Clean up stale transaction thread and IOU action

[s77rt]

Explanation of Change

When we try to optimistically create a IOU report action and a transaction thread for a transaction that already have that. The request would fail and we'd end up with 2 IOU actions and 2 transaction threads. This causes weird UI. This PR fixes that by clearing the dups in such a case.

Fixed Issues

$ #78898
PROPOSAL:

Tests

1. Create a new report in a policy expense chat
2. Add an expense
3. Go to Accounts > Troubleshoot and Clear cache and restart
4. Go back to the expense
5. Verify the expense loads and does not display duplicated IOU actions

For clarification here is before and after:

Bad	Good
Screen.Recording.2026-01-09.at.6.59.37.AM.mov	Screen.Recording.2026-01-09.at.7.01.00.AM.mov

• Verify that no errors appear in the JS console

Offline tests

Same as Tests

QA Steps

Same as Tests

• Verify that no errors appear in the JS console

PR Author Checklist

• I linked the correct issue in the ### Fixed Issues section above
• I wrote clear testing steps that cover the changes made in this PR
  • I added steps for local testing in the Tests section
  • I added steps for the expected offline behavior in the Offline steps section
  • I added steps for Staging and/or Production testing in the QA steps section
  • I added steps to cover failure scenarios (i.e. verify an input displays the correct error message if the entered data is not correct)
  • I turned off my network connection and tested it while offline to ensure it matches the expected behavior (i.e. verify the default avatar icon is displayed if app is offline)
  • I tested this PR with a High Traffic account against the staging or production API to ensure there are no regressions (e.g. long loading states that impact usability).
• I included screenshots or videos for tests on all platforms
• I ran the tests on all platforms & verified they passed on:
  • Android: Native
  • Android: mWeb Chrome
  • iOS: Native
  • iOS: mWeb Safari
  • MacOS: Chrome / Safari
• I verified there are no console errors (if there's a console error not related to the PR, report it or open an issue for it to be fixed)
• I verified there are no new alerts related to the canBeMissing param for useOnyx
• I followed proper code patterns (see Reviewing the code)
  • I verified that any callback methods that were added or modified are named for what the method does and never what callback they handle (i.e. toggleReport and not onIconClick)
  • I verified that comments were added to code that is not self explanatory
  • I verified that any new or modified comments were clear, correct English, and explained "why" the code was doing something instead of only explaining "what" the code was doing.
  • I verified any copy / text shown in the product is localized by adding it to src/languages/* files and using the translation method
    • If any non-english text was added/modified, I used JaimeGPT to get English > Spanish translation. I then posted it in #expensify-open-source and it was approved by an internal Expensify engineer. Link to Slack message:
  • I verified all numbers, amounts, dates and phone numbers shown in the product are using the localization methods
  • I verified any copy / text that was added to the app is grammatically correct in English. It adheres to proper capitalization guidelines (note: only the first word of header/labels should be capitalized), and is either coming verbatim from figma or has been approved by marketing (in order to get marketing approval, ask the Bug Zero team member to add the Waiting for copy label to the issue)
  • I verified proper file naming conventions were followed for any new files or renamed files. All non-platform specific files are named after what they export and are not named "index.js". All platform-specific files are named for the platform the code supports as outlined in the README.
  • I verified the JSDocs style guidelines (in STYLE.md) were followed
• If a new code pattern is added I verified it was agreed to be used by multiple Expensify engineers
• I followed the guidelines as stated in the Review Guidelines
• I tested other components that can be impacted by my changes (i.e. if the PR modifies a shared library or component like Avatar, I verified the components using Avatar are working as expected)
• I verified all code is DRY (the PR doesn't include any logic written more than once, with the exception of tests)
• I verified any variables that can be defined as constants (ie. in CONST.ts or at the top of the file that uses the constant) are defined as such
• I verified that if a function's arguments changed that all usages have also been updated correctly
• If any new file was added I verified that:
  • The file has a description of what it does and/or why is needed at the top of the file if the code is not self explanatory
• If a new CSS style is added I verified that:
  • A similar style doesn't already exist
  • The style can't be created with an existing StyleUtils function (i.e. StyleUtils.getBackgroundAndBorderStyle(theme.componentBG))
• If new assets were added or existing ones were modified, I verified that:
  • The assets are optimized and compressed (for SVG files, run npm run compress-svg)
  • The assets load correctly across all supported platforms.
• If the PR modifies code that runs when editing or sending messages, I tested and verified there is no unexpected behavior for all supported markdown - URLs, single line code, code blocks, quotes, headings, bold, strikethrough, and italic.
• If the PR modifies a generic component, I tested and verified that those changes do not break usages of that component in the rest of the App (i.e. if a shared library or component like Avatar is modified, I verified that Avatar is working as expected in all cases)
• If the PR modifies a component related to any of the existing Storybook stories, I tested and verified all stories for that component are still working as expected.
• If the PR modifies a component or page that can be accessed by a direct deeplink, I verified that the code functions as expected when the deeplink is used - from a logged in and logged out account.
• If the PR modifies the UI (e.g. new buttons, new UI components, changing the padding/spacing/sizing, moving components, etc) or modifies the form input styles:
  • I verified that all the inputs inside a form are aligned with each other.
  • I added Design label and/or tagged @Expensify/design so the design team can review the changes.
• If a new page is added, I verified it's using the ScrollView component to make it scrollable when more elements are added to the page.
• I added unit tests for any new feature or bug fix in this PR to help automatically prevent regressions in this user flow.
• If the main branch was merged into this PR after a review, I tested again and verified the outcome was still expected according to the Test steps.

