Odometer-App navigates to an empty page when tapping on add odometer photo button

[mitarachim]

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Version Number: v9.3.17-0
Reproducible in staging?: Yes
Reproducible in production?: N/A - new feature, doesn't exist in prod
If this was caught during regression testing, add the test name, ID and link from BrowserStack: #81906
Email or phone of affected tester (no customers): applausetester+21126@applause.expensifail.com
Issue reported by: Applause Internal Team
Bug source: Pull Request QA execution
Device used: iOS 26.1 / iPhone 13, Android 11/Tecno Spark 8
App Component: Money Requests

Action Performed:

1. Log in as a user with the odometer expenses beta (An epensifail account)
2. Tap on global create > Track distance > Odomter
3. Add start and end readings
4. Tap on the "Odometer start photo" button next to the start reading field
5. Navigate back and tap on "Odometer end photo" button next to the end reading field

Expected Result:

The Upload receipt page is opened (Web behaviour)

Actual Result:

The user is navigated to an empty page

Workaround:

Unknown

Platforms:

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

Screenshots/Videos

Bug7074440_1770801624991.video_2026-02-11_12-12-49.mp4

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[melvin-bot]

You have been assigned to this deploy blocker because you recently merged this PR: #81906

[melvin-bot]

💬 A slack conversation has been started in #expensify-open-source

[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to @kadiealexander (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.

[github-actions]

👋 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.

[OSBotify]

Investigation Summary

Classification: Frontend bug
Causing PR: #79576 - "[NO QA] [Odometer] Build Odometer expense image capture flow" by @jakubkalinski0 (High confidence)
Related PR: #81906 - Enabled the odometer feature behind beta flag, exposing the incomplete native implementation

Recommendation: ROLL FORWARD

The issue is caused by an incomplete native implementation. PR #79576 intentionally created an empty index.native.tsx file for the odometer image capture screen, with the PR description explicitly stating: "This PR focuses on the web implementation of the image capture flow with image preview, native implementation and mobile web implementation to follow".

PR #81906 then enabled the odometer feature behind a beta flag, which exposed this incomplete native implementation to users with the beta enabled. When users tap the odometer photo buttons on native platforms (iOS/Android), they navigate to the empty native screen, resulting in a blank page.

Why Roll Forward: This is a new feature that was incomplete when enabled. Rolling forward by implementing the missing native screen is simpler than reverting, as the feature is already gated behind the odometerExpenses beta and reverting would require backing out multiple interconnected odometer PRs.

Labels: No label changes needed - this is a frontend (App) bug that correctly blocks the App deploy. Both DeployBlockerCash and DeployBlocker should remain until fixed.

Detailed Analysis

Evidence

1. The issue reports that tapping "Odometer start photo" or "Odometer end photo" buttons navigates to an empty page on iOS and Android native apps
2. PR [NO QA] [Odometer] Build Odometer expense image capture flow #79576 added the odometer image capture feature on 2026-02-05 but explicitly only implemented the web version
3. The file /home/runner/_work/App/App/src/pages/iou/request/step/IOURequestStepOdometerImage/index.native.tsx is completely empty (0 bytes)
4. PR [Odometer] Gate feature tab behind beta flag #81906 merged on 2026-02-10 and enabled the feature by changing the gate from false to showOdometerTab in DistanceRequestStartPage.tsx

Verification

• Affected file: src/pages/iou/request/step/IOURequestStepOdometerImage/index.native.tsx (empty)
• Working file: src/pages/iou/request/step/IOURequestStepOdometerImage/index.tsx (web implementation with 181 lines)
• Navigation code in IOURequestStepDistanceOdometer.tsx line 328 calls Navigation.navigate(ROUTES.ODOMETER_IMAGE.getRoute(...)) which works on web but loads the empty native file on iOS/Android

Root Cause

The React Native module resolver loads index.native.tsx in preference to index.tsx on native platforms. When PR #79576 created an empty index.native.tsx placeholder, it caused native platforms to load an empty component. The web version works correctly because it uses the fully-implemented index.tsx file.

Fix Required

Implement the native version of IOURequestStepOdometerImage with camera/gallery picker functionality, or remove the empty index.native.tsx file to allow the web implementation to be used as a fallback until a proper native implementation is ready.