Hybrid - Scan - Expense displays error when scan pdf receipt

[applause-bot]

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Version Number: v9.3.91-0
Reproducible in staging?: Yes
Reproducible in production?: No
If this was caught during regression testing, add the test name, ID and link from BrowserStack: https://test-management.browserstack.com/projects/2219752/test-runs/TR-37255/folder/13176933/41237704/1455624161
Email or phone of affected tester (no customers): lekima20+61106@gmail.com
Issue reported by: Applause Internal Team
Bug source: Regression TC Execution
Device used: iPhone 16 pro/ 26.5
App Component: Money Requests

Action Performed:

1. Open app
2. Navigate to any workspace chat
3. Create a scan expense with pdf receipt
4. Waiting scanning completed, observe the report and go to expense detail page

Expected Result:

Expense is created without error

Actual Result:

Report preview displays "There was an error uploading your re..". Go to expense detail page, error "Receipt upload failed. Save the receipt, or delete expense and lose it" displays under receipt, and error "Unexpected error creating this chat. Please try again later" displays at bottom of the page

Workaround:

Unknown

Platforms:

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

Screenshots/Videos

Bug7169475_1780396654441.Qebm1202_1_.mp4

Bug7169475_1780396654443!PDF_receipt.pdf

View all open jobs on GitHub

Applause Internal Information
Exported by: Nathan Lemma
Bug ID: 7169475

[applause-bot]

While Applause doesn't embed attachments for this bug, here are the links for quick view:
https://platform.applause.com/services/links/v1/external/4e5c4c4262f73f3a6bb4f2ca5ec67f192938df03874f57caaa90fe765980b69d

https://platform.applause.com/services/links/v1/external/f512799eca8aa7ec15b5146fc2f68544a67695df409d8bbb10aa2066684b929c

[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to @grgia (DeployBlockerCash), see https://stackoverflowteams.com/c/expensify/questions/9980/ for more details.

[melvin-bot]

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

[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.

[MelvinBot]

Issue Analysis

Most likely offender: Expensify/App#92258 — "[No QA] feat: Enable react-native-nitro-fetch" (merged 2026-06-01, the day before this report, by mkhutornyi).

Root Cause: That PR globally swaps the native fetch implementation for react-native-nitro-fetch (index.js:5 → src/polyfills/NitroFetch.ts). Every API request — including the scan's multipart receipt upload — goes through this new transport via HttpUtils.processHTTPRequest → fetch(url, …). The receipt is appended to the FormData body as a native file object {uri, name, type} in prepareRequestPayload/index.native.ts:23-40. When nitro-fetch mis-encodes that multipart body, the RequestMoney call fails, and its failureData sets both error fields at once — which is exactly why all three errors appear together.

This fits every symptom:

• Native-only (iOS App + Android App): NitroFetch.web.ts is a no-op, so mWeb/desktop are unaffected — matching the platforms checked in the report.
• New in staging, not production: the change is in this deploy (#92309) and the PR is tagged [No QA], so the upload path wasn't exercised before merge.
• Both errors together: a single failed RequestMoney request sets createChat: genericCreateReportFailureMessage on the chat report and the RECEIPT_ERROR (receiptFailureMessageShort / receiptUploadFailedMessage) on the transaction — see MoneyRequestBuilder.ts:973-988. There is no separate receipt-upload API; the receipt is a field on RequestMoney itself.

Recommended fix (deploy-blocker action): Revert Expensify/App#92258 (and its paired Mobile-Expensify submodule bump that landed the native side on HybridApp), then re-test PDF scan upload. Reverting disables the nitro-fetch swap and restores the previous native transport.

Investigation details & open question (why PDF specifically?)

Quick A/B to confirm the mechanism: On the same staging build, scan an image receipt (PNG/JPG) instead of a PDF.

• If the image scan also fails → nitro-fetch is breaking all native multipart uploads (clearly [No QA] feat: Enable react-native-nitro-fetch #92258, revert it).
• If only PDF fails → nitro-fetch's multipart encoder specifically mishandles non-image binaries / the application/pdf content-type. Still [No QA] feat: Enable react-native-nitro-fetch #92258, but the fix could alternatively be a targeted nitro-fetch encoding fix.

Secondary suspects considered and ranked lower:

• #91948 (network logging changes, also touches HttpUtils.ts) — logging-only, not native-specific, can't explain native+PDF-only regression.
• #88055 (scan-flow refactor) — touches MoneyRequestBuilder.ts/scan, but no platform-specific path and would have broken image scans too.

Why both errors fire from one request: buildOnyxDataForMoneyRequest failureData writes the chat-creation error and the receipt error in the same failure block.

Native PDF nuance: on native the receipt is shipped as metadata-only {uri, name, type} (no Blob is read), so the encoding of that file object into multipart is entirely the transport layer's job — making it sensitive to a fetch swap. See validateReceiptFile/index.native.ts and isFileUploadable/index.native.ts.

Confidence: High that #92258 is the offending PR; Medium on the exact encoding failure mode (the image-vs-PDF A/B above resolves it definitively).

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Next Steps: Reply with @MelvinBot <your feedback> to refine this analysis. As a DeployBlockerCash, the fastest path is reverting Expensify/App#92258 + the paired submodule bump and re-testing.

[mkhutornyi]

The revert PR is here: #92345

[grgia]

Need retest, revert merged

[IuliiaHerets]

Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 / Android 12
App 9.3.91-3
Not reproduce

002e941c23d792618bbee6d84acbb0c4.mp4