React-router URLs don't work when refreshing or writing manually

Question

I'm using React-router and it works fine while I'm clicking on link buttons, but when I refresh my webpage it does not load what I want.

For instance, I am in localhost/joblist and everything is fine because I arrived here pressing a link. But if I refresh the webpage I get:

Cannot GET /joblist

By default, it didn't work like this. Initially I had my URL as localhost/#/ and localhost/#/joblist and they worked perfectly fine. But I don't like this kind of URL, so trying to erase that #, I wrote:

Router.run(routes, Router.HistoryLocation, function (Handler) {
 React.render(<Handler/>, document.body);
});

This problem does not happen with localhost/, this one always returns what I want.

This app is single-page, so /joblist doesn't need to ask anything to any server.

My entire router.

var routes = (
    <Route name="app" path="/" handler={App}>
        <Route name="joblist" path="/joblist" handler={JobList}/>
        <DefaultRoute handler={Dashboard}/>
        <NotFoundRoute handler={NotFound}/>
    </Route>
);

Router.run(routes, Router.HistoryLocation, function (Handler) {
  React.render(<Handler/>, document.body);
});

Answer 1

Server-side vs Client-side

The first big thing to understand about this is that there are now 2 places where the URL is interpreted, whereas there used to be only 1 in 'the old days'. In the past, when life was simple, some user sent a request for http://example.com/about to the server, which inspected the path part of the URL, determined the user was requesting the about page, and then sent back that page.

With client-side routing, which is what React Router provides, things are less simple. At first, the client does not have any JavaScript code loaded yet. So the very first request will always be to the server. That will then return a page that contains the needed script tags to load React and React Router, etc. Only when those scripts have loaded does phase 2 start. In phase 2, when the user clicks on the 'About us' navigation link, for example, the URL is changed locally only to http://example.com/about (made possible by the History API), but no request to the server is made. Instead, React Router does its thing on the client-side, determines which React view to render, and renders it. Assuming your about page does not need to make any REST calls, it's done already. You have transitioned from Home to About Us without any server request having fired.

So basically when you click a link, some JavaScript runs that manipulates the URL in the address bar, without causing a page refresh, which in turn causes React Router to perform a page transition on the client-side.

But now consider what happens if you copy-paste the URL in the address bar and e-mail it to a friend. Your friend has not loaded your website yet. In other words, she is still in phase 1. No React Router is running on her machine yet. So her browser will make a server request to http://example.com/about.

And this is where your trouble starts. Until now, you could get away with just placing a static HTML at the webroot of your server. But that would give 404 errors for all other URLs when requested from the server. Those same URLs work fine on the client-side, because there React Router is doing the routing for you, but they fail on the server-side unless you make your server understand them.

Combining server- and client-side routing

If you want the http://example.com/about URL to work on both the server- and the client-side, you need to set up routes for it on both the server- and the client-side. It makes sense, right?

And this is where your choices begin. Solutions range from bypassing the problem altogether, via a catch-all route that returns the bootstrap HTML, to the full-on isomorphic approach where both the server and the client run the same JavaScript code.

Bypassing the problem altogether: Hash History

With Hash History, instead of Browser History, your URL for the about page would look something like this: http://example.com/#/about

The part after the hash (#) symbol is not sent to the server. So the server only sees http://example.com/ and sends the index page as expected. React Router will pick up the #/about part and show the correct page.

Downsides:

• 'ugly' URLs
• Server-side rendering is not possible with this approach. As far as search engine optimization (SEO) is concerned, your website consists of a single page with hardly any content on it.

Catch-all

With this approach, you do use the Browser History, but just set up a catch-all on the server that sends /* to index.html, effectively giving you much the same situation as with Hash History. You do have clean URLs however and you could improve upon this scheme later without having to invalidate all your user's favorites.

Downsides:

• More complex to set up
• Still no good SEO

Hybrid

In the hybrid approach, you expand upon the catch-all scenario by adding specific scripts for specific routes. You could make some simple PHP scripts to return the most important pages of your site with content included, so Googlebot can at least see what's on your page.

Downsides:

• Even more complex to set up
• Only good SEO for those routes you give the special treatment
• Duplicating code for rendering content on server and client

Isomorphic

What if we use Node.js as our server so we can run the same JavaScript code on both ends? Now, we have all our routes defined in a single react-router configuration and we don't need to duplicate our rendering code. This is 'the holy grail' so to speak. The server sends the exact same markup as we would end up with if the page transition had happened on the client. This solution is optimal in terms of SEO.

