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Fix scan receipt rotation on Android devices with inconsistent EXIF handling#83819

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claude-fixScanReceiptRotationOnAndroid
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Fix scan receipt rotation on Android devices with inconsistent EXIF handling#83819
MelvinBot wants to merge 6 commits intomainfrom
claude-fixScanReceiptRotationOnAndroid

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Explanation of Change

On certain Android devices (e.g. Redmi Note 10S / Android 13), receipt photos captured via the scan camera display rotated 90 degrees (horizontally instead of vertically), even though the photo was taken in portrait orientation.

The root cause is that when a receipt photo is captured on Android, the camera stores raw pixel data in landscape orientation with EXIF metadata indicating the required rotation. The getDeviceOrientationAwareImageSize function correctly detects the EXIF rotation and swaps width/height for crop calculation, but the actual cropOrRotateImage call only receives a [{crop}] action — no explicit rotation is ever applied. Whether the image ends up correctly oriented depends entirely on whether the underlying image loader (Glide, used by expo-image-manipulator) auto-applies the EXIF rotation, which is device-dependent. After manipulateAsync saves the result, EXIF metadata is stripped, so if Glide didn't rotate the pixels, the image displays sideways.

This fix adds a two-pass normalization approach when EXIF rotation of 90 or 270 degrees is detected:

  1. First pass: Run the image through cropOrRotateImage with empty actions to strip EXIF metadata and produce a clean intermediate file
  2. Detect: Compare the intermediate file's pixel dimensions against the raw dimensions to determine whether Glide auto-applied the EXIF rotation
  3. Second pass: If Glide already rotated, recalculate crop for the actual dimensions. If not, explicitly rotate then crop. Since the intermediate has no EXIF, Glide won't double-rotate in the second pass.

This approach works correctly regardless of device-specific Glide EXIF handling behavior and has no impact on iOS or web (where rotation is undefined).

Fixed Issues

$ #76161
PROPOSAL: #76161 (comment)

Tests

  1. Open the app on an Android device (especially Redmi Note 10S / Android 13 if available)
  2. Open a workspace chat
  3. Create a scan expense using the camera
  4. Take a photo of a receipt while holding the phone in portrait orientation
  5. Open the receipt preview
  6. Verify the receipt displays in the correct (vertical/portrait) orientation
  7. Repeat steps 3-6 with the phone in landscape orientation — verify the image still displays correctly
  8. Verify that receipt scanning still works correctly on iOS (no regressions)
  • Verify that no errors appear in the JS console

Offline tests

N/A — The scan receipt flow requires the camera and doesn't have a meaningful offline workflow. The image cropping/rotation happens locally before upload.

QA Steps

  1. Open the app on an Android device (preferably Redmi Note 10S / Android 13, or another device known to reproduce the issue)
  2. Open a workspace chat
  3. Create a scan expense using the camera
  4. Take a photo of a receipt while holding the phone in portrait orientation
  5. Open the receipt
  6. Verify the receipt is shown vertically (not rotated sideways)
  7. Try the same flow on iOS and verify no regressions
  • Verify that no errors appear in the JS console

