[HOLD for payment 2023-10-05] Report - The request money is broken for "unknown" accounts without login information

[lanitochka17]

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Issue found when executing PR #22188

Action Performed:

1. Log in to the Expensify App with a GMAIL account
2. Tap a user you want to chat with from the list
3. Tap the "+" icon from the composer
4. Tap "Request money"
5. Enter the amount and tap next
6. Tap the "Request" green button
7. Tap the user you made an IOU with

Expected Result:

The IOU report page should not be grayed out and the composer should not be hidden for Gmail accounts

Actual Result:

The IOU report page is grayed out and the composer is hidden for Gmail accounts

Workaround:

Unknown

Platforms:

Which of our officially supported platforms is this issue occurring on?

• Android / native
• Android / Chrome
• iOS / native
• iOS / Safari
• MacOS / Chrome / Safari
• MacOS / Desktop

Version Number: 1.3.38.3

Reproducible in staging?: Yes

Reproducible in production?: No

If this was caught during regression testing, add the test name, ID and link from TestRail:

Email or phone of affected tester (no customers):

Logs: https://stackoverflow.com/c/expensify/questions/4856

Notes/Photos/Videos: Any additional supporting documentation

Bug6120808_The_IOU_report_page_is_grayed_out_and_the_composer_is_hidden_for_Gmail_accounts.mp4

Production IOS

0-02-01-2d9db84538bdb0e2b139cf30f919a44944613834b7c912c171c89be1f0e043e6_6d2a270fe3c7eb23_1.mp4

Staging IOS

0-02-01-0360e39b9766d53efdd534aa14558dd4c471fa07ec0e746693e3ce7cc1651b3c_a01c82a3c1189b8e_1.mp4

Expensify/Expensify Issue URL:

Issue reported by: Applause - Internal Team

Slack conversation:

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[OSBotify]

👋 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.

[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to @aldo-expensify (Engineering), see https://stackoverflow.com/c/expensify/questions/4319 for more details.

[0xmiros]

Money request flow is very broken at the moment.
This bug is the one I reported in #21877 (comment) (2nd video)
cc: @Beamanator

[aldo-expensify]

I don't think this is related to "Gmail" accounts, but it is related to requesting money to accounts that haven't messaged you back (you don't have the full personal details yet).

This worked:

2. Using any account (i.e. y@gmail.com), open a chat with a Gmail account x@gmail.com and send a message
3. x@gmail.com replies back
4. Using y@gmail.com, request money from x@gmail.com
5. Success!

This didn't work:

2. Using any account (i.e. y@gmail.com), open a chat with a Gmail account z@gmail.com and send a message
3. Using y@gmail.com, request money from z@gmail.com
4. Fail:
   

Logs: https://www.expensify.com/_devportal/tools/logSearch/#query=request_id%3A%227e4b4165aa3e2da3-YVR%22%20AND%20timestamp%3A%5B2023-07-10T00%3A00%20TO%202023-07-11T23%3A59%5D&index=_all

[aldo-expensify]

The backend is expecting a debtorEmail which we don't send in this case: https://github.com/Expensify/Auth/blob/bbdae8fcc5e6ebb13143e60792b09e437a5aa6d3/auth/command/CreateIOUTransaction.cpp#L37

[aldo-expensify]

This is not a deploy blocker, this also happens in production:

[aldo-expensify]

@Beamanator the backend doesn't seem to support to create money requests by the account ID, what should we do?

1. Modify backend to support creating money requests by account ID and pass from the front end the accountID instead of the email, or
2. Disable creating money requests for accounts you don't have the personal details in the front end

[Beamanator]

@aldo-expensify our plan so far with these types of situations is along the lines of point 2 - BUT not ALWAYS disable - here's what are trying to accomplish:

• If you have a user's personal details w/out login, that person shouldn't be searchable in any contact-search flow (task assignee, new chat, new group, send / receive money, split bill)
• If you type out a person's full email address (you may or may not already have their personal details) you SHOULD be able to do those contact-search flows (task assignee, new chat, split bill, etc).