Downsides:

• Server must (be able to) run JavaScript. I've experimented with Java in conjunction with Nashorn, but it's not working for me. In practice, it mostly means you must use a Node.js based server.
• Many tricky environmental issues (using window on server-side, etc.)
• Steep learning curve

Which should I use?

Choose the one that you can get away with. Personally, I think the catch-all is simple enough to set up, so that would be my minimum. This setup allows you to improve on things over time. If you are already using Node.js as your server platform, I'd definitely investigate doing an isomorphic app. Yes, it's tough at first, but once you get the hang of it it's actually a very elegant solution to the problem.

So basically, for me, that would be the deciding factor. If my server runs on Node.js, I'd go isomorphic; otherwise, I would go for the Catch-all solution and just expand on it (Hybrid solution) as time progresses and SEO requirements demand it.

If you'd like to learn more about isomorphic (also called 'universal') rendering with React, there are some good tutorials on the subject:

• React to the future with isomorphic apps
• The Pain and the Joy of creating isomorphic apps in ReactJS
• How to Implement Node + React Isomorphic JavaScript & Why it Matters

Also, to get you started, I recommend looking at some starter kits. Pick one that matches your choices for the technology stack (remember, React is just the V in MVC, you need more stuff to build a full app). Start with looking at the one published by Facebook itself:

• Create React App

Or pick one of the many by the community. There is a nice site now that tries to index all of them:

• Pick your perfect React starter project

I started with these:

• React Isomorphic Starterkit
• React Redux Universal Hot Example

Currently, I am using a homebrewed version of universal rendering that was inspired by the two starter kits above, but they are out of date now.

Good luck with your quest!

Answer 2

If you are using Apache as your web server, you can insert this into your .htaccess file:

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
  RewriteEngine On
  RewriteBase /
  RewriteRule ^index\.html$ - [L]
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-l
  RewriteRule . /index.html [L]
</IfModule>

I am using react: "^16.12.0" and react-router: "^5.1.2" This method is the Catch-all and is probably the easiest way to get you started.

Answer 3

The answers here are all extremely helpful. Configuring my Webpack server to expect the routes worked for me.

devServer: {
   historyApiFallback: true,
   contentBase: './',
   hot: true
},

The historyApiFallback is what fixed this issue for me. Now routing works correctly and I can refresh the page or type in the URL directly. There isn't any need to worry about workarounds on your Node.js server. This answer obviously only works if you're using Webpack.

See my answer to React-router 2.0 browserHistory doesn't work when refreshing for a more detailed reason why this is necessary.

Answer 4

For React Router V4 users:

If you try to solve this problem by the Hash History technique mentioned in other answers, note that

<Router history={hashHistory} >

does not work in V4. Please use HashRouter instead:

import { HashRouter } from 'react-router-dom'

<HashRouter>
  <App/>
</HashRouter>

Reference: HashRouter

Answer 5

I used Create React App to make a website just now and had the same issue presented here.

I use BrowserRouting from the react-router-dom package. I am running on a Nginx server and adding the following to /etc/nginx/yourconfig.conf solved it for me:

location / {
  if (!-e $request_filename){
    rewrite ^(.*)$ /index.html break;
  }
}

Which corresponds to adding the following to the .htaccess in case you are running Apache:

Options -MultiViews
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^ index.html [QSA,L]

This also seems to be the solution suggested by Facebook themselves and can be found here.

Answer 6

In your index.html file's head, add the following:

<base href="/">
<!-- This must come before the CSS and JavaScript code -->

Then, when running with the Webpack development server, use this command.

webpack-dev-server --mode development --hot --inline --content-base=dist --history-api-fallback

--history-api-fallback is the important part

Answer 7

If you are using Create React App:

There's a great walkthrough of this issue with solutions for many major hosting platforms that you can find here on the Create React App page. For example, I use React Router v4 and Netlify for my frontend code. All it took was adding one file to my public folder ("_redirects") and one line of code in that file:

/*  /index.html  200

Now my website properly renders paths like mysite.com/pricing when entered into the browser or when someone hits refresh.

Answer 8

The router can be called in two different ways, depending on whether the navigation occurs on the client or on the server. You have it configured for client-side operation. The key parameter is the second one to the run method, the location.

When you use the React Router Link component, it blocks browser navigation and calls transitionTo to do a client-side navigation. You are using HistoryLocation, so it uses the HTML5 history API to complete the illusion of navigation by simulating the new URL in the address bar. If you're using older browsers, this won't work. You would need to use the HashLocation component.

