Category - Category appears as disabled when the category is A: B:

[nlemma]

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Version Number: 9.3.38-0
Reproducible in staging?: Yes
Reproducible in production?: No
If this was caught during regression testing, add the test name, ID and link from BrowserStack: #83200
Email or phone of affected tester (no customers): sdijnsoijsodosj@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:

Precondition:

• Create this category - A: B:

1. Go to staging.new.expensify.com
2. Go to workspace chat.
3. Click + > Create expense > Manual.
4. Enter amount > Next.
5. Click Category.

Expected Result:

B: will be enabled.

Actual Result:

B: is not a category. Both A and B are disabled. A: B: is a disabled category.

Workaround:

Unknown

Platforms:

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

Screenshots/Videos

Bug7104074_1773656728079.3.mp4

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[melvin-bot]

You have been assigned to this deploy blocker because you recently merged this PR: #83200

[melvin-bot]

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

[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: #83200 - "Multi-level categories with colons are shown with hierarchical indentation" by @ijmalik (High confidence)
Related Issues: #82068

Recommendation: REVERT

The causing PR (#83200) changed CONST.PARENT_CHILD_SEPARATOR from ": " (colon with space) to ":" (colon only). This breaks categories that have spaces in their names after colons, such as "A: B:".

Why revert?
The fix attempted to enable hierarchical category display but did not account for category names with spacing variations. Categories like "A: B:" (with trailing colon and spaces) are now incorrectly parsed:

• Split by ":" produces ["A", " B", ""]
• The empty string at the end causes incorrect hierarchy construction
• Both parent and child appear as disabled

A revert will restore the previous behavior while a proper fix can be developed that handles both hierarchical categories AND categories with spaces around colons.

Labels: No label changes needed. This is a Frontend bug that blocks the App deploy, so DeployBlockerCash should remain.

Detailed Analysis

Evidence

The bug is reproducible only on staging (version 9.3.38-0), not on production. PR #83200 is included in the current staging deploy and modified the category parsing logic. The melvin-bot comment confirms this PR was recently merged by the same author.

Verification

PR #83200 modified:

• src/CONST/index.ts - Changed PARENT_CHILD_SEPARATOR from ": " to ":"
• src/libs/CategoryOptionListUtils.ts - Removed the isOneLine parameter and changed how categories are split and displayed

The affected code in CategoryOptionListUtils.ts line 36:

const array = option.name.split(CONST.PARENT_CHILD_SEPARATOR);

When a category is named "A: B:" (with spaces after colons):

• Before PR Multi-level categories with colons are shown with hierarchical indent… #83200: Split by ": " would produce ["A", "B:"]
• After PR Multi-level categories with colons are shown with hierarchical indent… #83200: Split by ":" produces ["A", " B", ""]

The trailing empty string and spaces cause the hierarchy construction to fail.

Root Cause

The PR attempted to enable hierarchical category display by treating ":" as the separator, but did not handle categories where the colon is part of the category name with spaces (e.g., "A: B:"). The loop in getCategoryOptionTree processes the empty string as a third level, causing the entire category hierarchy to be marked as disabled.

The category name "A: B:" should be treated as a complete category name, not as a parent-child hierarchy, but the current implementation cannot distinguish between intentional hierarchy separators and colons that are part of the category name.