[Due for payment 2026-01-16] [$250] Expenses - "Category no longer valid" violation does not appear on expense preview at first

[jponikarchuk]

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Version Number: 9.2.79-0
Reproducible in staging?: Yes
Reproducible in production?: Yes
If this was caught during regression testing, add the test name, ID and link from BrowserStack: #76706
Email or phone of affected tester (no customers): N/A
Issue reported by: Applause Internal Team
Bug source: Pull Request QA execution
Device used: MacBook Air 15.6.1 Chrome, iPhone 15 iOS 26.1
App Component: Money Requests

Action Performed:

1. Sign in to ND
2. Create a workspace with Categories and "Members must categorize all expenses" enabled.
3. Create and categorized a manual expense in the workspace chat
4. Disable the category used for created expense in the ws settings
5. Navigate to the workspace chat and observe the preview of the expense

Expected Result:

"Category no longer valid" violation is displayed on the expense preview in the workspace chat

Actual Result:

"Category no longer valid" violation is not displayed on the expense preview in the workspace chat. It appears after opening the expense details and navigating back to the workspace chat

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

View all open jobs on GitHub

Upwork Automation - Do Not Edit

• Upwork Job URL: https://www.upwork.com/jobs/~022002918422584838689
• Upwork Job ID: 2002918422584838689
• Last Price Increase: 2025-12-22

Issue Owner

Current Issue Owner: @VictoriaExpensify

[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to @VictoriaExpensify (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.

[Nodebrute]

Proposal

Please re-state the problem that we are trying to solve in this issue.

"Category no longer valid" violation does not appear on expense preview at first

What is the root cause of that problem?

The categoryOutOfPolicy violation was created without showInReview: true, but createTransactionPreviewConditionals calls hasViolation, which only matches violations with showInReview: true. As a result, hasViolation returned false, shouldShowRBR stayed false, and the violation didn’t display even though it existed in Onyx.

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

Add showInReview: true when creating the categoryOutOfPolicy violation, so it’s detected by hasViolation and displays immediately when a category is disabled.

App/src/libs/Violations/ViolationsUtils.ts

Line 285 in 9f88323

newTransactionViolations.push({name: 'categoryOutOfPolicy', type: CONST.VIOLATION_TYPES.VIOLATION});

   newTransactionViolations.push({name: 'categoryOutOfPolicy', type: CONST.VIOLATION_TYPES.VIOLATION, showInReview: true});

We can also apply this fix to other violations if needed(tag). This solution will make it consistent with other violations like customUnitOutOFPolicy

App/src/libs/Violations/ViolationsUtils.ts

Lines 320 to 324 in 9f88323

	newTransactionViolations.push({
	name: CONST.VIOLATIONS.CUSTOM_UNIT_OUT_OF_POLICY,
	type: CONST.VIOLATION_TYPES.VIOLATION,
	showInReview: true,
	});

What alternative solutions did you explore? (Optional)

[nkdengineer]

Proposal

Please re-state the problem that we are trying to solve in this issue.

"Category no longer valid" violation is not displayed on the expense preview in the workspace chat. It appears after opening the expense details and navigating back to the workspace chat

What is the root cause of that problem?

Not only Category no longer valid violation isn't displayed in the preview first, other violations which can't be detected in optmistic data are also cleared when we disable the category

Screen.Recording.2025-12-18.at.10.47.34.mov

1. Category no longer valid violation isn't displayed in the preview because we missed showInReview

App/src/libs/Violations/ViolationsUtils.ts

Line 285 in 9f88323

newTransactionViolations.push({name: 'categoryOutOfPolicy', type: CONST.VIOLATION_TYPES.VIOLATION});

2. Other violations are cleared because existingViolations is always undefined here. violations is a object with the key is the violation collection key instead of transactionID key

App/src/libs/ReportUtils.ts

Line 2090 in 38b7fdd

const existingViolations = violations[transaction.transactionID];

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

1. We should add showInReview: true here like the backend data

App/src/libs/Violations/ViolationsUtils.ts

Line 285 in 9f88323

newTransactionViolations.push({name: 'categoryOutOfPolicy', type: CONST.VIOLATION_TYPES.VIOLATION});

2. We should get the existingViolations correctly to not clear the existing violation

const existingViolations = violations[`${ONYXKEYS.COLLECTION.TRANSACTION_VIOLATIONS}${transaction.transactionID}`];

App/src/libs/ReportUtils.ts

Line 2090 in 38b7fdd

const existingViolations = violations[transaction.transactionID];

What alternative solutions did you explore? (Optional)

Reminder: Please use plain English, be brief and avoid jargon. Feel free to use images, charts or pseudo-code if necessary. Do not post large multi-line diffs or write walls of text. Do not create PRs unless you have been hired for this job.

[melvin-bot]

Job added to Upwork: https://www.upwork.com/jobs/~022002918422584838689

[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to Contributor-plus team member for initial proposal review - @eh2077 (External)