When you hit refresh, you bypass all of the React and React Router code. The server gets the request for /joblist and it must return something. On the server you need to pass the path that was requested to the run method in order for it to render the correct view. You can use the same route map, but you'll probably need a different call to Router.run. As Charles points out, you can use URL rewriting to handle this. Another option is to use a Node.js server to handle all requests and pass the path value as the location argument.

In Express.js, for example, it might look like this:

var app = express();

app.get('*', function (req, res) { // This wildcard method handles all requests

    Router.run(routes, req.path, function (Handler, state) {
        var element = React.createElement(Handler);
        var html = React.renderToString(element);
        res.render('main', { content: html });
    });
});

Note that the request path is being passed to run. To do this, you'll need to have a server-side view engine that you can pass the rendered HTML to. There are a number of other considerations using renderToString and in running React on the server. Once the page is rendered on the server, when your app loads in the client, it will render again, updating the server-side rendered HTML as needed.

Answer 9

If you're hosting a React app via AWS Static S3 Hosting and CloudFront

This problem presented itself by CloudFront responding with a 403 Access Denied message, because it expected /some/other/path to exist in my S3 folder, but that path only exists internally in React's routing with React Router.

The solution was to set up a distribution Error Pages rule. Go to the CloudFront settings and choose your distribution. Next, go to the "Error Pages" tab. Click "Create Custom Error Response" and add an entry for 403 since that's the error status code we get.

Set the Response Page Path to /index.html and the status code to 200.

The end result astonishes me with its simplicity. The index page is served, but the URL is preserved in the browser, so once the React application loads, it detects the URL path and navigates to the desired route.

Error Pages 403 Rule

Answer 10

If you are hosting your React application on IIS, just add a web.config file containing:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration>
    <system.webServer>
        <httpErrors errorMode="Custom" existingResponse="Replace">
            <remove statusCode="404" subStatusCode="-1" />
            <error statusCode="404" path="/" responseMode="ExecuteURL" />
        </httpErrors>
    </system.webServer>
</configuration>

This will tell the IIS server to return the main page to the client instead of a 404 error and there isn't any need to use the hash history.

Answer 11

This can solve your problem.

I also faced the same problem in the React application in Production mode. Here are the two solutions to the problem.

Solution 1. Change the routing history to "hashHistory" instead of browserHistory in the place of

<Router history={hashHistory} >
   <Route path="/home" component={Home} />
   <Route path="/aboutus" component={AboutUs} />
</Router>

Now build the app using the command

sudo npm run build

Then place the build folder in your var/www/ folder. Now the application is working fine with the addition of # tag in each and every URL. Like

localhost/#/home
localhost/#/aboutus

Solution 2: Without the # tag using browserHistory,

Set your history = {browserHistory} in your router. Now build it using sudo npm run build.

You need to create the "conf" file to solve the 404 not found page. The conf file should be like this.

Open your terminal type the below commands

cd /etc/apache2/sites-available
ls
nano sample.conf

Add the below content in it.

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin admin@0.0.0.0
    ServerName 0.0.0.0
    ServerAlias 0.0.0.0
    DocumentRoot /var/www/html/

    ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
    <Directory "/var/www/html/">
            Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
            AllowOverride all
            Require all granted
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

Now you need to enable the sample.conf file by using the following command:

cd /etc/apache2/sites-available
sudo a2ensite sample.conf

Then it will ask you to reload the Apache server, using

sudo service apache2 reload or restart

Then open your localhost/build folder and add the .htaccess file with the content of the below.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-l
RewriteRule ^.*$ / [L,QSA]

Now the app is working normally.

Note: change the 0.0.0.0 IP address to your local IP address.

Answer 12

The Webpack Dev Server has an option to enable this. Open up package.json and add --history-api-fallback. This solution worked for me.

react-router-tutorial

Answer 13

Add this to webpack.config.js:

devServer: {
    historyApiFallback: true
}

Answer 14

Production stack: React, React Router v4, BrowswerRouter, Express.js, Nginx

1. User BrowserRouter for pretty URLs

   File app.js

    import { BrowserRouter as Router } from 'react-router-dom'
   
    const App = () {
      render() {
        return (
            <Router>
               // Your routes here
            </Router>
        )
      }
    }
   

2. Add index.html to all unknown requests by using /*

   File server.js

    app.get('/*', function(req, res) {
      res.sendFile(path.join(__dirname, 'path/to/your/index.html'), function(err) {
        if (err) {
          res.status(500).send(err)
        }
      })
    })
   

3. bundle Webpack with webpack -p

4. run nodemon server.js or node server.js

You may want to let nginx handle this in the server block and disregard step 2:

location / {
    try_files $uri /index.html;
}

Answer 15

Try adding a ".htaccess" file inside the public folder with the below code.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}%{REQUEST_URI} -f [OR]
RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}%{REQUEST_URI} -d
RewriteRule ^ - [L]

RewriteRule ^ /index.html [L]

Answer 16

If you are hosting using nginx and need a quick fix...

