[$250] Public Room Deeplink Does Not Open Correctly When User Is Signed Out (Android)

[m-natarajan]

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Version Number: 9.3.16-4
Reproducible in staging?: Y
Reproducible in production?: Y
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: @elirangoshen
Slack conversation (hyperlinked to channel name): #Open source

Action Performed:

1. Sign out of the app
2. Ensure the app is either:
   Running in the foreground, or
   Running in the background
3. Open a deeplink to a public room, for example:
   https://staging.new.expensify.com/r/8477877870497982
4. Observe the app behavior.

Expected Result:

The app should open and navigate directly to the public room.

Actual Result:

Usually nothing happens, or login screen displayed or the app opens but does not navigate to the public room.

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

error2.mp4

az_recorder_20260210_101320.mp4

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Issue Owner

Current Issue Owner: @situchan

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

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Triggered auto assignment to @stephanieelliott (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.

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[imgyf]

Proposal for #82013 - Android Deeplink Public Room Not Opening When Signed Out

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

When a user is signed out on Android and opens a deeplink to a public room (e.g., https://staging.new.expensify.com/r/8477877870497982), the app either does nothing, shows the login screen, or opens but does not navigate to the public room. The expected behavior is that the app should open and navigate directly to the public room as an anonymous user.

What is the root cause of that problem?

The root cause is a race condition in src/libs/actions/Link.ts in the openReportFromDeepLink() function. When an unauthenticated user opens a public room deeplink:

1. openReport(reportID, ..., true) is called to check if the room is public (line 263-264)
2. Immediately after, the code enters waitForUserSignIn().then(...) (line 297)
3. waitForUserSignIn() waits for session.authToken to be set before resolving

The problem is that waitForUserSignIn() is called synchronously after openReport(), but openReport() is an async API call. The anonymous session (with authTokenType: 'anonymous') is created by the backend response to OpenReport, which sets session.authToken via Onyx, which then triggers authPromiseResolver.

However, on Android when the app is in background or freshly launched from a deeplink, there's a timing issue where:

• The OpenReport API response hasn't been processed yet
• session.authToken is still null
• waitForUserSignIn() sets up authPromiseResolver but it may not be called in time
• The anonymous session connection in Session/index.ts (line 90-92) that calls authPromiseResolver may fire before the resolver is set up

Additionally, the navigation logic at line 343 checks isAuthenticated which is the value from when openReportFromDeepLink was called, not the current value after the anonymous session is created.

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

Ensure the navigation waits for the OpenReport API response before proceeding, rather than relying on waitForUserSignIn() which has a race condition for anonymous sessions.

In src/libs/actions/Link.ts:

1. For unauthenticated users with a reportID (public room deeplink case), wait for the report data to be available in Onyx before attempting navigation. The existing code at lines 369-380 does wait for report data, but only inside the waitForUserSignIn().then() block.

2. Move the report availability check outside of waitForUserSignIn() for the anonymous/public room case:

   • If !isAuthenticated && reportID, connect to ONYXKEYS.COLLECTION.REPORT${reportID} and wait for data
   • Once report data is available AND isAnonymousUser() returns true (meaning anonymous session was created), proceed with navigation
   • If the report has errorFields?.notFound, show sign-in screen

3. Alternatively, in src/libs/actions/Session/index.ts, ensure authPromiseResolver is set up before any API calls that might create an anonymous session, so the resolver is guaranteed to be called when the session is created.

What alternative solutions did you explore? (Optional)

1. Adding a delay before checking authentication state - unreliable and poor UX
2. Polling for session changes - inefficient and still has race potential
3. Using a dedicated "public room check" API that returns synchronously whether anonymous access is allowed - requires backend changes

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