PR Author Checklist

  • I linked the correct issue in the ### Fixed Issues section above
  • I wrote clear testing steps that cover the changes made in this PR
    • I added steps for local testing in the Tests section
    • I added steps for the expected offline behavior in the Offline steps section
    • I added steps for Staging and/or Production testing in the QA steps section
    • I added steps to cover failure scenarios (i.e. verify an input displays the correct error message if the entered data is not correct)
    • I turned off my network connection and tested it while offline to ensure it matches the expected behavior (i.e. verify the default avatar icon is displayed if app is offline)
    • I tested this PR with a High Traffic account against the staging or production API to ensure there are no regressions (e.g. long loading states that impact usability).
  • I included screenshots or videos for tests on all platforms
  • I ran the tests on all platforms & verified they passed on:
    • Android: Native
    • Android: mWeb Chrome
    • iOS: Native
    • iOS: mWeb Safari
    • MacOS: Chrome / Safari
  • I verified there are no console errors (if there's a console error not related to the PR, report it or open an issue for it to be fixed)
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    • I verified any copy / text shown in the product is localized by adding it to src/languages/* files and using the translation method
      • If any non-english text was added/modified, I used JaimeGPT to get English > Spanish translation. I then posted it in #expensify-open-source and it was approved by an internal Expensify engineer. Link to Slack message:
    • I verified all numbers, amounts, dates and phone numbers shown in the product are using the localization methods
    • I verified any copy / text that was added to the app is grammatically correct in English. It adheres to proper capitalization guidelines (note: only the first word of header/labels should be capitalized), and is either coming verbatim from figma or has been approved by marketing (in order to get marketing approval, ask the Bug Zero team member to add the Waiting for copy label to the issue)
    • I verified proper file naming conventions were followed for any new files or renamed files. All non-platform specific files are named after what they export and are not named "index.js". All platform-specific files are named for the platform the code supports as outlined in the README.
    • I verified the JSDocs style guidelines (in STYLE.md) were followed
  • If a new code pattern is added I verified it was agreed to be used by multiple Expensify engineers
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  • I tested other components that can be impacted by my changes (i.e. if the PR modifies a shared library or component like Avatar, I verified the components using Avatar are working as expected)
  • I verified all code is DRY (the PR doesn't include any logic written more than once, with the exception of tests)
  • I verified any variables that can be defined as constants (ie. in CONST.ts or at the top of the file that uses the constant) are defined as such
  • I verified that if a function's arguments changed that all usages have also been updated correctly
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    • The file has a description of what it does and/or why is needed at the top of the file if the code is not self explanatory
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    • A similar style doesn't already exist
    • The style can't be created with an existing StyleUtils function (i.e. StyleUtils.getBackgroundAndBorderStyle(theme.componentBG))
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    • The assets are optimized and compressed (for SVG files, run npm run compress-svg)
    • The assets load correctly across all supported platforms.
  • If the PR modifies code that runs when editing or sending messages, I tested and verified there is no unexpected behavior for all supported markdown - URLs, single line code, code blocks, quotes, headings, bold, strikethrough, and italic.
  • If the PR modifies a generic component, I tested and verified that those changes do not break usages of that component in the rest of the App (i.e. if a shared library or component like Avatar is modified, I verified that Avatar is working as expected in all cases)
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    • I verified that all the inputs inside a form are aligned with each other.
    • I added Design label and/or tagged @Expensify/design so the design team can review the changes.
  • If a new page is added, I verified it's using the ScrollView component to make it scrollable when more elements are added to the page.
  • I added unit tests for any new feature or bug fix in this PR to help automatically prevent regressions in this user flow.
  • If the main branch was merged into this PR after a review, I tested again and verified the outcome was still expected according to the Test steps.

Screenshots/Videos

Android: Native
Android: mWeb Chrome

N/A — Camera scan is native-only

iOS: Native
iOS: mWeb Safari

N/A — Camera scan is native-only

MacOS: Chrome / Safari

N/A — Camera scan is native-only on web; web already handles EXIF correctly

…F handling

When a receipt photo is captured on Android, the camera stores raw pixel data
with EXIF orientation metadata. The image loader (Glide) may or may not
auto-apply this rotation depending on the device. Previously, only a crop
action was applied without explicit rotation, causing sideways images on
devices where Glide doesn't handle EXIF correctly.

This adds a two-pass normalization approach: first strip EXIF metadata,
then compare pixel dimensions with raw dimensions to detect whether
auto-rotation occurred, and conditionally apply explicit rotation before
cropping.

Co-authored-by: Aimane Chnaif <aimane-chnaif@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: Aimane Chnaif <aimane-chnaif@users.noreply.github.com>
@MelvinBot
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Fixed the two failing checks:

  1. Prettier check — reformatted the ternary expression in cropImageToAspectRatio.ts to match Prettier's expected output
  2. Spellcheck — added EXIF to the cspell.json dictionary (it was flagged as an unknown word in code comments)

Extract normalizedImage.uri into a local const using an 'in' check
so TypeScript properly narrows the type from string | undefined to
string across the nested .then() closure boundary.

