[HOLD for payment 2024-10-14] Debugging feature: Import Onyx State

[TMisiukiewicz]

Problem

When working with profile traces received from New Expensify users, it’s possible to identify and take some actions based on its analysis. However, since the accounts can contain much more data than the ones we are using on a regular basis, it often makes it difficult to accurately reproduce certain performance issues and later evaluate the efectiveness of our optimizations.

Additionally, some bugs are very hard to reproduce as they happen only on certain accounts.

Solution

To address this problem, we propose to implement an “import Onyx state” feature. This feature would allow to load the previously exported state directly into another account, enabling us to replicate their exact conditions. It should automatically force offline mode, so we are sure it does not make any API calls while using the app. By doing so, we can accurately profile and measure the impact of our changes, ensuring that our performance optimizations are effective in real-world scenarios.

Additionally, it can help to resolve hard to reproduce bugs - we already got this feature working internally and thanks to this we were able to reproduce and fix this issue.

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This kind of solution would need an easy way to bring the account back to the original state. I think “Clear cache and restart” should do the work.

Things to consider:

• review if we need to mask more stuff when exporting state - e.g. report’s lastMessageText, lastMessageHtml, replacing images/videos with dummy placeholders, masking expenses
• review the way of masking things and how it affects the results - for example, email addresses are masked by replacing them with *** , but it might affect the results for filtering, since we’ll never go into some logic specific for valid emails only

Issue Owner

Current Issue Owner: @dylanexpensify

[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to @dylanexpensify (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.

[melvin-bot]

@dylanexpensify Huh... This is 4 days overdue. Who can take care of this?

[dylanexpensify]

@TMisiukiewicz will you be working on this one?

[TMisiukiewicz]

@dylanexpensify I can see here on Slack @muttmuure was discussing this proposal internally, do we already have a decision if we're going to work on this one? If yes, feel free to assign me 👍

[melvin-bot]

@TMisiukiewicz, @dylanexpensify Eep! 4 days overdue now. Issues have feelings too...

[TMisiukiewicz]

Back to work on this 👍

[dylanexpensify]

TY!

[melvin-bot]

@TMisiukiewicz @dylanexpensify this issue was created 2 weeks ago. Are we close to a solution? Let's make sure we're treating this as a top priority. Don't hesitate to create a thread in #expensify-open-source to align faster in real time. Thanks!

[TMisiukiewicz]

not overdue, I did not have much time to move forward with it due to React Universe Conf, but I am back now. I already have web implementation ready, now adjusting mobile.

[dylanexpensify]

Sounds great!

[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to @yuwenmemon (AutoAssignerNewDotQuality)

[muttmuure]

Sorry thought this needed a review

[muttmuure]

will reapply when we're ready

[TMisiukiewicz]

@muttmuure quick question, would it be beneficial to display some kind of an information about using the app in the "imported" mode? It could be e.g. a button displayed in every screen of the app allowing to get back to original state after pressing. Something like this:

[shawnborton]

Hmm yeah that's a fair point. I think if we removed the extra SafeArea that I am seeing under the tabs, it wouldn't eat as much vertical space and thus I think it could be okay? Again, this is a dev-only feature and something that I hope we don't expose to "real users".

[TMisiukiewicz]

@shawnborton how about using absolute positioning? It's much easier as i don't have to care about removing safearea from each screen when it's displayed. It covers the bottom of an app just a bit, but doesn't block from doing any actions from bottom sheet.

[shawnborton]

Definitely not a big fan of that personally, it feels broken to me.

[TMisiukiewicz]

Yeah I was able to easily align it on mobile but it is very difficult to actually make it display properly on web and desktop. One more idea is displaying it similarly to offline indicator. With this solution there is no need to play around safe area and it does not take much vertical space of the screen. It works on all platforms without any additional work with the layout. Let me know your thoughts.

[dannymcclain]

One more idea is displaying it similarly to offline indicator.

I like this better than overlapping the bottom of the app.

[shawnborton]

Same, I like that better. I think I would just use a regular weight font though, something like this:

[dubielzyk-expensify]

Yeah that feels right 👍

[TMisiukiewicz]

Thanks for the input everyone, I'll proceed with opening a PR 👍

[dylanexpensify]

In progress

[TMisiukiewicz]

PR is waiting for a review #49255

[dylanexpensify]

Nice! In review still!

[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to @rlinoz, see https://stackoverflow.com/c/expensify/questions/7972 for more details.

[dylanexpensify]

pending deploy!

[dylanexpensify]

on staging, pending prod deply

[melvin-bot]

Reviewing label has been removed, please complete the "BugZero Checklist".

[melvin-bot]

The solution for this issue has been 🚀 deployed to production 🚀 in version 9.0.45-4 and is now subject to a 7-day regression period 📆. Here is the list of pull requests that resolve this issue:

• feat: Import onyx state #49255

If no regressions arise, payment will be issued on 2024-10-14. 🎊

For reference, here are some details about the assignees on this issue:

• @TMisiukiewicz does not require payment (Contractor)

[melvin-bot]

BugZero Checklist: The PR fixing this issue has been merged! The following checklist (instructions) will need to be completed before the issue can be closed:

• [@rlinoz] The PR that introduced the bug has been identified. Link to the PR:
• [@rlinoz] The offending PR has been commented on, pointing out the bug it caused and why, so the author and reviewers can learn from the mistake. Link to comment:
• [@rlinoz] A discussion in #expensify-bugs has been started about whether any other steps should be taken (e.g. updating the PR review checklist) in order to catch this type of bug sooner. Link to discussion:
• [@TMisiukiewicz] Determine if we should create a regression test for this bug.
• [@TMisiukiewicz] If we decide to create a regression test for the bug, please propose the regression test steps to ensure the same bug will not reach production again.
• [@dylanexpensify] Link the GH issue for creating/updating the regression test once above steps have been agreed upon: