[Due for payment 2025-04-16] [Better Expense Report View] Expense Reports - Unable to play video attachment

[lanitochka17]

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Version Number: 9.1.16-0
Reproducible in staging?: Y
Reproducible in production?: N
If this was caught on HybridApp, is this reproducible on New Expensify Standalone?: Y
If this was caught during regression testing, add the test name, ID and link from TestRail: N/A
Email or phone of affected tester (no customers): [email protected]
Issue reported by: Applause - Internal Team

Action Performed:

Precondition:

• Log in with Expensifail account

1. Go to staging.new.expensify.com
2. Go to workspace chat
3. Submit an expense
4. Go to Reports
5. Go to Expense Reports
6. Click on the expense report
7. Click + > Add attachment
8. Upload a video to the expense report
9. Click on the video to play it

Expected Result:

The video can be played

Actual Result:

Nothing happens after clicking on the video.
On mweb, Android and iOS, the video is in full screen view but unable to play

Workaround:

Unknown

Platforms:

Which of our officially supported platforms is this issue occurring on?

• Android: Standalone
• Android: HybridApp
• Android: mWeb Chrome
• iOS: Standalone
• iOS: HybridApp
• iOS: mWeb Safari
• MacOS: Chrome / Safari
• MacOS: Desktop

Screenshots/Videos

Add any screenshot/video evidence

Bug6777166_1742492656105.20250321_014040.mp4

View all open jobs on GitHub

Issue Owner

Current Issue Owner: @Kicu

[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to @flodnv (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.

[luacmartins]

This view is behind a beta. NAB. @Kicu @DylanDylann

[melvin-bot]

@Kicu Uh oh! This issue is overdue by 2 days. Don't forget to update your issues!

[melvin-bot]

@Kicu Eep! 4 days overdue now. Issues have feelings too...

[Kicu]

RCA:
The video does not play, because global context responsible for setting video playing data is connected to navigation and will work only on ReportScreen.
Specifically there are 2 things that need to be changed:

App/src/components/VideoPlayerContexts/PlaybackContext.tsx

Line 65 in 6f1d40b

const reportID = Navigation.getTopmostReportId(state);

and

App/src/components/VideoPlayerContexts/PlaybackContext.tsx

Lines 119 to 134 in 6f1d40b

	Navigation.isNavigationReady().then(() => {
	// This logic ensures that resetVideoPlayerData is only called when currentReportID
	// changes from one valid value (i.e., not an empty string or '-1') to another valid value.
	// This prevents the video that plays when the app opens from being interrupted when currentReportID
	// is initially empty or '-1', or when it changes from empty/'-1' to another value
	// after the report screen in the central pane is mounted on the large screen.
	if ((!currentReportID && isReportTopmostSplitNavigator()) || (!prevCurrentReportID && !isReportTopmostSplitNavigator()) || currentReportID === prevCurrentReportID) {
	return;
	}
	// We call another setStatusAsync inside useLayoutEffect on the video component,
	// so we add a delay here to prevent the error from appearing.
	setTimeout(() => {
	resetVideoPlayerData();
	}, 0);
	});

Right now if currentReportID is not set, the video thumbnail will not turn into video player.

It should be simple to fix, however it might need a few files changed, so I don't think I will include it in my current PR: #58903 - because it will grow too big.

CC @mountiny @luacmartins I suggest we wait a few days and do this in another PR as a followup. After some other parts of Reports are done we should have more free hands in SWM to tackle this.

[luacmartins]

Yea, that sounds fine

[mountiny]

👍

[melvin-bot]

@Kicu Huh... This is 4 days overdue. Who can take care of this?

[JakubKorytko]

I'll take care of it, you can assign me.

[melvin-bot]

⚠️ Looks like this issue was linked to a Deploy Blocker here

If you are the assigned CME please investigate whether the linked PR caused a regression and leave a comment with the results.

If a regression has occurred and you are the assigned CM follow the instructions here.

If this regression could have been avoided please consider also proposing a recommendation to the PR checklist so that we can avoid it in the future.

[mountiny]

No need for payment or regression testing here, we just got one more issue QA found but we can handle that specific case there

[melvin-bot]

Reviewing label has been removed, please complete the "BugZero Checklist".

[melvin-bot]

The solution for this issue has been 🚀 deployed to production 🚀 in version 9.1.24-10 and is now subject to a 7-day regression period 📆. Here is the list of pull requests that resolve this issue:

• [Better Expense Report View] Fix video player in expense report view & chat thread #59430

If no regressions arise, payment will be issued on 2025-04-16. 🎊

For reference, here are some details about the assignees on this issue:

• @Kicu does not require payment (Contractor)
• @JakubKorytko does not require payment (Contractor)
• @DylanDylann requires payment (Needs manual offer from BZ)