }
    if (shouldReadAsText) {
        return fetch(fileURI)
            .then((data) => data.text())
            .then((text) => XLSX.read(text, {type: 'string'}));
    }
    return fetch(fileURI)
        .then((data) => data.arrayBuffer())
        .then((arrayBuffer) => XLSX.read(new Uint8Array(arrayBuffer), {type: 'buffer'}));
};

readWorkbook()
    .then((workbook) => {
        const worksheet = workbook.Sheets[workbook.SheetNames[0]];
        const data = XLSX.utils.sheet_to_json(worksheet, {header: 1, blankrows: false}) as string[][] | unknown[][];
        const formattedSpreadsheetData = data.map((row) => row.map((cell) => String(cell)));
        return setSpreadsheetData(formattedSpreadsheetData, fileURI, file.type, file.name, isImportingMultiLevelTags ?? false);
    })
    .then(() => Navigation.navigate(goTo))
    .catch((error) => {
        console.error('Failed to read spreadsheet file:', error);
        setUploadFileError(true, 'spreadsheet.importFailedTitle', 'spreadsheet.invalidFileMessage');
    })
    .finally(() => {
        setIsReadingFile(false);
    });

Screen.Recording.2025-11-29.at.12.04.47.AM.mov

[eh2077]

🚨 Edited by proposal-police: This proposal was edited at 2025-12-17 14:09:46 UTC.

Proposal

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

On iOS app, there's no action after select an invalid txt to import for tags. We should show a popup to hint import failure, like

We also want to keep Choose file button loading before navigate to next step.

What is the root cause of that problem?

The root cause of this issue is that we don't catch potential error in the readWorkbook method when workbook is undefined. The method setSpreadsheetData returns promise and it isn't chained as next then clause of readWorkbook(), so the loading state is set to false before the data is ready.

App/src/components/ImportSpreadsheet.tsx

Lines 113 to 128 in 7b7bfd8

	readWorkbook()
	.then((workbook) => {
	const worksheet = workbook.Sheets[workbook.SheetNames[0]];
	const data = XLSX.utils.sheet_to_json(worksheet, {header: 1, blankrows: false}) as string[][] | unknown[][];
	const formattedSpreadsheetData = data.map((row) => row.map((cell) => String(cell)));
	setSpreadsheetData(formattedSpreadsheetData, fileURI, file.type, file.name, isImportingMultiLevelTags ?? false)
	.then(() => {
	Navigation.navigate(goTo);
	})
	.catch(() => {
	setUploadFileError(true, 'spreadsheet.importFailedTitle', 'spreadsheet.invalidFileMessage');
	});
	})
	.finally(() => {
	setIsReadingFile(false);
	});

Click to see the debugging video

Screen.Recording.2025-12-02.at.10.19.39.AM.mov

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

I think we should catch potential error for readWorkbook and show upload file error

App/src/components/ImportSpreadsheet.tsx

Lines 113 to 128 in 7b7bfd8

	readWorkbook()
	.then((workbook) => {
	const worksheet = workbook.Sheets[workbook.SheetNames[0]];
	const data = XLSX.utils.sheet_to_json(worksheet, {header: 1, blankrows: false}) as string[][] | unknown[][];
	const formattedSpreadsheetData = data.map((row) => row.map((cell) => String(cell)));
	setSpreadsheetData(formattedSpreadsheetData, fileURI, file.type, file.name, isImportingMultiLevelTags ?? false)
	.then(() => {
	Navigation.navigate(goTo);
	})
	.catch(() => {
	setUploadFileError(true, 'spreadsheet.importFailedTitle', 'spreadsheet.invalidFileMessage');
	});
	})
	.finally(() => {
	setIsReadingFile(false);
	});

like

                readWorkbook()
                    .then((workbook) => {
                        const worksheet = workbook.Sheets[workbook.SheetNames[0]];
                        const data = XLSX.utils.sheet_to_json(worksheet, {header: 1, blankrows: false}) as string[][] | unknown[][];
                        const formattedSpreadsheetData = data.map((row) => row.map((cell) => String(cell)));
                        return setSpreadsheetData(formattedSpreadsheetData, fileURI, file.type, file.name, isImportingMultiLevelTags ?? false);
                    })
                    .then(() => {
                        Navigation.navigate(goTo);
                    })
                    .catch((reason) => {
                        setUploadFileError(true, 'spreadsheet.importFailedTitle', 'spreadsheet.invalidFileMessage');
                    })
                    .finally(() => {
                        setIsReadingFile(false);
                    });

What alternative solutions did you explore? (Optional)

NA