Add the following line to your nginx configuration inside the location block:

location / {
  try_files $uri /index.html;
}

Answer 17

If you're using Firebase, all you have to do is make sure you've got a rewrites property in your firebase.json file in the root of your app (in the hosting section).

For example:

{
  "hosting": {
    "rewrites": [{
      "source":"**",
      "destination": "/index.html"
    }]
  }
}

Further reading on the subject:

• Configure rewrites

• Firebase CLI: "Configure as a single-page app (rewrite all urls to /index.html)"

Answer 18

I found the solution for my SPA with React Router (Apache). Just add this in file .htaccess:

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>

  RewriteEngine On
  RewriteBase /
  RewriteRule ^index\.html$ - [L]
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-l
  RewriteRule . /index.html [L]

</IfModule>

Source: Apache configuration for React Router

Answer 19

If you are using Express.js or some other framework in the backend, you can add the similar configuration as below and check out the Webpack public path in the configuration. It should work fine even on reload if you are using BrowserRouter.

expressApp.get('/*', (request, response) => {
    response.sendFile(path.join(__dirname, '../public/index.html'));
});

Answer 20

For those who are using IIS 10, this is what you should do to make this right.

Be sure that you are using browserHistory with this. As for reference, I will give the code for the routing, but this is not what matters. What matters is the next step after the component code below:

class App extends Component {
    render() {
        return (
            <Router history={browserHistory}>
                <div>
                    <Root>
                        <Switch>
                            <Route exact path={"/"} component={Home} />
                            <Route path={"/home"} component={Home} />
                            <Route path={"/createnewproject"} component={CreateNewProject} />
                            <Route path={"/projects"} component={Projects} />
                            <Route path="*" component={NotFoundRoute} />
                        </Switch>
                    </Root>
                </div>
            </Router>
        )
    }
}
render (<App />, window.document.getElementById("app"));

Since the problem is IIS receives requests from client browsers, it will interpret the URL as if it is asking for a page, then returns a 404 page since there isn't any available page. Do the following:

1. Open IIS
2. Expand Server, and then open the Sites Folder
3. Click the website/application
4. Go to the Error Pages
5. Open the 404 error status item in the list
6. Instead of the option "Insert content from static file into the error response", change it to "Execute a URL on this site" and add "/" slash value to the URL.

And it will now work fine.

Answer 21

If you do have a fallback to your index.html, make sure that in your index.html file you have this:

<script>
  System.config({ baseURL: '/' });
</script>

This may differ from project to project.

Answer 22

Using HashRouter worked for me with Redux also. Just simply replace:

import {
    Router //replace Router
} from "react-router-dom";

ReactDOM.render(
    <LocaleProvider locale={enUS}>
        <Provider store={Store}>
            <Router history={history}> // Replace here saying Router
                <Layout/>
            </Router>
        </Provider>
    </LocaleProvider>, document.getElementById("app"));

registerServiceWorker();

with:

import {
    HashRouter // Replaced with HashRouter
} from "react-router-dom";

ReactDOM.render(
    <LocaleProvider locale={enUS}>
        <Provider store={Store}>
            <HashRouter history={history}> //replaced with HashRouter
                <Layout/>
            </HashRouter>
        </Provider>
    </LocaleProvider>, document.getElementById("app"));

registerServiceWorker();

Answer 23

Fixing the "cannot GET /URL" error on refresh or on calling the URL directly.

Configure your webpack.config.js to expect the given link the routes like this.

module.exports = {
  entry: './app/index.js',
  output: {
       path: path.join(__dirname, '/bundle'),
       filename: 'index_bundle.js',
       publicPath: '/'
  },

Answer 24

If you are using the "create-react-app" command,

to generate a React application then the package.json file needs to have one change for a properly running production build React SPA in a browser. Open up file package.json and add the following code segment to that,

"start": "webpack-dev-server --inline --content-base . --history-api-fallback"

Here the most important part is the "--history-api-fallback" to enable the history API call back.

Sometimes you will get a 404 error if you use Spring or any other back-end API. So in such a situation, you need to have a controller in the back-end to forward any request (you desired) to the index.html file to handle by react-router. The following demonstrates an example controller written using Spring.

