[Due for payment 2025-12-31] [$250] Duplicate Expense Cards Appear in Report When Adding a Single Expense from Empty State

[m-natarajan]

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Version Number: 9.2.78-3
Reproducible in staging?: Y
Reproducible in production?: Y
If this was caught during regression testing, add the test name, ID and link from BrowserStack:
Email or phone of affected tester (no customers):
Logs: https://stackoverflow.com/c/expensify/questions/4856
Expensify/Expensify Issue URL:
Issue reported by: @danielrvidal
Slack conversation (hyperlinked to channel name): #Migrate

Action Performed:

Precondition: User have unreported expenses

1. Create a new report using Global Create
2. Confirm the report initially has no expenses
3. From the empty state, choose Add expense
4. Select Add unreported expense
5. Select a single expense

Expected Result:

Only one expense entry should appear in the report.
The report should display expenses in the standard table view, not duplicated cards.
Editing the expense should affect only a single entry.

Actual Result:

The report displays two expense cards instead of one table row.
The report total reflects only one expense amount.
Editing the expense amount updates both cards at the same time.

Workaround:

Unknown

Platforms:

Select the officially supported platforms where the issue was reproduced:

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

Screenshots/Videos

Recording.2076.mp4

View all open jobs on GitHub

Upwork Automation - Do Not Edit

• Upwork Job URL: https://www.upwork.com/jobs/~022001072928825697733
• Upwork Job ID: 2001072928825697733
• Last Price Increase: 2025-12-16

Issue Owner

Current Issue Owner: @mallenexpensify

[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to @mallenexpensify (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.

[dmkt9]

Proposal

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

The report displays two expense cards instead of one table row.
The report total reflects only one expense amount.
Editing the expense amount updates both cards at the same time.

What is the root cause of that problem?

1. The bug occurs because createTransactionThreadReport in ReportScreen is called:
   

   App/src/pages/home/ReportScreen.tsx

   Line 892 in 6d7eaa6

   createTransactionThreadReport(report, undefined, transaction);

   
   This creates an additional IOU action for the current report even though we already have an IOU action from changeTransactionsReport.

2. createTransactionThreadReport is called depending on iouAction and visibleTransactions.length:
   

   App/src/pages/home/ReportScreen.tsx

   Lines 874 to 885 in 6d7eaa6

   	const transaction = visibleTransactions?.at(0);
   	if (!reportID || visibleTransactions?.length !== 1 || report?.type !== CONST.REPORT.TYPE.EXPENSE || !transaction?.transactionID) {
   	return;
   	}
   	// Skip legacy transaction handling if:
   	// - IOU action already exists (not a legacy transaction)
   	// - Transaction is pending addition (new transaction, not legacy)
   	const iouAction = getIOUActionForReportID(reportID, transaction.transactionID);
   	if (iouAction || transaction?.pendingAction === CONST.RED_BRICK_ROAD_PENDING_ACTION.ADD) {
   	return;
   	}

   
   In the current case, iouAction has the value undefined and visibleTransactions.length === 1.

3. Although iouAction was added optimistically in changeTransactionsReport, the update in onyxData happens sequentially. The transaction is merged first while the reportAction has not yet been merged, which satisfies the condition to call createTransactionThreadReport (visibleTransactions.length === 1 and iouAction === undefined).
   

   App/src/libs/actions/Transaction.ts

   Lines 995 to 1027 in 6d7eaa6

   	if (oldIOUAction) {
   	optimisticData.push({
   	onyxMethod: Onyx.METHOD.MERGE,
   	key: `${ONYXKEYS.COLLECTION.REPORT_ACTIONS}${targetReportID}`,
   	value: {
   	[newIOUAction.reportActionID]: newIOUAction,
   	},
   	});
   	optimisticData.push({
   	onyxMethod: Onyx.METHOD.MERGE,
   	key: `${ONYXKEYS.COLLECTION.REPORT_ACTIONS}${isUnreportedExpense ? selfDMReportID : oldReportID}`,
   	value: {
   	[oldIOUAction.reportActionID]: {
   	previousMessage: oldIOUAction.message,
   	message: [
   	{
   	type: CONST.REPORT.MESSAGE.TYPE.COMMENT,
   	html: '',
   	text: '',
   	isEdited: true,
   	isDeletedParentAction: false,
   	},
   	],
   	originalMessage: {
   	IOUTransactionID: null,
   	},
   	errors: undefined,
   	},
   	...(trackExpenseActionableWhisper ? {[trackExpenseActionableWhisper.reportActionID]: null} : {}),
   	},
   	});
   	}

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

TEST BRANCH

We can assign linkedTrackedExpenseReportAction to the optimistic transaction to indicate that an IOU action already exists.

App/src/libs/actions/Transaction.ts

Lines 826 to 836 in 6d7eaa6

	// 1. Optimistically change the reportID on the passed transactions
	optimisticData.push({
	onyxMethod: Onyx.METHOD.MERGE,
	key: `${ONYXKEYS.COLLECTION.TRANSACTION}${transaction.transactionID}`,
	value: {
	reportID,
	comment: {
	hold: null,
	},
	},
	});

+        const isUnreported = reportID === CONST.REPORT.UNREPORTED_REPORT_ID;
+        const optimisticMoneyRequestReportActionID = rand64();
+
+        const originalMessage = getOriginalMessage(oldIOUAction) as OriginalMessageIOU;
+        const newIOUAction = {
+            ...oldIOUAction,
+            originalMessage: {
+                ...originalMessage,
+                IOUReportID: reportID,
+                type: isUnreported ? CONST.IOU.REPORT_ACTION_TYPE.TRACK : CONST.IOU.REPORT_ACTION_TYPE.CREATE,
+            },
+            reportActionID: optimisticMoneyRequestReportActionID,
+            pendingAction: CONST.RED_BRICK_ROAD_PENDING_ACTION.ADD,
+            actionName: oldIOUAction?.actionName ?? CONST.REPORT.ACTIONS.TYPE.MOVED_TRANSACTION,
+            created: oldIOUAction?.created ?? DateUtils.getDBTime(),
+        };
+
         // 1. Optimistically change the reportID on the passed transactions
         optimisticData.push({
            onyxMethod: Onyx.METHOD.MERGE,
            key: `${ONYXKEYS.COLLECTION.TRANSACTION}${transaction.transactionID}`,
            value: {
                reportID,
                comment: {
                    hold: null,
                },
+                ...(oldIOUAction ? {linkedTrackedExpenseReportAction: newIOUAction} : {}),
             },
         });

App/src/pages/home/ReportScreen.tsx

Line 883 in 6d7eaa6

if (iouAction || transaction?.pendingAction === CONST.RED_BRICK_ROAD_PENDING_ACTION.ADD) {

        if (iouAction || transaction?.pendingAction === CONST.RED_BRICK_ROAD_PENDING_ACTION.ADD || !!transaction.linkedTrackedExpenseReportAction?.childReportID) {

What alternative solutions did you explore? (Optional)

N/A

[melvin-bot]

Job added to Upwork: https://www.upwork.com/jobs/~022001072928825697733

[melvin-bot]

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

[mallenexpensify]

Was able to reproduce on latest staging build

2025-12-16_15-31-16.mp4

@getusha 👀 on @dmkt9 's proposal above. Thx