Co-authored-by: Aimane Chnaif <aimane-chnaif@users.noreply.github.com>
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Fixed the failing typecheck. The previous run had 3 failures:

  1. Prettier — already fixed in a prior commit
  2. Spellcheck (EXIF unknown word) — already fixed in a prior commit
  3. TypeScriptnormalizedImage.uri was typed as string | undefined because cropOrRotateImage returns File | CustomRNImageManipulatorResult, and File doesn't have a uri property. Extracted the URI into a local const using an in check so TypeScript properly narrows the type across the nested .then() closure.

…ntationAwareImageSize

Co-authored-by: Aimane Chnaif <aimane-chnaif@users.noreply.github.com>
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Fixed the failing Jest unit tests. The getDeviceOrientationAwareImageSize Android implementation now returns a rotation field, but the 4 Android test cases in getDeviceOrientationAwareImageSizeTest.ts weren't expecting it. Updated each test to include the expected rotation value (0, 180, 90, 270 respectively).

The TypeScript error was already resolved by the previous commit.

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codecov bot commented Mar 2, 2026

Codecov Report

❌ Looks like you've decreased code coverage for some files. Please write tests to increase, or at least maintain, the existing level of code coverage. See our documentation here for how to interpret this table.

Files with missing lines Coverage Δ
...etDeviceOrientationAwareImageSize/index.android.ts 100.00% <ø> (ø)
.../step/IOURequestStepScan/cropImageToAspectRatio.ts 34.88% <0.00%> (-18.69%) ⬇️
...u/request/step/IOURequestStepScan/index.native.tsx 37.10% <0.00%> (-3.15%) ⬇️
... and 12 files with indirect coverage changes

@MelvinBot
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The previously failing checks are now resolved:

  1. TypeScript check (cropImageToAspectRatio.ts lines 89/94) — string | undefined not assignable to string — was fixed in a prior commit
  2. Jest Unit Tests (4 test failures in getDeviceOrientationAwareImageSizeTest.ts) — the Android getDeviceOrientationAwareImageSize function now returns a rotation field, and the tests were updated to expect it in commit 57d8d24

All checks are now passing. The only remaining pending check is perf-tests which appears to be queued waiting for a runner.

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@MelvinBot pull main

…RotationOnAndroid

Co-authored-by: Aimane Chnaif <aimane-chnaif@users.noreply.github.com>
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Merged main into this branch. No conflicts.

@aimane-chnaif
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@MelvinBot cropImageToAspectRatio was deprecated in #83470. Only used in IOURequestStepOdometerImage.
But the bug is reproducible in IOURequestStepScan.

…ture path

After PR #83470 removed cropImageToAspectRatio from the native scan flow,
photos captured in IOURequestStepScan are used directly without any EXIF
rotation handling. This adds normalizePhotoOrientation to the native capture
path using the same two-pass approach: strip EXIF to detect Glide auto-rotation,
then explicitly rotate if needed.

Co-authored-by: Aimane Chnaif <aimane-chnaif@users.noreply.github.com>
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Good catch. After PR #83470 merged, IOURequestStepScan/index.native.tsx no longer calls cropImageToAspectRatio — the raw photo from takePhoto() is used directly with no EXIF rotation handling.

I've added normalizePhotoOrientation directly to the native scan capture path in index.native.tsx. It uses the same two-pass approach as the existing fix in cropImageToAspectRatio.ts:

  1. Check EXIF rotation via ImageSize.getSize() — skip if not 90°/270°
  2. First pass: run through manipulateAsync with empty actions to strip EXIF and detect if Glide auto-rotated
  3. Second pass: if Glide didn't auto-rotate, explicitly rotate the pixels

The capturePhoto callback now calls normalizePhotoOrientation(originalSource) before creating the cameraFile, so the receipt gets a correctly-oriented image regardless of device-specific Glide EXIF behavior.

Note: the fix in cropImageToAspectRatio.ts is still relevant for IOURequestStepOdometerImage (native) and MobileWebCameraView, which are the remaining consumers of that function.

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