[Duplicate expense] Distance- Duplicate is map distance expense when original expense is a manual distance expense

[lanitochka17]

If you haven’t already, check out our contributing guidelines for onboarding and email contributors@expensify.com to request to join our Slack channel!

---

Version Number: 9.3.31-0
Reproducible in staging?: Yes
Reproducible in production?: N/A - new feature, doesn't exist in prod
If this was caught during regression testing, add the test name, ID and link from BrowserStack: #82005
Email or phone of affected tester (no customers): jsodijnsoinjdojoijsoid@gmail.com
Issue reported by: Applause Internal Team
Bug source: Exploratory - Significant User Experience Deterioration
Device used: Mac 26.2 / Chrome
App Component: Money Requests

Action Performed:

1. Go to staging.new.expensify.com
2. Go to workspace chat.
3. Create a map distance expense.
4. Open the expense.
5. Click More > Split > Save.
6. Open any split.
7. Click More > Duplicate expense.
8. Open the duplicated expense
9. Click Distance field.
   → The distance expense changes to manual distance expense, not map distance expense - Expected from [Duplicate Expenses] Re-enable Distance Expense Support with fixes #82005
10. Close the RHP.
11. Click More > Duplicate expense.
12. Open the duplicated "manual" distance expense.
13. Wait for receipt to load, then click Distance field.

Expected Result:

Since the distance expense is duplicated from a manual distance expense (as a result of duplicating split map distance expense), the duplicate should remain as manual distance expense.

Actual Result:

When the distance expense is duplicated from a manual distance expense, the duplicate reverts to map distance expense.

Workaround:

Unknown

Platforms:

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

Screenshots/Videos

Bug7093965_1772651503280.10.1.mp4

View all open jobs on GitHub

Issue Owner

Current Issue Owner: @jjcoffee

[melvin-bot]

You have been assigned to this deploy blocker because you recently merged this PR: #82005

[melvin-bot]

💬 A slack conversation has been started in #expensify-open-source

[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to @JmillsExpensify (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.

[github-actions]

👋 Friendly reminder that deploy blockers are time-sensitive ⏱ issues! Check out the open `StagingDeployCash` deploy checklist to see the list of PRs included in this release, then work quickly to do one of the following:

1. Identify the pull request that introduced this issue and revert it.
2. Find someone who can quickly fix the issue.
3. Fix the issue yourself.

[OSBotify]

🔍 Investigation Summary

Classification: Frontend bug
Causing PR: #82005 - "[Duplicate Expenses] Re-enable Distance Expense Support with fixes" by @jjcoffee (High confidence)
Related Issues: None

Recommendation: REVERT

PR #82005 introduced logic to handle duplicating split distance expenses, but there is a bug in how it copies transaction data. When duplicating a split distance expense that was converted to manual distance, the duplicate incorrectly reverts to the original map distance type because the code copies the entire transaction.comment object which contains stale distance type information.

Labels: No label changes needed - keeping DeployBlockerCash as this is a frontend bug caused by an App PR.

📋 Detailed Analysis

Evidence

The issue reporter mentions PR #82005 in the reproduction steps, and melvin-bot correctly identified this PR as the cause. The bug is reproducible only on staging where this PR is deployed, and the issue directly relates to the duplicate distance expense feature that was re-enabled in this PR.

Verification

I examined the PR diff and confirmed that:

• PR [Duplicate Expenses] Re-enable Distance Expense Support with fixes #82005 modified src/libs/actions/IOU/Duplicate.ts (the duplicate expense logic)
• The changes specifically handle split distance expenses (lines 549, 599-601)
• The PR was merged on 2026-03-04 and is included in the staging deploy checklist

Root Cause

In src/libs/actions/IOU/Duplicate.ts, the duplicateExpenseTransaction function at lines 611-622 (track expense) and 653-664 (distance request) creates an existingTransaction object by copying the original transaction.comment:

existingTransaction: {
    ...(params.transactionParams ?? {}),
    comment: {
        ...transaction.comment,  // BUG: This copies stale distance type info
        originalTransactionID: undefined,
        source: undefined,
    },
    iouRequestType: getRequestType(transaction),
    // ...
}

When a split distance expense is converted from map to manual distance:

1. The transaction object gets updated with new distance type
2. But the comment field may still contain the original map distance metadata
3. When duplicating, the code copies this stale comment data
4. The duplicate incorrectly uses the original map distance type instead of the current manual type

This is a data consistency issue where the transaction comment is not properly synchronized with the current distance request type when duplicating previously-modified split distance expenses.