@Controller
public class ForwardingController {
    @RequestMapping("/<any end point name>/{path:[^\\.]+}/**")
    public String forward(HttpServletRequest httpServletRequest) {
        return "forward:/";
    }
}

For example, if we take a back-end API REST endpoint as "abc" (http://localhost:8080/abc/**), any request coming to that endpoint will redirect to the React application (index.html file), and react-router will handle that afterwards.

Answer 25

I'm not using server-side rendering yet, but I hit the same problem as the OP where Link seemed to work fine most of the time, but failed when I had a parameter. I'll document my solution here to see if it helps anyone.

My main JSX content contains this:

<Route onEnter={requireLogin} path="detail/:id" component={ModelDetail} />

This works fine for the first matching link, but when the :id changes in <Link> expressions nested on that model's detail page, the URL changes in the browser bar, but the content of the page did not initially change to reflect the linked model.

The trouble was that I had used the props.params.id to set the model in componentDidMount. The component is just mounted once, so this means that the first model is the one that sticks on the page and the subsequent Links change the props, but leave the page looking unchanged.

Setting the model in the component state in both componentDidMount and in componentWillReceiveProps (where it is based on the next props) solves the problem and the page content changes to reflect the desired model.

Answer 26

Here is a simple, clear and better solution. It works if you use a web server.

Each web server has an ability to redirect the user to an error page in case of HTTP 404. To solve this issue, you need to redirect the user to the index page.

If you use a Java base server (Tomcat or any Java application server), the solution could be the following:

web.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app xmlns="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
         xsi:schemaLocation="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_3_1.xsd"
         version="3.1">

    <!-- WELCOME FILE LIST -->
    <welcome-file-list>
        <welcome-file>index.jsp</welcome-file>
    </welcome-file-list>

    <!-- ERROR PAGES DEFINITION -->
    <error-page>
        <error-code>404</error-code>
        <location>/index.jsp</location>
    </error-page>

</web-app>

Example:

• GET http://example.com/about
• The web server throws HTTP 404 because this page does not exist on the server side
• the error page configuration tells to the server that send the index.jsp page back to the user
• then JavaScript will do the rest of the job on the client side, because the URL on the client side is still http://example.com/about.

That is it. No more magic needs:)

Answer 27

I solved this problem by changing file webpack.config.js.

My new configuration looks like:

Before

output: {
  path: path.join(__dirname, '/build/static/js'),
  filename: 'index.js'
},


devServer: {
  port: 3000
}

After

output: {
  path: path.join(__dirname, '/build/static/js'),
  filename: 'index.js',
  publicPath: '/'
},


devServer: {
  historyApiFallback: true,
  port: 3000
}

Answer 28

I was facing this issue in Electron when I was using React for front-end and react-router-dom for routing.

I replaced BrowserRouter with HashRouter and it was fixed.

Here is a simple example:

import {
  HashRouter as Router,
  Switch,
  Route,
} from "react-router-dom";

Answer 29

I faced same issue when i used apache(Httpd) server. I solved bellowing this way and works 100% for me.

step-1:

• Go /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf / for new version go to etc/apache2/apache2.conf
• Change the AllowOverride None to AllowOverride All.
• Restart the apache server.

step-2:

After build make a .htaccess file into root folder.

Options -MultiViews
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^ index.html [QSA,L]

Answer 30

If you are hosting in IIS: Adding this to my webconfig solved my problem

<httpErrors errorMode="Custom" defaultResponseMode="ExecuteURL">
    <remove statusCode="500" subStatusCode="100" />
    <remove statusCode="500" subStatusCode="-1" />
    <remove statusCode="404" subStatusCode="-1" />
    <error statusCode="404" path="/" responseMode="ExecuteURL" />
    <error statusCode="500" prefixLanguageFilePath="" path="/error_500.asp" responseMode="ExecuteURL" />
    <error statusCode="500" subStatusCode="100" path="/error_500.asp" responseMode="ExecuteURL" />
</httpErrors>

You can make a similar configuration for any other server.

Answer 31

A solution in React for a JavaScript SPA with Laravel

The accepted answer is the best explanation of why such problems happen. As already explained, you have to configure both the client side and server side.

In your blade template, include the JavaScript bundled file, make sure to use URL facade like this:

<script src="{{ URL::to('js/user/spa.js') }}"></script>

In your routes, make sure to add this to the main endpoint where the blade template is. For example,

Route::get('/setting-alerts', function () {
   return view('user.set-alerts');
});

The above is the main endpoint for the blade template. Now add an optional route too,

Route::get('/setting-alerts/{spa?}', function () {
  return view('user.set-alerts');
});

The problem that happens is that first the blade template is loaded, then the React router. So, when you're loading '/setting-alerts', it loads the HTML content and the JavaScript code.

But when you load '/setting-alerts/about', it first loads on the server side. Since it is on the server side, there isn't anything on this location, and it returns not found. When you have that optional router, it loads that same page and React Router is also loaded, then the React loader decides which component to show.

Answer 32

Adding more information to Joshua Dyck's answer.

If you are using Firebase and want to use both the root route and a sub-directory route you need to add the following code in your firebase.json:

{
  "hosting": {
    "rewrites": [
      {
        "source": "*",
        "destination": "/index.html"
      },
      {
        "source": "/subdirectory/**",
        "destination": "/subdirectory/index.html"
      }
    ]
  }
}

Example:

You are building a website for a client. You want the owner of the website to add information in https://your.domain.com/management while the users of the website will navigate to https://your.domain.com.

In this case your firebase.json file will look like that:

{
  "hosting": {
    "rewrites": [
      {
        "source": "*",
        "destination": "/index.html"
      },
      {
        "source": "/management/**",
        "destination": "/management/index.html"
      }
    ]
  }
}

Answer 33

We used Express.js' 404 handling approach.

// Path to the static React build directory
const frontend = path.join(__dirname, 'react-app/build');

// Map the requests to the static React build directory
app.use('/', express.static(frontend));

// All the unknown requests are redirected to the React SPA
app.use(function (req, res, next) {
    res.sendFile(path.join(frontend, 'index.html'));
});

It works like a charm. A live demo is our site.

Answer 34

If trying to serve a React app from an IIS Virtual Directory (not the root of a website):

When setting up your redirects, '/' won’t work on its own. For me, it needed the virtual directory name in there too. Here is what my web configuration looked like:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<configuration>
    <system.webServer>
        <defaultDocument>
            <files>
                <remove value="default.aspx" />
                <remove value="iisstart.htm" />
                <remove value="index.htm" />
                <remove value="Default.asp" />
                <remove value="Default.htm" />
            </files>
        </defaultDocument>
        <rewrite>
            <rules>
                <rule name="React Routes" stopProcessing="true">
                    <match url=".*" />
                    <conditions logicalGrouping="MatchAll">
                        <add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="IsFile" negate="true" />
                        <add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="IsDirectory" negate="true" />
                        <add input="{REQUEST_URI}" pattern="^/(api)" negate="true" />
                    </conditions>
                    <action type="Rewrite" url="/YOURVIRTUALDIRECTORYNAME/" />
                </rule>
            </rules>
        </rewrite>
        <directoryBrowse enabled="false" />
        <httpErrors errorMode="Custom" defaultResponseMode="ExecuteURL">
            <remove statusCode="500" subStatusCode="100" />
            <remove statusCode="500" subStatusCode="-1" />
            <remove statusCode="404" subStatusCode="-1" />
            <remove statusCode="403" subStatusCode="18" />
            <error statusCode="403" subStatusCode="18" path="/YOURVIRTUALDIRECTORYNAME/" responseMode="ExecuteURL" />
            <error statusCode="404" path="/YOURVIRTUALDIRECTORYNAME/" responseMode="ExecuteURL" />
            <error statusCode="500" prefixLanguageFilePath="" path="/YOURVIRTUALDIRECTORYNAME/" responseMode="ExecuteURL" />
            <error statusCode="500" subStatusCode="100" path="/YOURVIRTUALDIRECTORYNAME/" responseMode="ExecuteURL" />
        </httpErrors>
    </system.webServer>
</configuration>

In addition to the web.config file, the React app itself needed some changes:

In file package.json, you need to add a 'homepage' entry:

{
  "name": "sicon.react.crm",
  "version": "0.1.0",
  "private": true,
  "homepage": "/YOURVIRTUALDIRECTORYNAME/",
  "dependencies": {
...

I added the basename to my browser history object that I pass into the router to get access to history:

import  {createBrowserHistory } from 'history';

export default createBrowserHistory({
    //Pass the public URL as the base name for the router basename: process.env.PUBLIC_URL
});

I also added this property on my React router in file App.js:

<Router history={history} basename={process.env.PUBLIC_URL}>

Finally, in file index.html I added the following tab above the 'title' tag:

<base href="%PUBLIC_URL%/">

It may be that some steps where not required, but this seems to have done the job for me. I don't know how to set it up to run either in the root of a site or a virtual directory without a recompile though, as the homepage in the package.json can't be swapped after a build as far as I'm aware.

Answer 35

I am using ASP.NET Core and React. The solution for the problem of manual routing and refreshing routes in production environment was to create web.config file in the root of the main project of ASP.NET Core which will configure routing on the production server.

