[Due for payment 2026-05-20] [Due for payment 2026-05-18] Split distance - App crashes when clicking RHP back button on waypoints editor

[jponikarchuk]

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Version Number: 9.3.69-0
Reproducible in staging?: Yes
Reproducible in production?: No
If this was caught during regression testing, add the test name, ID and link from BrowserStack: #89858
Email or phone of affected tester (no customers): sjodinjosdijodjonsji@gmail.com
Issue reported by: Applause Internal Team
Bug source: Exploratory - Significant User Experience Deterioration
Device used: Mac 26.2 / Chrome
App Component: Money Requests

Action Performed:

1. Go to staging.new.expensify.com
2. Open DM with any user.
3. Click + > Split expense > Distance.
4. Open any waypoint.
5. Click RHP back button.

Expected Result:

App will return to split page.

Actual Result:

App crashes.

Workaround:

Unknown

Platforms:

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

Screenshots/Videos

Video.mp4

logs.txt

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Issue Owner

Current Issue Owner: @aimane-chnaif

[melvin-bot]

You have been assigned to this deploy blocker because you recently merged this PR: #89858

[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.

[OSBotify]

Investigation Summary

Classification: Frontend bug
Causing PR: #89858 - "fixed manual distance tab blockers" by @mukhrr (High confidence)
Related Issues: None

Recommendation: REVERT

PR #89858 introduced a significant refactor of the distance expense flow (adding an OnyxTabNavigator with Map/Manual tabs), and the new back-navigation logic for waypoint editing is crashing the app in the split expense path. The fix is not trivial since the crash involves an interaction between the new tab navigator's route suffix and the back stack — reverting is the safest and fastest path to unblocking the deploy.

Assigned: @mukhrr (PR author), @aimane-chnaif and @youssef-lr (approving reviewers)
Labels: DeployBlockerCash kept — this is a frontend crash in the App repo. No label changes needed.

Details

Evidence

• The melvin-bot automatically assigned PR fixed manual distance tab blockers #89858 to this issue as the causing PR, matching the issue's regression test link (https://github.com/Expensify/App/pull/89858).
• The bug is staging-only (not reproducible in production), which aligns with PR fixed manual distance tab blockers #89858 being a recent staging-only merge (merged 2026-05-07T22:18:19Z).
• The reproduction steps — DM > Split expense > Distance > open waypoint > click RHP back button — match exactly the code path changed by this PR.

Verification

Affected files in the PR that relate to the crash:

• src/pages/iou/request/step/IOURequestStepDistance.tsx — the PR rewrites this component substantially, adding an OnyxTabNavigator (Map/Manual tabs) and a new navigateToWaypointEditPage function.
• src/pages/iou/request/step/IOURequestStepDistanceMap.tsx — also refactored as part of the same change.

The PR modifies both files confirmed via gh pr view 89858 --json files.

Root Cause

The PR introduces an OnyxTabNavigator inside IOURequestStepDistance, splitting the view into "Map" and "Manual" tabs. As part of this, navigateToWaypointEditPage was changed to construct the backTo URL explicitly using ROUTES.MONEY_REQUEST_STEP_DISTANCE.getRoute(action, iouType, transactionID, reportID, backTo) instead of Navigation.getActiveRoute().

The PR comment explains this was intentional — Navigation.getActiveRoute() would return a URL with the tab suffix (e.g. /distance-map) that doesn't match the stack entry, causing goBack to REPLACE instead of POP. However, the new explicit backTo construction creates its own problem: in the split expense context, the MONEY_REQUEST_STEP_DISTANCE screen is rendered with an OnyxTabNavigator that has its own internal state. When Navigation.goBack(backTo) is called from IOURequestStepWaypoint, the route resolves to the distance step, but the navigator state for the tab may be in an inconsistent or missing state, causing the crash.

The issue only occurs on the web platform (Chrome/Safari) as reported, consistent with how the React Navigation stack behaves on web vs native.

[MelvinBot]

Proposal

What is the root cause of that problem?

When navigating to the waypoint editor from the split distance creation flow, IOURequestStepDistanceMap.tsx:287 passes Navigation.getActiveRoute() as the backTo parameter. This returns a URL that includes the OnyxTabNavigator's tab suffix (e.g. /distance-map).

The DISTANCE_REQUEST_CREATE route has an optional :backToReport? parameter. When the URL is parsed, distance-map gets consumed by :backToReport? instead of being recognized as the nested tab screen. This causes goUp() to fail to match the existing navigation stack entry (because backToReport='distance-map' != undefined), so it dispatches a REPLACE action instead of a POP, corrupting the navigation state and crashing the app.

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

Apply the same fix that already exists in IOURequestStepDistance.tsx:359-365 — that code explicitly constructs the backTo URL using ROUTES.DISTANCE_REQUEST_CREATE.getRoute() instead of Navigation.getActiveRoute(), specifically to avoid the tab suffix problem (the comment there explains this exact issue).

In IOURequestStepDistanceMap.tsx, the navigateToWaypointEditPage callback should construct the backTo URL explicitly using ROUTES.DISTANCE_REQUEST_CREATE.getRoute(action, iouType, transactionID, reportID) instead of relying on Navigation.getActiveRoute().

What alternative solutions did you explore? (Optional)

An alternative would be to add backToReport to the routeParamsIgnore list in Navigation.ts so the param mismatch is ignored during route matching. However, this would mask the real problem and could cause issues if backToReport is legitimately needed for comparison elsewhere.

Evidence

The existing fix in IOURequestStepDistance.tsx has an explicit comment explaining this exact problem:

Construct the backTo URL explicitly to match the stack entry created when we navigated to this distance edit page. Using Navigation.getActiveRoute() would return a URL with the OnyxTabNavigator's tab suffix (e.g. "/distance-map") which doesn't match the stack entry — causing Navigation.goBack() to REPLACE instead of POP and creating a duplicate distance page entry in the stack.

The split distance creation flow uses IOURequestStepDistanceMap (rendered inside DistanceRequestStartPage) which was not updated with this same fix.

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Next Steps for Contributor+ team: Reply with @MelvinBot implement this to create a draft PR, @MelvinBot <your feedback> to refine this analysis, or explain why you are rejecting Melvin's proposal.