[$250] Chat - Message sent is not shown correctly in LHN

[lanitochka17]

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: 9 1.32-0
Reproducible in staging?: Y
Reproducible in production?: Y
If this was caught on HybridApp, is this reproducible on New Expensify Standalone?: N
If this was caught during regression testing, add the test name, ID and link from TestRail: N/A
Email or phone of affected tester (no customers): Slottwo1555d@gmail.com
Issue reported by: Applause - Internal Team

Action Performed:

1. Go to https://staging.new.expensify.com/home
2. Open any chat
3. Send the following message:
   ©   <div>test</div>
4. Note the message in the LHN
5. Go to workspace settings - workspace chat
6. Send the following message:
   ©   <div>test</div>
7. Navigate to LHN and note the chat displays
   ©
   test
8. Tap on chat
9. Navigate back to LHN

Expected Result:

LHN should show exactly the message sent (
©   <div>test</div>)

Actual Result:

On sending this message (©   <div>test</div>)- LHN is not showing the entire text as it is , it displays © test & if same message sent from settings via opened workspace chat, displays ©

test

and on revisit changes to © test.

Workaround:

Unknown

Platforms:

Select the officially supported platforms where the issue was reproduced:

• Android: Standalone
• Android: HybridApp
• Android: mWeb Chrome
• iOS: Standalone
• iOS: HybridApp
• iOS: mWeb Safari
• Windows: Chrome
• MacOS: Chrome / Safari
• MacOS: Desktop

Platforms Tested:

On which of our officially supported platforms was this issue tested:

• Android: Standalone
• Android: HybridApp
• Android: mWeb Chrome
• iOS: Standalone
• iOS: HybridApp
• iOS: mWeb Safari
• Windows: Chrome
• MacOS: Chrome / Safari
• MacOS: Desktop

Screenshots/Videos

Add any screenshot/video evidence

Bug6811030_1745441402894.Screenrecorder-2025-04-24-02-05-36-493.mp4

View all open jobs on GitHub

Upwork Automation - Do Not Edit

• Upwork Job URL: https://www.upwork.com/jobs/~021915821361423926706
• Upwork Job ID: 1915821361423926706
• Last Price Increase: 2025-04-25

Issue Owner

Current Issue Owner: @QichenZhu

[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to @abekkala (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.

[bernhardoj]

Proposal

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

Message is not shown correctly on the LHN.

What is the root cause of that problem?

When we send an HTML to a chat, it will be converted to text.

App/src/components/LHNOptionsList/OptionRowLHN.tsx

Line 310 in e1e89c9

{Parser.htmlToText(optionItem.alternateText)}

App/src/libs/SidebarUtils.ts

Line 643 in e1e89c9

result.alternateText = formatReportLastMessageText(Parser.htmlToText(`${lastActorDisplayName}: ${lastMessageText}`));

App/src/libs/OptionsListUtils.ts

Line 599 in e1e89c9

const formattedLastMessageText = formatReportLastMessageText(Parser.htmlToText(option.lastMessageText ?? ''));

It was all added because of a BE bug where the lastMessageText contains HTML, even though it should only contain plain text. So to fix it, we patch it on the FE by converting the lastMessageText to text. But because of this, if the user sends HTML as a plain text, the LHN won't be able to show it.

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

This is actually the same issue as #43563, and I suggest to removes the FE patch and properly fix it on the BE.

If we can't fix the BE, still remove the patch, but instead of returning the lastMessageText, we can parse the lastMessageHtml to text.

App/src/libs/OptionsListUtils.ts

Line 807 in e1e89c9

return lastMessageTextFromReport || (report?.lastMessageText ?? '');

Parser.htmlToText(lastMessageHtml)

This is at least semantically(?) correct, convert HTML to text. Previously, we converted a text that could contain HTML to text.

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

I think we can test getLastMessageTextForReport, give it a dummy DM report with lastMessageHtml and assert the results is the converted HTML to text.

[melvin-bot]

Job added to Upwork: https://www.upwork.com/jobs/~021915821361423926706

[melvin-bot]

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