[$250] Android - Chat - Chat is not autoscrolled when sending new message after opened from search.

[izarutskaya]

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Version Number: 9.0.65-0
Reproducible in staging?: Y
Reproducible in production?: Y
If this was caught on HybridApp, is this reproducible on New Expensify Standalone?: Y
If this was caught during regression testing, add the test name, ID and link from TestRail: https://expensify.testrail.io/index.php?/tests/view/5251120&group_by=cases:section_id&group_order=asc&group_id=296775
Logs: https://stackoverflow.com/c/expensify/questions/4856
Issue reported by: Applause-Internal team

Action Performed:

1. Open the Expensify app.
2. Tap on "Search" on the bottom of the screen.
3. Tap on the dropdown menu and select "Chats"
4. Tap on the message displayed on the top.
5. Verify the correct chat is displayed and the message is highlighted.
6. Write a new message and send it to chat,
7. Verify that chat is autoscrolled to the bottom.

Expected Result:

Chat should be autoscrolled to the bottom after opening message from search and sending a new one.

Actual Result:

Chat is not autoscrolled to the bottom after being opened from the "Chats" section in search and sending a new message to it.

Workaround:

Unknown

Platforms:

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

• Android: Standalone
• Android: HybridApp
• Android: mWeb Chrome
• iOS: Standalone
• iOS: HybridApp
• iOS: mWeb Safari
• MacOS: Chrome / Safari
• MacOS: Desktop

Screenshots/Videos

Bug6671541_1732171036624.Not_Scrolled.mp4

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• wildan-m | Contributor | 105979385

[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to @johncschuster (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.

[melvin-bot]

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

[melvin-bot]

Job added to Upwork: https://www.upwork.com/jobs/~021861164052049967286

[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to Contributor-plus team member for initial proposal review - @rayane-djouah (External)

[melvin-bot]

@johncschuster, @rayane-djouah Uh oh! This issue is overdue by 2 days. Don't forget to update your issues!

[rayane-d]

Waiting on proposals

[melvin-bot]

📣 It's been a week! Do we have any satisfactory proposals yet? Do we need to adjust the bounty for this issue? 💸

[rayane-d]

Waiting on proposals

[QichenZhu]

Edited by proposal-police: This proposal was edited at 2024-12-04 00:24:13 UTC.

Proposal

Please re-state the problem that we are trying to solve in this issue.

After opening a link to the lastest message of a report and sending a new message, the chat doesn’t auto-scroll to the new message.

What is the root cause of that problem?

Auto-scrolling is disabled if isNavigatingToLinkedMessage is true, meaning that the page is currently navigating to a linked message and hasn’t finished loading.

App/src/pages/home/report/ReportActionsView.tsx

Lines 470 to 471 in a1e710e

	// AutoScroll is disabled when we do linking to a specific reportAction
	const shouldEnableAutoScroll = (hasNewestReportAction && (!reportActionID || !isNavigatingToLinkedMessage)) || (transactionThreadReport && !prevTransactionThreadReport);

isNavigatingToLinkedMessage depends on isTheFirstReportActionIsLinked, which could mean two things:

1. The newer actions haven't been loaded yet.
2. There are no newer actions.

In the normal case 1, isNavigatingToLinkedMessage is initially set to true,

App/src/pages/home/report/ReportActionsView.tsx

Lines 446 to 448 in a1e710e

	if (isTheFirstReportActionIsLinked) {
	setNavigatingToLinkedMessage(true);
	} else {

and after finishing loading, the linked action is no longer the newest one, so isNavigatingToLinkedMessage is set to false and autoscroll is enabled.

App/src/pages/home/report/ReportActionsView.tsx

Line 453 in a1e710e

timerID = setTimeout(() => setNavigatingToLinkedMessage(false), 10);

In case 2 where this issue happens, there are no newer actions to load, so isNavigatingToLinkedMessage remains true and auto-scrolling stays disabled.

What changes do you think we should make in order to solve the problem?

Make sure auto-scrolling is eventually enabled in both cases.