Location of the file inside a project:

Content of the web.config file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<configuration>
    <system.webServer>
        <rewrite>
            <rules>
                <rule name="Rewrite Text Requests" stopProcessing="true">
                    <match url=".*" />
                    <conditions>
                        <add input="{HTTP_METHOD}" pattern="^GET$" />
                        <add input="{HTTP_ACCEPT}" pattern="^text/html" />
                        <add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="IsFile" negate="true" />
                    </conditions>
                    <action type="Rewrite" url="/index.html" />
                </rule>
            </rules>
        </rewrite>
    </system.webServer>
</configuration>

Answer 36

With the following simple change in my nginx configuration, I was able to overcome hard refresh web application break and manual URL typing web application breaking.

• React Version: 17.0.2
• Web Server: nginx
• OS: Ubuntu Server 20.04 (Focal Fossa)

Before

location / {
    try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
}

After

location / {
    try_files $uri /index.html;
}

There might be other solutions, but this was really quick and time saver for me.

Answer 37

Solution for Preact with preact-router

Works with refresh and direct access

For those discovering this via Google, here's a demo of preact-router + hash history:

const { h, Component, render } = preact; /** @jsx h */
const { Router } = preactRouter;
const { createHashHistory } = History;
const App = () => (
    <div>
        <AddressBar />

        <Router history={createHashHistory()}>
            <div path="/">
                <p>
                    all paths in preact-router are still /normal/urls.
                    using hash history rewrites them to /#/hash/urls
                </p>
                Example: <a href="/page2">page 2</a>
            </div>
            <div path="/page2">
                <p>Page Two</p>
                <a href="/">back to home</a><br/>
            </div>
        </Router>
    </div>
);

jsfiddle

Answer 38

I am using Webpack, and I had the same problem.

Solution:

In your server.js file:

const express = require('express');
const app = express();

app.use(express.static(path.resolve(__dirname, '../dist')));
  app.get('*', function (req, res) {
    res.sendFile(path.resolve(__dirname, '../dist/index.html'));
    // res.end();
  });

Why doesn't my application render after refreshing?

Answer 39

As I am using ASP.NET Core, something like this helped me:

public class HomeController : Controller
{
    public IActionResult Index()
    {
        var url = Request.Path + Request.QueryString;
        return App(url);
    }

    [Route("App")]
    public IActionResult App(string url)
    {
        return View("/wwwroot/app/build/index.html");
    }

}

Basically on the ASP.NET MVC side, all the routes not matching will fall into to Home/Index as it specified in startup.cs. Inside Index it is possible to get the original request URL and pass it wherever needed.

File startup.cs

app.UseMvc(routes =>
{
    routes.MapRoute(
        name: "default",
        template: "{controller=Home}/{action=Index}/{id?}");

    routes.MapSpaFallbackRoute(
        name: "spa-fallback",
        defaults: new { controller = "Home", action = "Index" });
});

Answer 40

If you are coming here and you are using Apache and don’t have a .htaccess file, this is a configuration file that worked for me:

sites-enabled/somedomain.com.conf

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName somedomain.com
    ServerAlias *.somedomain.com
    DocumentRoot /www/somedomain.com/build

    RewriteEngine On
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
    RewriteRule . /www/somedomain.com/build/index.html [L,NC,QSA]

</VirtualHost>

Answer 41

In case you are running it on a Google Bucket, the simple solution to this is to consider 'index.html' for Error (404 not found) Page.

To do so:

1. In the list of buckets, find the bucket you created.
2. Click the Bucket overflow menu (...) associated with the bucket and select Edit website configuration.
3. In the website configuration dialog, specify the main page as the error page too.

Answer 42

Using Express.js on the backend and React on the frontend (without react-create-app) with reach/router, the correct reach/router route React component is shown and the menu link is set to the active style when hitting Enter in the address bar, e.g., http://localhost:8050/pages.

Please checkout the below, or go straight to my repository https://github.com/nickjohngray/staticbackeditor. All the code is there.

Webpack:

Setup proxy. This allows any calls from port 3000 (React) to call the server, including the call to get index.html or anything in the address bar when the Enter key is hit. It also allows calls to the API route, to get JSON data.

Like await axios.post('/api/login', {email, pwd}):

devServer: {
    port: 3000,
    open: true,
    proxy: {
      '/': 'http://localhost:8050',
    }
  }

Setup Express.js routes

app.get('*', (req, res) => {
    console.log('sending index.html')
    res.sendFile(path.resolve('dist', 'index.html'))

});

This will match any request from React. It just returns the index.html page, which is in my dist folder. This page, of course, has a more single-page React app. (Note any other routes should appear above this, and in my case these are my API routes.)