[Beamanator]

So I don't believe we need to support creating money requests by account ID at the moment - otherwise we'll need to do that everywhere, and @puneetlath and I don't see a need for that if we follow the above plan

[aldo-expensify]

Ok, so we can treat this as an external issue, right? I think it only needs changes in App to disable the "Request Money" button here:

if you don't have the login, right?

If you type out a person's full email address (you may or may not already have their personal details) you SHOULD be able to do those contact-search flows (task assignee, new chat, split bill, etc).

I think this doesn't apply to this case because this is not a search box.

[0xmiros]

Using any account (i.e. y@gmail.com), open a chat with a Gmail account z@gmail.com and send a message
Using y@gmail.com, request money from z@gmail.com

Doesn't this mean that user y already knows user z's login (email)?

If you have a user's personal details w/out login, that person shouldn't be searchable in any contact-search flow

[aldo-expensify]

Doesn't this mean that user y already knows user z's login (email)?

Yes, I started a new chat by using the email, but if that user doesn't reply back, then you get the bug.

[0xmiros]

yes, I don't see any reason why "Request money" shouldn't show on DM where user already knows email.

[aldo-expensify]

While I agree with what your are saying, I'm not sure if it is safe to use in all cases. I think that when you start a conversation with an email for the first time, we store that email as "displayName", but it still doesn't have a "login"... so to do what you are saying, we would have to do something like:

• If there is no login, use the displayName as the login only if the displayName is an email.

The problem with that is that the email found in displayName may not be the real email of the account. For example:

• You are in a public room
• An account there you haven't chatted directly with has an email x@gmail.com but a display name y@gmail.com.
• If you assume that the display name is a valid login identifying the account, you are wrong.

[aldo-expensify]

by the way, my understanding is shallow on this area, so @Beamanator or @puneetlath may give a better answer really :P

[Beamanator]

Innnnnteresting, so yeah I may not have been completely following before :D Now I see that this "request money" flow is from WITHIN a chat report that you already created :D

In this case I do think it's totally valid to be able to request money from the account -> because, as @0xmiroslav said, you already know the email (you may not know if an account exists with that email, but you already typed it out so you should be able to also request money from that chat).

So it makes the most sense to me that in this case, you SHOULD be able to request money w/in a chat report.

I do think this can be external since you should be able to get the user's email from Onyx somehow 🤔 since you already typed it out...

[aldo-expensify]

Is it possible to get into a 1:1 chat with a user you found in a public room without knowing their email? I think the answer is no, but I wanted to confirm

[puneetlath]

Yes it is. You can click on their profile (which opens using their accountID) and then chat them from their profile.

[melvin-bot]

@aldo-expensify Uh oh! This issue is overdue by 2 days. Don't forget to update your issues!

[aldo-expensify]

The Web-E PR was deployed to staging, I'll make the App PR ready for review

[aldo-expensify]

Made PR ready for review

[melvin-bot]

Reviewing label has been removed, please complete the "BugZero Checklist".

[melvin-bot]

The solution for this issue has been 🚀 deployed to production 🚀 in version 1.3.74-3 and is now subject to a 7-day regression period 📆. Here is the list of pull requests that resolve this issue:

• Send debtor accountID in RequestMoney #23225

If no regressions arise, payment will be issued on 2023-10-05. 🎊

After the hold period is over and BZ checklist items are completed, please complete any of the applicable payments for this issue, and check them off once done.

• External issue reporter
• Contributor that fixed the issue
• Contributor+ that helped on the issue and/or PR

As a reminder, here are the bonuses/penalties that should be applied for any External issue:

• Merged PR within 3 business days of assignment - 50% bonus
• Merged PR more than 9 business days after assignment - 50% penalty

[melvin-bot]

@aldo-expensify Eep! 4 days overdue now. Issues have feelings too...

[melvin-bot]

@aldo-expensify Still overdue 6 days?! Let's take care of this!

[melvin-bot]

@aldo-expensify 10 days overdue. I'm getting more depressed than Marvin.

[melvin-bot]

@aldo-expensify 12 days overdue now... This issue's end is nigh!

[melvin-bot]

This issue has not been updated in over 14 days. @aldo-expensify eroding to Weekly issue.