fix: keep public room in LHN for anonymous users

[yusufdeveloper2903]

Explanation of Change

An anonymous session can only ever access public rooms, and such a room's notification preference defaults to hidden. In the LHN filter (shouldDisplayReportInLHN in SidebarUtils), a hidden report only survives when one of the shouldOverrideHidden conditions is true — and for an anonymous user the only one that ever applied was isFocused. So the public room stayed in the Inbox only while it was the focused report. The moment the anon user opened a thread inside the room, the thread became the focused report, the public room was no longer focused, isHidden && !shouldOverrideHidden became true, and the room was dropped from the Inbox — collapsing it to the "Woohoo! All caught up" empty state and leaving the anon user unable to return to the room.

This PR adds a new shouldOverrideHidden condition so a public room is never hidden from an anonymous user's LHN just because it isn't the focused report:

(isPublicRoom(report) && isAnonymousUser())

This pairs isPublicRoom with isAnonymousUser() exactly the way ReportUtils already gates anon-only public-room behaviour elsewhere (e.g. canLeaveChat). It is a display-only predicate — it does not mutate any report/Onyx data or notification preference — so there are no side effects on unread/GBR or leave-room logic. After sign-in isAnonymousUser() becomes false, the override no longer applies, and the existing flow (#91931) re-fetches the room with a real notification preference, so there is no regression and no double-handling.

Fixed Issues

$ #92672
PROPOSAL: #92672 (comment)

Tests

1. Log out of the app so you are an anonymous user.
2. Open a public room as the anonymous user (e.g. open the public room deep link / URL …/r/<publicRoomID>).
3. Verify the public room appears in the Inbox/LHN.
4. Inside the public room, open a thread (tap a message that has replies, e.g. "1 Reply").
5. Verify the public room remains in the Inbox/LHN and the Inbox does not collapse to the "Woohoo! All caught up" empty state.
6. Tap the public room in the LHN and verify you can navigate back to it.
7. Sign in and verify the Inbox/LHN still behaves normally (no duplicate or stuck public room).

• Verify that no errors appear in the JS console

Offline tests

This change is a purely client-side display predicate, so it behaves identically offline.

1. As an anonymous user, open a public room and confirm it shows in the Inbox/LHN.
2. Turn off your network connection.
3. Open a thread inside the public room.
4. Verify the public room is still present in the Inbox/LHN while offline.

QA Steps

1. On staging, log out so you are an anonymous user.
2. Open this public room link as the anonymous user: https://staging.new.expensify.com/r/1540486774487195
3. Verify the public room appears in the Inbox.
4. Open a thread inside the public room (tap a message with replies).
5. Verify the public room remains in the Inbox and you do not see the "Woohoo! All caught up" empty state.
6. Verify you can still navigate back to the public room from the Inbox.

• Verify that no errors appear in the JS console

PR Author Checklist

• I linked the correct issue in the ### Fixed Issues section above
• I wrote clear testing steps that cover the changes made in this PR
  • I added steps for local testing in the Tests section
  • I added steps for the expected offline behavior in the Offline steps section
  • I added steps for Staging and/or Production testing in the QA steps section
  • I added steps to cover failure scenarios (i.e. verify an input displays the correct error message if the entered data is not correct)
  • I turned off my network connection and tested it while offline to ensure it matches the expected behavior (i.e. verify the default avatar icon is displayed if app is offline)
  • I tested this PR with a High Traffic account against the staging or production API to ensure there are no regressions (e.g. long loading states that impact usability).
• I included screenshots or videos for tests on all platforms
• I ran the tests on all platforms & verified they passed on:
  • Android: Native
  • Android: mWeb Chrome
  • iOS: Native
  • iOS: mWeb Safari
  • MacOS: Chrome / Safari
• I verified there are no console errors (if there's a console error not related to the PR, report it or open an issue for it to be fixed)
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Screenshots/Videos

Android: Native

Before fix:

Before-fix-android.mp4

After fix:

After-fix-android.mp4

Android: mWeb Chrome

iOS: Native

iOS: mWeb Safari

MacOS: Chrome / Safari

Before fix:

Before-fix.Chrome-mac.mp4

After fix:

After-fix.Chrome-mac.mp4

[melvin-bot]

@brunovjk Please copy/paste the Reviewer Checklist from here into a new comment on this PR and complete it. If you have the K2 extension, you can simply click: [this button]

[joekaufmanexpensify]

Good for product

[brunovjk]

I can still reproduce the original bug:

Screen.Recording.2026-06-11.at.11.57.48.mov

@yusufdeveloper2903, did everything work out in your tests? Thank you.