Screenshots/Videos

Android: Native

Android: mWeb Chrome

iOS: Native

iOS: mWeb Safari

MacOS: Chrome / Safari

[melvin-bot]

@bernhardoj Please copy/paste the Reviewer Checklist from here into a new comment on this PR and complete it. If you have the K2 extension, you can simply click: [this button]

[codecov]

Codecov Report

❌ Looks like you've decreased code coverage for some files. Please write tests to increase, or at least maintain, the existing level of code coverage. See our documentation here for how to interpret this table.

Files with missing lines	Coverage Δ
src/libs/actions/Report.ts	55.15% <100.00%> (-0.07%)	⬇️
... and 14 files with indirect coverage changes

[chatgpt-codex-connector]

💡 Codex Review

Here are some automated review suggestions for this pull request.

Reviewed commit: 0e7bf37fee

ℹ️ About Codex in GitHub

Codex has been enabled to automatically review pull requests in this repo. Reviews are triggered when you

• Open a pull request for review
• Mark a draft as ready
• Comment "@codex review".

If Codex has suggestions, it will comment; otherwise it will react with 👍.

When you sign up for Codex through ChatGPT, Codex can also answer questions or update the PR, like "@codex address that feedback".

[bernhardoj]

@s77rt do I need to review this, or is this some kind of follow-up PR?

[s77rt]

@bernhardoj I think you can review

[bernhardoj]

@s77rt I can't seem to reproduce it following the steps. (tested on main)

web.mp4

web2.mp4

[s77rt]

@bernhardoj Can you try add a comment on the expense report before clearing the cache?

[bernhardoj]

@s77rt Still can't reproduce it.

w.1.mp4

w.2.mp4

When we try to optimistically create a IOU report action and a transaction thread for a transaction that already have that.

I think I ever encounter this issue.

When a transaction thread is already created, the one transaction report action will have childReportID, but in some cases, the childReportID is missing.

App/src/libs/ReportActionsUtils.ts

Lines 1603 to 1608 in 9bc39b5

	function getOneTransactionThreadReportID(...args: Parameters<typeof getOneTransactionThreadReportAction>): string | undefined {
	const reportAction = getOneTransactionThreadReportAction(...args);
	if (reportAction) {
	// Since we don't always create transaction thread optimistically, we return CONST.FAKE_REPORT_ID
	return reportAction.childReportID ?? CONST.FAKE_REPORT_ID;
	}

So, we end up creating another transaction thread which results in an error.

App/src/pages/home/ReportScreen.tsx

Lines 540 to 544 in 9bc39b5

	// If there is one transaction thread that has not yet been created, we should create it.
	if (transactionThreadReportID === CONST.FAKE_REPORT_ID && !transactionThreadReport) {
	createOneTransactionThreadReport();
	return;
	}

Is it the same issue?

(But I don't remember how I reproduce the issue)

[s77rt]

Actually I'm no longer able to reproduce this case either. Let me look at another case

[s77rt]

Ah wait, I can still reproduce. I was testing on another BE branch where the OpenApp returned the IOU report action. But now we don't. So you may have to try with a high traffic account.

[s77rt]

Or actually let me see why the IOU report action is not being returned (maybe it should be?)

[s77rt]

Hmm this is looking harder to reproduce for some reason 😅 . Basically you need to have the transaction thread have the highest lastReadTime so that after you sign in (or clear cache) you open that report first. The transaction thread should also have no comments on it (so it does not load in OpenApp)

I was able to reproduce but now at the time of writing not really sure how 😁 I always end up in the policy expense chat instead (which seems like a different kind of bug)

Screen.Recording.2026-01-12.at.12.26.23.PM.mov

[s77rt]

I think I found a more reliable repro steps:

1. Create an expense
2. Create an empty report
3. Create another expense but in the new report
4. Clear cache

Screen.Recording.2026-01-12.at.2.01.00.PM.mov

[s77rt]

Closing in favor of #79356