[Due for payment 2025-09-04] [$250] Distance - Map thumbnail not loading after fixing invalid waypoints

[jponikarchuk]

If you haven’t already, check out our contributing guidelines for onboarding and email contributors@expensify.com to request to join our Slack channel!

---

Version Number: v9.1.89-21
Reproducible in staging?: Yes
Reproducible in production?: Yes
If this was caught during regression testing, add the test name, ID and link from TestRail: https://test-management.browserstack.com/projects/2219752/test-runs/TR-76/folder/13176744/41237152/822662333
Email or phone of affected tester (no customers): testing210790+2@gmail.com
Issue reported by: Applause Internal Team
Device used: Windows 11
App Component: Other

Action Performed:

1. Click on the "+" icon.
2. Select "Submit expense".
3. Choose the "Distance" tab.
4. Turn off the internet connection.
5. Enter an invalid start and end location.
6. Turn the internet back on.
7. Replace both locations with valid ones.

Expected Result:

After correcting the addresses, the expense should update.
The map thumbnail should display the route with the selected waypoints.
The red dot indicator should be cleared.

Actual Result:

The red dot error is cleared after correcting the waypoints.
However, the map thumbnail does not load — it remains empty or broken.

Workaround:

Unknown

Platforms:

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

Screenshots/Videos

1.mp4

View all open jobs on GitHub

Upwork Automation - Do Not Edit

• Upwork Job URL: https://www.upwork.com/jobs/~021954769175584417410
• Upwork Job ID: 1954769175584417410
• Last Price Increase: 2025-08-18
• Automatic offers:
• brunovjk | Reviewer | 108473107

Issue Owner

Current Issue Owner: @greg-schroeder

[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to @greg-schroeder (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.

[Eskalifer1]

🚨 Edited by proposal-police: This proposal was edited at 2025-08-12 15:41:41 UTC.

Proposal

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

Distance - Map thumbnail not loading after fixing invalid waypoints

What is the root cause of that problem?

The issue arises because the mapbox-gl library expects a valid DOM element (container) to be present at the time the map instance is created. In our case, after transitioning from offline to online, MapViewImpl is re-mounted via React.lazy in combination with an ErrorBoundary, which re-renders the component when resetKeys change. However, while React does remount the component, it does not guarantee that the DOM elements are already present or that the ref to the container has been set by the time mapbox-gl.Map is called.

Since the map is initialized synchronously during the first render of the Map component (from the react-map-gl library, which internally calls new mapboxgl.Map()), if the ref is still null or the DOM has not yet been inserted, mapbox-gl throws the error: Invalid type: 'container' must be a String or HTMLElement.

That is, the reason for the problem is that when we switch from offline to online mode, the component is rendered, but due to the use of a lazy container, it is still null, which causes an error, and even when the container appears, it is no longer re-rendered because we have an error.

And resetKeys simply triggers a re-render instead of a full render, so the information about the previous render remains and we get an error.

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

We already have the logic for updating when exiting offline mode, but due to the problem described above, it does not work, so we can forcefully re-render the component using the key:

App/src/components/MapView/MapView.website.tsx

Lines 11 to 53 in 0b86ba3

	const MapView = forwardRef<MapViewHandle, MapViewProps>((props, ref) => {
	const {isOffline} = useNetwork();
	const {translate} = useLocalize();
	const styles = useThemeStyles();
	const [errorResetKey, setErrorResetKey] = useState(0);
	// Retry the error when reconnecting.
	const wasOffline = usePrevious(isOffline);
	useEffect(() => {
	if (!wasOffline || isOffline) {
	return;
	}
	setErrorResetKey((key) => key + 1);
	}, [isOffline, wasOffline]);
	// The only way to retry loading the module is to call `React.lazy` again.
	const MapViewImpl = useMemo(
	() => lazy(() => import('./MapViewImpl.website')),
	// eslint-disable-next-line react-compiler/react-compiler, react-hooks/exhaustive-deps
	[errorResetKey],
	);
	return (
	<ErrorBoundary
	resetKeys={[errorResetKey]}
	fallback={
	<PendingMapView
	title={isOffline ? translate('distance.mapPending.title') : translate('distance.mapPending.errorTitle')}
	subtitle={isOffline ? translate('distance.mapPending.subtitle') : translate('distance.mapPending.errorSubtitle')}
	style={styles.mapEditView}
	/>
	}
	>
	<Suspense fallback={<FullScreenLoadingIndicator />}>
	<MapViewImpl
	ref={ref}
	// eslint-disable-next-line react/jsx-props-no-spreading
	{...props}
	/>
	</Suspense>
	</ErrorBoundary>
	);
	});

Add the following to the MapViewImpl component:

key={errorResetKey}

What specific scenarios should we cover in automated tests to prevent reintroducing this issue in the future?

N/A

What alternative solutions did you explore? (Optional)

We can cleanup map, when we go offline, but it will not if we have opened map being offline:

        useEffect(() => {
            if (!isOffline || !mapRef) return;

            const map = mapRef.getMap();

            map.remove();
        }, [isOffline]);

We can move offline state to parent component:

{isOffline ? (
                    <PendingMapView
                        title={translate('distance.mapPending.title')}
                        subtitle={isOffline ? translate('distance.mapPending.subtitle') : translate('distance.mapPending.onlineSubtitle')}
                        style={styles.mapEditView}
                    />
                ) : (
                    <MapViewImpl
                        ref={ref}
                        // eslint-disable-next-line react/jsx-props-no-spreading
                        {...props}
                    />
                )}

Thus, when we are offline, we will remount the component, which will lead to its new mounting when we are back online.
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/~021954769175584417410

[melvin-bot]

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

[brunovjk]

Thank you for the proposal @Eskalifer1. Although your root cause analysis makes sense, I'm still not 100% certain about it, I'll keep investigating. I also tested your solution: while it fixes the original issue, it introduces a regression. After coming back online with two invalid waypoints, instead of showing the violation error message, the app redirects to a waypoint near the invalid input—for example, typing “F” takes us to the nearest city starting with “F” instead of throwing an error.

Screen.Recording.2025-08-11.at.11.27.36.mov

Can you reproduce this bug with your solution? Or am I missing something? Thanks.

[Eskalifer1]

I don't really think this is a bug or regression, I think it's expected behavior, here's the part of the code that stores the value that was entered offline, and when we come back online, the backend returns the nearest waypoints, which is why this is happening

App/src/pages/iou/request/step/IOURequestStepWaypoint.tsx

Lines 138 to 149 in 1f36ec9

	// While the user is offline, the auto-complete address search will not work
	// Therefore, we're going to save the waypoint as just the address, and the lat/long will be filled in on the backend
	if (isOffline && waypointValue) {
	const waypoint = {
	address: waypointValue ?? '',
	name: values.name ?? '',
	lat: values.lat ?? 0,
	lng: values.lng ?? 0,
	keyForList: `${(values.name ?? 'waypoint') as string}_${Date.now()}`,
	};
	save(waypoint);
	}

cc: @brunovjk