[yusufdeveloper2903]

Hi @brunovjk, thanks again for catching this and for your patience! You were right that the bug was still reproducible — but only in a specific scenario that the original fix didn't cover. I dug deep into it and pushed additional commits. Here's the full picture:

What the original fix covered (and what it missed)

The first commit (isPublicRoom && isAnonymousUser in SidebarUtils) is the display half — it keeps a public room visible in an anonymous user's LHN even when it isn't the focused report. This correctly fixes the web and warm app flows (room already loaded → open a thread → room stays).

But it didn't fix the cold native flow (fresh app / cleared data → tap the public room link), which is exactly what QA reported. The reason: in that flow the public room never reaches Onyx at all, so there's nothing for the LHN filter to display.

Root cause of the cold-native flow (verified with logs + Onyx inspection)

Tracing it on a device, the sequence is:

1. The deep link fires OpenReport for the public room → succeeds (200), room is written to Onyx, anonymous session is created. ✅
2. Creating the anonymous session triggers OpenApp, which loads the anonymous account's default reports and drops the public room from Onyx. ❌
3. Navigation waits for the (now-missing) report, so the room never appears → empty "Woohoo! All caught up." Inbox.

I confirmed the room was genuinely absent from Onyx at that point (not just hidden), which is why no display-only change could fix it. There was also a secondary The action 'NAVIGATE' ... was not handled by any navigator console error in this flow.

What the new commits do

1. DeepLinkHandler — re-fetch the public room after OpenApp (the data half): once the anonymous OpenApp settles, if the deep-linked public room went missing, we re-openReport it so it lands back in Onyx. Combined with the original LHN fix, it then shows in the Inbox.
2. subscribe.ts — guard against the premature navigation: for an unauthenticated session we no longer dispatch the report deep link to react-navigation (the Report screen isn't mounted under PublicScreens); openReportFromDeepLink already handles anonymous navigation. This removes the NAVIGATE ... was not handled console error.

So the three pieces are complementary: load the room (refetch) → keep it visible (LHN override) → no console error (nav guard).

Verification

I tested the exact cold-native repro from the issue (cleared app data → tapped the public room link as an anonymous user). The public room now appears in the Inbox and the console error is gone. Video below:

REC-20260612161320.mp4

[codecov]

Codecov Report

❌ Looks like you've decreased code coverage for some files. Please write tests to increase, or at least maintain, the existing level of code coverage. See our documentation here for how to interpret this table.

Files with missing lines	Coverage Δ
src/libs/SidebarUtils.ts	80.38% <100.00%> (+0.02%)	⬆️
src/DeepLinkHandler.tsx	86.53% <93.75%> (+3.20%)	⬆️
src/libs/Navigation/linkingConfig/subscribe.ts	20.00% <0.00%> (-3.08%)	⬇️
... and 13 files with indirect coverage changes

[brunovjk]

Reviewer Checklist

• I have verified the author checklist is complete (all boxes are checked off).
• I verified the correct issue is linked in the ### Fixed Issues section above
• I verified testing steps are clear and they cover the changes made in this PR
  • I verified the steps for local testing are in the Tests section
  • I verified the steps for Staging and/or Production testing are in the QA steps section
  • I verified the steps cover any possible failure scenarios (i.e. verify an input displays the correct error message if the entered data is not correct)
  • I turned off my network connection and tested it while offline to ensure it matches the expected behavior (i.e. verify the default avatar icon is displayed if app is offline)
• I checked that screenshots or videos are included for tests on all platforms
• I included screenshots or videos for tests on all platforms
• I verified that the composer does not automatically focus or open the keyboard on mobile unless explicitly intended. This includes checking that returning the app from the background does not unexpectedly open the keyboard.
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  • Android: HybridApp
  • Android: mWeb Chrome
  • iOS: HybridApp
  • iOS: mWeb Safari
  • MacOS: Chrome / Safari
• If there are any errors in the console that are unrelated to this PR, I either fixed them (preferred) or linked to where I reported them in Slack
• I verified proper code patterns were followed (see Reviewing the code)
  • I verified that any callback methods that were added or modified are named for what the method does and never what callback they handle (i.e. toggleReport and not onIconClick).
  • I verified that comments were added to code that is not self explanatory
  • I verified that any new or modified comments were clear, correct English, and explained "why" the code was doing something instead of only explaining "what" the code was doing.
  • I verified any copy / text shown in the product is localized by adding it to src/languages/* files and using the translation method
  • I verified all numbers, amounts, dates and phone numbers shown in the product are using the localization methods
  • I verified any copy / text that was added to the app is grammatically correct in English. It adheres to proper capitalization guidelines (note: only the first word of header/labels should be capitalized), and is either coming verbatim from figma or has been approved by marketing (in order to get marketing approval, ask the Bug Zero team member to add the Waiting for copy label to the issue)
  • I verified proper file naming conventions were followed for any new files or renamed files. All non-platform specific files are named after what they export and are not named "index.js". All platform-specific files are named for the platform the code supports as outlined in the README.
  • I verified the JSDocs style guidelines (in STYLE.md) were followed
• If a new code pattern is added I verified it was agreed to be used by multiple Expensify engineers
• I verified that this PR follows the guidelines as stated in the Review Guidelines
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• If the PR modifies the UI (e.g. new buttons, new UI components, changing the padding/spacing/sizing, moving components, etc) or modifies the form input styles:
  • I verified that all the inputs inside a form are aligned with each other.
  • I added Design label and/or tagged @Expensify/design so the design team can review the changes.
• If a new page is added, I verified it's using the ScrollView component to make it scrollable when more elements are added to the page.
• For any bug fix or new feature in this PR, I verified that sufficient unit tests are included to prevent regressions in this flow.
• If the main branch was merged into this PR after a review, I tested again and verified the outcome was still expected according to the Test steps.
• I have checked off every checkbox in the PR reviewer checklist, including those that don't apply to this PR.

