Rules - Category row shown in Merchant Rule after offline category deletion

[jponikarchuk]

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Version Number: V9.3.22-2
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: #82438
Email or phone of affected tester (no customers): dreamnitethedragon@gmail.com
Issue reported by: Applause Internal Team
Bug source: Exploratory - Significant User Experience Deterioration
Device used: Redminote 10S Android 13
App Component: Money Requests

Action Performed:

1. Launch app
2. Create a workspace
3. Enable rules
4. Open expense rule - new rule - category
5. Note categories are listed
6. Open rules - add merchant rule - category
7. Note categories are listed
   8.Open workspace chat
8. Start creating expense and open category row in the flow
9. Note categories are listed
10. Go offline
11. Go to category - settings
12. Toggle off members must categorise expense
13. Delete all categories
14. Go merchant rule/ expense rule / expense creation flow and note category row

Expected Result:

In expense rule and in expense creation flow, category row is not shown similarity in merchant rule also, category row must not be shown after deleting categories in offline.

Actual Result:

In expense rule and in expense creation flow, category row is not shown but in merchant rule category row is shown after deleting categories in offline.

Workaround:

Unknown

Platforms:

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

Screenshots/Videos

1.mp4

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Issue Owner

Current Issue Owner: @luacmartins

[melvin-bot]

You have been assigned to this deploy blocker because you recently merged this PR: #82438

[melvin-bot]

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

[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to @lydiabarclay (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: #82438 - "Enable merchant rules v2" by @luacmartins (High confidence)
Related Issues: #80855

Recommendation: REVERT

This PR enabled merchant rules for all users by removing the production environment check. However, the merchant rules feature has a bug where it does not properly handle offline category deletions. The category row continues to be shown in the merchant rule flow even after categories are deleted offline, while the expense rule and expense creation flows correctly hide the category row.

Labels: No changes needed - DeployBlockerCash is correctly applied as this is a frontend bug requiring an App fix.

Detailed Analysis

Evidence

The issue was reported in version V9.3.22-2 and is reproducible only in staging (not production) because merchant rules v2 is a new feature that does not exist in production yet. The bug was caught during regression testing of PR #82438.

The PR removed the production environment check that was previously hiding merchant rules:

-    const {isProduction} = useEnvironment();
-
-    if (isProduction) {
-        return null;
-    }

Verification

The affected files are:

• /home/runner/_work/App/App/src/pages/workspace/rules/MerchantRules/MerchantRulePageBase.tsx - Contains the hasCategories() function that checks if categories should be shown
• /home/runner/_work/App/App/src/pages/workspace/rules/MerchantRulesSection.tsx - The component that was modified in PR Enable merchant rules v2 #82438

Root Cause

The hasCategories() function in MerchantRulePageBase.tsx (lines 135-140) does not filter out categories with pendingAction: "delete":

const hasCategories = () => {
    if (!policy?.areCategoriesEnabled) {
        return false;
    }
    return Object.keys(policyCategories ?? {}).length > 0;
};

This differs from other parts of the codebase that properly handle pending delete actions:

• The hasEnabledOptions() utility function in OptionsListUtils correctly filters: option.enabled && option.pendingAction !== CONST.RED_BRICK_ROAD_PENDING_ACTION.DELETE
• The IOURequestStepCategory component uses hasEnabledOptions(Object.values(policyCategories ?? {})) to determine if categories should be shown
• The getAvailableNonPersonalPolicyCategories() function in CategoryUtils.ts filters out categories with pending delete actions

When offline:

1. User deletes all categories (they get pendingAction: "delete")
2. Expense rules and expense creation flows use hasEnabledOptions() which filters deleted categories, so category row is correctly hidden
3. Merchant rules use hasCategories() which only checks Object.keys().length, so category row incorrectly remains shown

While this bug existed before PR #82438, the PR made it visible to all users by removing the production gate.