1. Add reportActions to the dependency array in L463.

}, [isTheFirstReportActionIsLinked, reportActions]); 

2. Add isFirstLinkedActionRender.current to the condition in L446.

if (isTheFirstReportActionIsLinked && isFirstLinkedActionRender.current) { 

What specific scenarios should we cover in automated tests to prevent reintroducing this issue in the future?

Verify that ReportActionsView sets shouldEnableAutoScroll correctly for different combinations of reportActions and reportActionId.

Examples of Inputs and Outputs

Name	Data
reportActions	undefined [] [{reportActionId: 'dummyReportActionId0'}] [{reportActionId: 'dummyReportActionId0'}, {reportActionId: 'dummyReportActionId1'}] [{reportActionId: 'dummyReportActionId0'}, {reportActionId: 'dummyReportActionId1'}, {reportActionId: 'dummyReportActionId2'}] [{reportActionId: 'dummyReportActionId0'}, {reportActionId: 'dummyReportActionId1'}, {reportActionId: 'dummyReportActionId2'}, {reportActionId: 'dummyReportActionId3'}, {reportActionId: 'dummyReportActionId4'}]
reportActionId	undefined '' 'dummyReportActionId0' 'dummyReportActionId1' 'dummyReportActionId2' 'dummyReportActionId3' 'dummyReportActionId4'
shouldEnableAutoScroll	false true

What alternative solutions did you explore? (Optional)

[melvin-bot]

@johncschuster @rayane-djouah this issue was created 2 weeks ago. Are we close to approving a proposal? If not, what's blocking us from getting this issue assigned? Don't hesitate to create a thread in #expensify-open-source to align faster in real time. Thanks!

[rayane-d]

Auto-scrolling is disabled if the latest message is linked.

@QichenZhu, have you discovered why this issue is reproducible only on the native Android platform and not on the web, for example?

Screen.Recording.2024-12-05.at.11.32.21.AM.mov

[rayane-d]

That's regression from this newly merged PR #54071

@wildan-m Could you please report this in the Slack channel?

We might need to hold this issue until that regression is resolved.

[wildan-m]

@rayane-djouah reported here https://expensify.slack.com/archives/C01GTK53T8Q/p1737755959458409

[melvin-bot]

📣 It's been a week! Do we have any satisfactory proposals yet? Do we need to adjust the bounty for this issue? 💸

[rayane-d]

#54071 is reverted

[johncschuster]

Thanks for the update, @rayane-djouah! What's the next step here? Is a follow-up PR being written?

[melvin-bot]

@johncschuster, @rayane-djouah Whoops! This issue is 2 days overdue. Let's get this updated quick!

[rayane-d]

Sorry for the delay; I was sick at the end of last week. I'll review the issue today.

[rayane-d]

Thanks for the update, @rayane-djouah! What's the next step here? Is a follow-up PR being written?

We were holding the issue on this bug which was resolved after the revert of #54071. We can now proceed with this issue.

[melvin-bot]

📣 @rayane-d! 📣
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[rayane-d]

@wildan-m's proposal looks good to me

🎀👀🎀 C+ reviewed

[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to @AndrewGable, see https://stackoverflow.com/c/expensify/questions/7972 for more details.

[melvin-bot]

📣 It's been a week! Do we have any satisfactory proposals yet? Do we need to adjust the bounty for this issue? 💸

[melvin-bot]

The BZ member will need to manually hire rayane-d for the Reviewer role. Please store your Upwork details and apply to our Upwork job so this process is automatic in the future!

[melvin-bot]

📣 @wildan-m 🎉 An offer has been automatically sent to your Upwork account for the Contributor role 🎉 Thanks for contributing to the Expensify app!

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[wildan-m]

@rayane-d The PR is ready #56293. Thanks!

[perunt]

Just saw this issue and wanted to ask the reviewer to test this as well:

1. Open the chat.
2. Scroll halfway up.
3. Copy the link from the top message.
4. Send this message in the chat.
5. Scroll to the bottom (or, if fixed, it should auto-scroll).
6. Click on the message/link.
7. Check if the linked message is positioned correctly.
8. Scroll down and click the link again.

Thanks in advance!

[rayane-d]

@perunt - Works well!

Screen.Recording.2025-02-06.at.8.01.00.PM.mov