Screenshots/Videos

Android: HybridApp

93054_android_native.mov

Android: mWeb Chrome

93054_android_native.mov

iOS: HybridApp

93054_ios_native.mov

iOS: mWeb Safari

93054_ios_web.mov

MacOS: Chrome / Safari

93054_web_chrome.mov

[brunovjk]

Thanks for the update @yusufdeveloper2903, everything seems fine now, do you think we managed to increase the cover test here? Another thing, we have a warning related to DeepLinkHandler, were we able to fix it? Thank you

[yusufdeveloper2903]

Thanks @brunovjk!

Coverage: Good call - I've added unit tests to cover the new logic:

• tests/unit/SidebarUtilsTest.ts covers the new shouldDisplayReportInLHN predicate: a hidden public room stays in the LHN for an anonymous user even when it isn't the focused report, is still dropped for an authenticated user, and the override doesn't leak to non-public rooms.
• tests/unit/DeepLinkHandlerTest.tsx covers the cold-start refetch effect: an anonymous user deep-linking into a public room that's missing from Onyx triggers a refetch once OpenApp settles, while it's a no-op when the room is already present or the user is authenticated.

Warning: The only console warning I see is The result of getSnapshot should be cached to avoid an infinite loop. This isn't introduced by this PR - it comes from the existing useOnyx(COLLECTION.REPORT) / NVP_ONBOARDING selector subscriptions that already exist on main (this PR only added an IS_LOADING_APP boolean read plus an effect, neither of which triggers it). It's the known useOnyx / useSyncExternalStore warning.

The error that was part of this flow - The action 'NAVIGATE' ... was not handled by any navigator - is now gone thanks to the subscribe.ts guard (verified on the cold native repro).

Happy to report the getSnapshot warning in Slack per the checklist rather than widen this PR's scope - let me know if you'd prefer I tackle it here.

[brunovjk]

@codex review

[chatgpt-codex-connector]

Codex Review: Didn't find any major issues. 🎉

Reviewed commit: 7cb05ebac7

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[yusufdeveloper2903]

Hi @brunovjk 👋

Besides the main bug, I also fixed a separate issue in this PR: on web, after opening a public room, going back to Home, reloading, and returning to the Inbox — the public room would disappear from the LHN. This PR fixes that too.

Commit: bebb427

Should we keep it here or split it into its own PR?

Before fix:

605054097-ff9c7219-b877-4979-815f-86f3b8cd6663.mp4

After fix:

After-fix.Chrome-mac.mp4

[yusufdeveloper2903]

Hi @MonilBhavsar! 👋 Both points are in 9200c00 now. I pulled the duplicated tracking code out into a shared trackPendingPublicRoomFromDeepLink helper, and the ref is reset as soon as the room shows up in Onyx — so the effect no longer keeps firing on every report update. No change to the actual fix flow, and the existing tests are still green. Let me know if you'd like anything else! 🙏

[MonilBhavsar]

@brunovjk mind taking a look at this comment #93054 (comment)

[brunovjk]

Sure, I'll check it ASAP; I'm a bit busy with other PRs. Thanks.

[brunovjk]

Sorry for the delay. I checked it, and this web fix is closely related to the same LHN/public-room issue, so I think we should keep it in this PR.

cc: @yusufdeveloper2903 @MonilBhavsar

[MonilBhavsar]

There are conflicts to resolve @yusufdeveloper2903

[yusufdeveloper2903]

@MonilBhavsar rebased onto latest main and fixed the conflicts (imports only, no logic changes). All checks pass and it's mergeable now — ready for re-review

[MonilBhavsar]

Oxfmt check / Oxfmt check (pull_request) seems to be failing

[yusufdeveloper2903]

@MonilBhavsar the failing test job 7 is an unrelated flaky test (SubscriptionUtils isUserOnFreeTrial, date-based) — not touched by this PR. A re-run should clear it