[Due for payment 2025-08-11] [$250] Onboarding flow path changes after page refresh

[m-natarajan]

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Version Number: v9.1.80-2
Reproducible in staging?: Y
Reproducible in production?: Y
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
Expensify/Expensify Issue URL:
Issue reported by: @VickyStash
Slack conversation (hyperlinked to channel name): #Quality

Action Performed:

1. Sign up on new.expensify.com
2. Select "Manage my team" as purpose
3. Select 1-10 employees
4. On the "Do you use any accounting software?" step refresh the page

Expected Result:

User remains in "Do you use any accounting software?" page

Actual Result:

The route will change to onboarding/personal-details and when you enter name and surname the onboarding ends.

Workaround:

Unknown

Platforms:

Select the officially supported platforms where the issue was reproduced:

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

Platforms Tested:

On which of our officially supported platforms was this issue tested:

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

Screenshots/Videos

Add any screenshot/video evidence

The video for the issue is in OP

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• MobileMage | Contributor | 108137277

Issue Owner

Current Issue Owner: @lschurr

Issue Owner

Current Issue Owner: @DylanDylann

[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to @laurenreidexpensify (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.

[MobileMage]

Proposal

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

During onboarding, refreshing the page at the "Do you use any accounting software?" step redirects users to "onboarding/personal-details" instead of resuming there, prematurely ending the flow after entering name details. This affects new sign-ups choosing "Manage my team" with 1-10 employees.

What is the root cause of that problem?

The root cause is in getOnboardingInitialPath from src/libs/actions/Welcome/OnboardingFlow.ts, where conditional checks for user domain and policies override the stored last visited path on refresh, resetting the flow instead of resuming it. Path validation occurs too late, failing to prioritize valid existing paths.

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

Add an early check in getOnboardingInitialPath to return onboardingInitialPath if it exists and validates as part of the onboarding navigator using getStateFromPath. This prioritizes resumption on refresh while leaving fallback logic intact for new flows.

Here's how the updated function would look:

function getOnboardingInitialPath(getOnboardingInitialPathParams: GetOnboardingInitialPathParamsType): string {
    const {isUserFromPublicDomain, hasAccessiblePolicies, onboardingValuesParam} = getOnboardingInitialPathParams;
    if (onboardingInitialPath) {
        const state = getStateFromPath(onboardingInitialPath, linkingConfig.config);
        if (state?.routes?.at(-1)?.name === NAVIGATORS.ONBOARDING_MODAL_NAVIGATOR) {
            return onboardingInitialPath;
        }
    }
    // ... existing code ...
}

Result

refresh.fix.mp4

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

N/A

What alternative solutions did you explore? (Optional)

I explored adding a new Onyx key for active sessions or overriding navigation state on refresh, but these added unnecessary complexity. Always validating at the end wouldn't prioritize resumption effectively, so the early check proved simplest and most targeted.

[trjExpensify]

@thelullabyy is this bug being addressed in this PR of yours? #64998

[thelullabyy]

I can't reproduce this bug. Also, I think it's not related to #64998

[trjExpensify]

CC: @VickyStash anything special on DEV to repro this?

[VickyStash]

I've just reproduced it in both dev and prod:

Monosnap.screencast.2025-07-14.13-07-02.mp4

Monosnap.screencast.2025-07-14.13-06-18.mp4

[trjExpensify]

Oh cool, okay. Removing DEV from the title.