[Due for payment 2026-03-30] "Calling the register Async. Function has failed caused by image context has been lost.” when attempting to take a photo of receipt from in app or via Safari Website.

[m-natarajan]

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Version Number: Mobile website: 9.3.7-3, App: 9.3.14
Reproducible in staging?: Needs Reproduction (Unable to reproduce)
Reproducible in production?: Needs Reproduction
If this was caught during regression testing, add the test name, ID and link from BrowserStack:
Email or phone of affected tester (no customers):
Logs: https://stackoverflow.com/c/expensify/questions/4856
Expensify/Expensify Issue URL:
Issue reported by: @abbagail
Slack conversation (hyperlinked to channel name): #Expensify Bugs

Action Performed:

1. Open app
2. Click camera to scan receipt
3. Camera opens
4. Try to take a photo

Expected Result:

Photo uploads and starts smart scanning or added as a receipt

Actual Result:

Error message displayed : "Attachment error. Calling the register Async. Function has failed caused by image context has been lost."

Workaround:

Unknown

Platforms:

Select the officially supported platforms where the issue was reproduced:

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

Screenshots/Videos

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Issue Owner

Current Issue Owner: @dylanexpensify

[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to Contributor-plus team member for initial proposal review - @ikevin127 (External)

[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to @dylanexpensify (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.

[MelvinBot]

This has been labelled "Needs Reproduction". Follow the steps here: https://stackoverflowteams.com/c/expensify/questions/16989

[samranahm]

Proposal

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

When attempting to take a photo of a receipt from within the app or via Safari website, users encounter an "Attachment error. Calling the register Async. Function has failed caused by image context has been lost." error message. This prevents users from successfully capturing and uploading receipt photos for expense reporting.

What is the root cause of that problem?

The error originates from the expo-image-manipulator library used for image processing. Specifically, the error "image context has been lost" is thrown by the iOS native code when CGContext creation fails in ImageFixOrientationTransformer.swift.

This happens when:

1. The camera captures a photo successfully
2. The app attempts to crop the image to fit the viewfinder aspect ratio using cropImageToAspectRatio
3. The function calls cropOrRotateImage which uses expo-image-manipulator's manipulateAsync
4. On iOS, the library tries to create a CGContext for image processing
5. If there are insufficient memory resources or invalid parameters, CGContext creation fails
6. The library throws ImageContextLostException with the message "Image context has been lost"

The current code lacks proper error handling for this specific failure case. In the native implementation (index.native.tsx), the cropImageToAspectRatio promise doesn't have a .catch() handler, so when image manipulation fails, the error bubbles up and crashes the receipt capture flow.

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

Add comprehensive error handling to gracefully recover from image manipulation failures by using the original uncropped image as a fallback when cropping fails.

1. Add error handling to native scan implementation:

IOURequestStepScan/index.native.tsx

cropImageToAspectRatio(imageObject, viewfinderLayout.current?.width, viewfinderLayout.current?.height, undefined, photo.orientation)
    .then(({file, filename, source}) => {
    })
    .catch((cropError: string) => {
        Log.warn('Error cropping image, using original', cropError);
        const originalSource = getPhotoSource(photo.path);
        const originalFile = {
            ...photo,
            source: originalSource,
        };
        
        setMoneyRequestReceipt(transactionID, originalSource, photo.path, !isEditing, 'image/jpeg');
        // ... handle the rest of the flow with original image
    });

2. Add similar error handling to web implementation:

IOURequestStepScan/index.tsx

cropImageToAspectRatio(imageObject, viewfinderLayout.current?.width, viewfinderLayout.current?.height, shouldAlignTop)
    .then(({file, filename, source}) => {
        // Handle successful crop...
    })
    .catch((cropError: string) => {
        // If cropping fails, use the original image
        Log.warn('Error cropping image, using original', cropError);
        const originalSource = URL.createObjectURL(originalFile);
        // Continue with original image
    });

3. Improve error logging in cropImageToAspectRatio utility:

.catch((error) => {
    // Log specific image manipulation errors for debugging
    Log.warn('Error in cropImageToAspectRatio', error);
    return image;
});

This approach ensures that when expo-image-manipulator fails due to memory constraints or other iOS-specific issues, the user can still successfully upload their receipt - it just won't be cropped to the viewfinder aspect ratio. The original photo will be preserved and processed normally.

What alternative solutions did you explore? (Optional)

N/A