[Due for payment 2026-05-07] Expense - "You can't export an empty report." is shown when exporting deleted expense

[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: 9.3.61-0
Reproducible in staging?: Yes
Reproducible in production?: N/A - new feature, doesn't exist in prod
If this was caught during regression testing, add the test name, ID and link from BrowserStack: #88192
Email or phone of affected tester (no customers): sdsodijnosdjoij@gmail.com
Issue reported by: Applause Internal Team
Bug source: Exploratory - Significant User Experience Deterioration
Device used: Mac 26.2 / Chrome
App Component: Money Requests

Action Performed:

Precondition:

• Delete an expense in workspace chat.

1. Go to staging.new.expensify.com
2. Go to Reports > All xpenses.
3. Enter status:deleted on the search field and search.
4. Select the deleted expense via checkbox.
5. Click dropdown button > Export > All Data - expense level.

Expected Result:

All Data - expense level will be hidden if the deleted expense cannot be exported.

Actual Result:

"You can't export an empty report." is shown when exporting deleted expense.

Workaround:

Unknown

Platforms:

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

Screenshots/Videos

Video.mp4

View all open jobs on GitHub

Issue Owner

Current Issue Owner: @mallenexpensify

[melvin-bot]

You have been assigned to this deploy blocker because you recently merged this PR: #88192

[melvin-bot]

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

[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: #88192 - "Export and duplicated deleted expenses" by @jnowakow (High confidence)
Related Issues: #88088

Recommendation: REVERT

PR #88192 added the export option to deleted expense bulk actions, but the export flow incorrectly passes the trash report ID, and the backend (or client-side logic) rejects the export with "You can't export an empty report" because deleted transactions are filtered out when resolving report transactions for export.

Assigned: @jnowakow (PR author), @rojiphil @luacmartins (approving reviewers)
Labels: DeployBlockerCash kept (Frontend bug — fix is in Expensify/App). No label changes made.

Detailed Analysis

Evidence

• The issue reporter links directly to PR Export and duplicated deleted expenses #88192 in the bug report and the melvin-bot assigned the PR author as the deploy blocker owner.
• PR Export and duplicated deleted expenses #88192 is in the StagingDeployCash checklist (entry Navigation Drawer #134 in chronological order).
• The bug is reproducible on staging only, and the issue is labeled "new feature, doesn't exist in prod" — consistent with this being a staging-only regression introduced by this PR.
• The PR's purpose was to allow export and duplicate of deleted expenses via the bulk action dropdown in search results.

Verification

• The only file changed by PR Export and duplicated deleted expenses #88192 in src/ is src/hooks/useSearchBulkActions.ts.
• The PR moved the allSelectedAreDeleted early-return block from line ~867 (where it returned only the undelete option) to after the exportButtonOption was built (~line 1036), and added exportButtonOption into the deletedTransactionOptions array.
• The affected code path is confirmed: useSearchBulkActions.ts is the file that controls which bulk action dropdown items appear in the search header.

Root Cause

Before this PR, when all selected transactions were deleted, the hook returned early with only the "Undelete" option — no export option was shown. This was intentional: deleted transactions belong to the trash report (CONST.REPORT.TRASH_REPORT_ID), not a real expense report.

PR #88192 moved this early-return block to later in the function, after exportButtonOption is constructed, and included exportButtonOption in the deleted-transaction options. When a user then selects "All Data - expense level" export for a deleted expense, the export handler (handleBasicExport) passes the trash report's ID as the reportIDList. The exportSearchItemsToCSV function in Search.ts iterates over report transactions and skips any with pendingAction === DELETE — leaving the report with zero valid transactions. The backend (or the CSV generation logic) then returns the "You can't export an empty report" error.

The fix location is in src/hooks/useSearchBulkActions.ts — either by reverting PR #88192 or by adding a guard inside getExportOptions / handleBasicExport to exclude deleted transactions from the export flow.