[Due for payment 2026-02-04] Distance - Report title shows "Please select a valid address" when waypoints are changed

[lanitochka17]

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Version Number: 9.3.5-0
Reproducible in staging?: Yes
Reproducible in production?: No
If this was caught during regression testing, add the test name, ID and link from BrowserStack: #77910
Email or phone of affected tester (no customers): sdoijsodjsojdnisojidosjd@gmail.com
Issue reported by: Applause Internal Team
Bug source: Exploratory - Significant User Experience Deterioration
Device used: Mac 26.1 / Chrome
App Component: Money Requests

Action Performed:

1. Go to staging.new.expensify.com
2. Go to workspace chat.
3. Create two distance expenses with valid waypoints.
4. Open the expense report.
5. Open any distance expense.
6. Go offline.
7. Click Distance.
8. Swap Start and Stop point and save it.

Expected Result:

Report title should show Pending.

Actual Result:

Report title shows "Please select a valid address" when waypoints are changed offline.

Workaround:

Unknown

Platforms:

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

Screenshots/Videos

Bug7054201_1768930829761.5.mp4

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Issue Owner

Current Issue Owner: @laurenreidexpensify

[melvin-bot]

You have been assigned to this deploy blocker because you recently merged this PR: #77910

[melvin-bot]

💬 A slack conversation has been started in #expensify-open-source

[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to @laurenreidexpensify (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.

[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.

[OSBotify]

Investigation Summary

Classification: Frontend bug
Causing PR: #77910 - "Distance request: Allow invalid waypoints" by @s77rt (High confidence)
Related Issues: #70584 (original issue that PR #77910 was fixing)

Recommendation: REVERT

PR #77910 introduced a regression where swapping waypoints offline causes the report title to display "Please select a valid address" instead of "Pending". This blocks users from properly seeing the pending state of their distance requests.

Labels: Keeping DeployBlockerCash (App deploy is blocked). The DeployBlocker label is not present, so no changes to labels are needed.

Detailed Analysis

Evidence

PR #77910 was designed to allow invalid waypoints for distance requests, adding a new NO_ROUTE violation type. The PR modified several key files:

• src/libs/DistanceRequestUtils.ts - Changed getDistanceMerchant() to return empty string when distanceInMeters is 0
• src/libs/ReportUtils.ts - Added logic in getTransactionReportName() to return "violations.noRoute" when distance is 0
• src/libs/TransactionUtils/index.ts - Added isWaypointNullIsland() helper and hasSmartScanFailedOrNoRouteViolation() function

Verification

The issue is reproducible only on staging (where PR #77910 is deployed) and not on production (where it is not yet deployed). The PR was merged on Jan 19, 2026, and is included in the current staging deploy (v9.3.5-0).

I verified that PR #77910 modifies the exact code path that determines report titles:

• /home/runner/work/App/App/src/libs/ReportUtils.ts lines 5057-5060 in getTransactionReportName()
• /home/runner/work/App/App/src/libs/DistanceRequestUtils.ts lines 228-230 in getDistanceMerchant()

Root Cause

When waypoints are swapped offline:

1. The waypoints are temporarily saved with invalid coordinates (null island: lat=0, lng=0) while awaiting server geocoding
2. getDistanceInMeters() returns 0 for invalid waypoints
3. In getTransactionReportName() (ReportUtils.ts line 5057), the new check added by PR Distance request: Allow invalid waypoints #77910 catches this: if (isMapDistanceRequest(transaction) && !getDistanceInMeters(transaction, CONST.CUSTOM_UNITS.DISTANCE_UNIT_KILOMETERS))
4. This returns translateLocal('violations.noRoute') which displays as "Please select a valid address"
5. The proper "Pending" state check at line 5051 is bypassed because it only triggers when the merchant is already set to "Pending", but the merchant may be empty or have a previous value

The PR introduced this violation message to handle genuinely invalid waypoints, but it incorrectly triggers for temporarily invalid waypoints that are pending geocoding from the server (which is the normal offline flow).