Teachers Unite - Not here page RHP after Teacher create empty report and add expense

[applause-bot]

If you haven’t already, check out our contributing guidelines for onboarding. To join our Slack channel, fill out this form.

---

Version Number: v9.4.48-0
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/67224479/folder/52724024/41237964/1622117880?sort=%2Bidentifier
Email or phone of affected tester (no customers): applausetester+vq+0108@applause.expensifail.com
Issue reported by: Applause Internal Team
Bug source: Exploratory - Significant User Experience Deterioration
Device used: Windows 11/Chrome
App Component: Chat Report View

Action Performed:

Steps: I know a teacher flow

1. Login with a new Expensifail account or one that is NOT part of the "Teachers Unite! testing policy" - We'll use this account as the "Principal"
2. Navigate to Profile settings
3. Click on "Save the World"
4. Click on "I know a teacher"
5. Fill the first and last name
6. For the email, enter a new Expensifail account

Steps: Teacher - I'm a teacher flow

1. Login with the teacher account
2. Navigate to Profile settings
3. Click on Save the World
4. Click on "I am a teacher"
5. Fill the I'm a teacher form - in the principal field enter the account that referred the teacher (the one you were logged in before)
6. Click on FAB - Create Report
7. Click on Add expense, try to create manual, distance expense

Expected Result:

Can create expenses in Teacher Workspace

Actual Result:

When Teacher create empty repot then add expense to it, not here page RHP appear
Same issue with the Principal account

Workaround:

Unknown

Platforms:

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

Screenshots/Videos

Bug7223865_1785660700101.teacher_-_Trim.mp4

View all open jobs on GitHub

Applause Internal Information
Exported by: Julia Ponikarchuk
Bug ID: 7223865

Issue Owner

Current Issue Owner: @huult

[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/b783f9096218105fc242e6f3b82ecc486669a4fd9a7767943c48a8c5824f6477

[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to @rlinoz (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]

🔍 Investigation Summary

Classification: Frontend bug (App-side; reproducible on staging only, not production)
Causing PR: Not conclusively identified — most likely the money-request navigation changes in this deploy (see candidates below). Leading suspect: the incomplete revert of #96963 "Migrate money request time step to dynamic routes", finished by #97612 by @marcochavezf (Low–Medium confidence)
Related Issues: N/A

Recommendation: NEEDS INVESTIGATION

Every "Not here" gate in the expense-creation flow (withWritableReportOrNotFound, withFullTransactionOrNotFound, AccessOrNotFoundWrapper) is logically unchanged in this release, and so are canUserPerformWriteAction / canWriteInReport / canAddTransaction / createNewReport. That points to a navigation / route-resolution regression (the RHP falls back to NOT_FOUND when a path can't be parsed) rather than a permission change, and I can't yet pin it to one PR with confidence. Please do not deploy until the money-request-flow authors below confirm.

Assigned: none (no single PR reached medium confidence — tagging candidate authors below instead)
Labels: No changes. DeployBlockerCash is kept (App/frontend bug, and per policy it must not be removed while the issue is not reproducible in production). No DeployBlocker label is present, so nothing to remove.

cc @marcochavezf @huult @rlinoz

📋 Detailed Analysis

Evidence

• Bug is staging-only (v9.4.48-0), so the cause is one of the PRs in #97614.
• Symptom: "Create Report" (empty expense report) → Add expense (manual or distance) → Not here page in the RHP. Both Teacher and Principal accounts reproduce, on Android/iOS App and Windows Chrome — consistent with a JS-level navigation bug, not account/data specific.
• The "Add expense" button only renders when canAddTransaction(report) returns true, yet the subsequent modal shows Not here. So the report is addable; the failure happens after navigating into the money-request route — i.e. during route resolution or a per-step gate.

Verification (what I ruled out)

Diffing production...staging for every file in the expense-creation Not-here path, the logic is unchanged:

• src/pages/iou/request/step/withWritableReportOrNotFound.tsx — only a type rename (DYNAMIC_STEP_TIME → STEP_TIME); canUserPerformWriteAction gate unchanged (renders NotFoundPage at L121–123).
• src/pages/iou/request/step/withFullTransactionOrNotFound.tsx — type rename only.
• src/pages/workspace/AccessOrNotFoundWrapper.tsx — only adds a rulesRevamp beta arg to isPolicyFeatureEnabledUtil; irrelevant to the ACCESS_VARIANTS.CREATE variant used by the IOU start page (no featureName passed).
• src/libs/ReportUtils.ts — the only permission-ish change is isRootGroupChat (from Prevent tasks from inheriting a group chatType and showing the Not here page #97019), which is used only in canJoinChat/canLeaveChat/DynamicReportDetailsPage, not in the money-request write/access path.
• createNewReport / buildNewReportOptimisticData (src/libs/actions/Report/index.ts) — not touched in this release.

Because none of the Not-here gates changed logically, the regression is almost certainly in route resolution — getStateFromPath returns a SCREENS.NOT_FOUND state when a path fails the dynamic-route entryScreens validation or can't be parsed.

Candidate PRs (ranked)

1. Incomplete revert of Migrate money request time step to dynamic routes (#83850 part 2) #96963 "Migrate money request time step to dynamic routes" (finished by #97612, @marcochavezf, merged 2026-08-01). This deploy removed the money-request time dynamic route + its OldRoutes redirects (/*/*/time/*/*) and re-registered the static STEP_TIME screen, and renamed screens in ModalStackNavigators/index.tsx. The author themselves flagged the revert as incomplete. This is the only change that directly touches the money-request expense-creation navigator, so a partially-reverted route could make the "Add expense" modal fail to build a valid navigation state → Not here. Low–Medium confidence (the repro is manual/distance, not time, so this only fits if a dangling route breaks the whole start-page tab navigator).
2. #97072 "83361 setting profile part 1" (@huult, merged 2026-07-31) — large dynamic-routes/entryScreens refactor touching ROUTES.ts, SCREENS.ts, ModalStackNavigators, linkingConfig/config.ts, and (relevantly) src/pages/TeachersUnite/ImTeacherUpdateEmailPage.tsx. Route-matching refactors are a classic source of "Not here" RHPs. Low–Medium confidence.
3. #96166 "fix per diem tab visibility…" (@mukhrr) — changes the per-diem tab logic in IOURequestStartPage.tsx (the screen the "Add expense" modal opens). Could affect the start-page tab navigator. Low confidence.
4. #97019 "Prevent tasks from inheriting a group chatType and showing the Not here page" (@MobileMage) — title matches the symptom, but I verified its isRootGroupChat change is not on the money-request write/access path. Very low confidence / likely unrelated to this flow.

Suggested next step

If a revert is needed under time pressure, start with the money-request time-step revert lineage (#96963 revert / #97612) since it is the only change to the actual expense-creation navigator, then #97072. Before reverting, @marcochavezf / @huult should confirm which change breaks route resolution for MONEY_REQUEST_CREATE opened from an empty expense report.

Investigated against App staging 4ff4738a4d1b7e961c5ab31336a2d8304d8f5999.