Idempotency key to prevent errors when add attachment requests are cancelled

[neil-marcellini]

Details

When a user performs the steps below they currently get an error for uploading the image on production. Refreshing the page while the AddAttachment request is in flight causes it to be cancelled, but does not remove it from the persisted requests that the sequential queue uses. Once the page reloads the request is sent again with the same parameters, which was causing a unique constraints violation on the backend when we try to insert the attachment with the same reportActionID as the previous successful but cancelled request. The existing duplicate detection method failed because our API layer uploads the attachment again, creating a unique image in the message html field.

It would be great to make the App not send these duplicate requests, but I'm not sure there is a way to do that due to these factors.

• In flight requests are cancelled when the page is refreshed
• The JS execution context is destroyed, which means the catch blocks for those requests don't run
• There is a beforeunload event on web that could be used mark requests as cancelled, but then it's unclear if they should be retried later or not, given that we don't want to lose data if the user makes a write request and refreshes the page while the backend is down. I'm also not sure what the native equivalent is if any

To solve the problem, pass an idempotency key which is stored in the message column and used to check for duplicate attachment requests. In that case, an empty response is returned which allows the success data to be applied and so the uploaded image is displayed without error.

Fixed Issues

$ https://github.com/Expensify/Expensify/issues/410860
PROPOSAL: N/A

Tests

1. Go to any chat
2. Open dev tools and set Network throttling to slow 4g (optional, makes it more reliable to test)
3. Add an attachment, uploading an image
4. Click send, then quickly refresh the page
5. Verify the attachment is added without any errors

Screen.Recording.2024-09-27.at.10.23.04.AM.mov

• Verify that no errors appear in the JS console

Offline tests

N/A

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
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  • 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)
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Screenshots/Videos

See above, only tested on web for a simple change

Android: Native

Android: mWeb Chrome

iOS: Native

iOS: mWeb Safari

MacOS: Chrome / Safari

MacOS: Desktop

[melvin-bot]

@ahmedGaber93 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]

[OSBotify]

✋ This PR was not deployed to staging yet because QA is ongoing. It will be automatically deployed to staging after the next production release.

[github-actions]

🚀 Deployed to staging by https://github.com/tgolen in version: 9.0.42-0 🚀

platform	result
🤖 android 🤖	success ✅
🖥 desktop 🖥	success ✅
🍎 iOS 🍎	success ✅
🕸 web 🕸	success ✅

[github-actions]

🚀 Deployed to production by https://github.com/jasperhuangg in version: 9.0.42-3 🚀

platform	result
🤖 android 🤖	success ✅
🖥 desktop 🖥	success ✅
🍎 iOS 🍎	success ✅
🕸 web 🕸	success ✅