React Routes

<Router>
    <Home path="/" />
    <Pages path="pages"/>
    <ErrorPage path="error"/>
    <Products path="products"/>
    <NotFound default />
</Router>

These routes are defined in my Layout component that will load the corresponding component when the path matches.

React Layout constructor

constructor(props) {
    super(props);

    this.props.changeURL({URL: globalHistory.location.pathname});
}

The Layout constructor is called as soon as it loads. In here, I call my redux action changeURL that my menu listens to, so it can highlight the correct menu item, like below:

Menu code

<nav>
    {this.state.links.map( (link) =>
    <Link className={this.getActiveLinkClassName(link.path) } to={link.path}>
      {link.name}
    </Link>)}
</nav>

Answer 43

I'm using React.js + Webpack mode. I added --history-api-fallback parameter in package.json file. Then page refreshing is working correctly.

Every time when I change the code, the web page is refreshed automatically.

"scripts": {
  "start": "rimraf build && cross-env NODE_ENV='development' webpack --mode development && cross-env NODE_ENV=development webpack-dev-server --history-api-fallback",
  ...
}

Answer 44

In my case the URL was not loading when I was using a parameter in it.

As a quick fix, I added <base href="<yourdomain/IP>"></base> under the <title> tag of the index.html file in the build folder.

And this just fixed my problem.

Answer 45

if you are using Hostringer

create a .htaccess (make sure there's no file extension like .txt) in root file of ur file manager

paste the below code

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.html$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.html [L]

refresh the website

Answer 46

I had the same problem and this solution worked for us...

Background:

We are hosting multiple applications on the same server. When we would refresh the server, it would not understand where to look for our index in the destination folder for that particular application. The above link will take you to what worked for us...

We are using:

File package.json:

"dependencies": {
  "babel-polyfill": "^6.23.0",
  "ejs": "^2.5.6",
  "express": "^4.15.2",
  "prop-types": "^15.5.6",
  "react": "^15.5.4",
  "react-dom": "^15.5.4",
  "react-redux": "^5.0.4",
  "react-router": "^3.0.2",
  "react-router-redux": "^4.0.8",
  "redux": "^3.6.0",
  "redux-persist": "^4.6.0",
  "redux-thunk": "^2.2.0",
  "webpack": "^2.4.1"
}

My webpack.config.js file:

/* eslint-disable */
const path = require('path');
const webpack = require('webpack');
const HtmlWebpackPlugin = require('html-webpack-plugin');
const babelPolyfill = require('babel-polyfill');
const HTMLWebpackPluginConfig = new HtmlWebpackPlugin({
  template: __dirname + '/app/views/index.html',
  filename: 'index.html',
  inject: 'body'
});

module.exports = {
  entry: [
    'babel-polyfill', './app/index.js'
  ],
  output: {
    path: __dirname + '/dist/your_app_name_here',
    filename: 'index_bundle.js'
  },
  module: {
    rules: [{
      test: /\.js$/,
      loader: 'babel-loader',
      query : {
          presets : ["env", "react", "stage-1"]
      },
      exclude: /node_modules/
    }]
  },
  plugins: [HTMLWebpackPluginConfig]
}

My index.js file:

import React from 'react'
import ReactDOM from 'react-dom'
import Routes from './Routes'
import { Provider } from 'react-redux'
import { createHistory } from 'history'
import { useRouterHistory } from 'react-router'
import configureStore from './store/configureStore'
import { syncHistoryWithStore } from 'react-router-redux'
import { persistStore } from 'redux-persist'

const store = configureStore();

const browserHistory = useRouterHistory(createHistory) ({
  basename: '/your_app_name_here'
})
const history = syncHistoryWithStore(browserHistory, store)

persistStore(store, {blacklist: ['routing']}, () => {
  console.log('rehydration complete')
})
// persistStore(store).purge()

ReactDOM.render(
    <Provider store={store}>
      <div>
        <Routes history={history} />
      </div>
    </Provider>,
  document.getElementById('mount')
)

My app.js file:

var express = require('express');
var app = express();

app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/dist'));
// app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/app/assets'));
app.set('views', __dirname + '/dist/your_app_name_here');
app.engine('html', require('ejs').renderFile);
app.set('view engine', 'html');

app.get('/*', function (req, res) {
    res.render('index');
});

app.listen(8081, function () {
  console.log('MD listening on port 8081!');
});

Answer 47

I like this way of handling it. Try adding: yourSPAPageRoute/* on the server side to get rid of this problem.

I went with this approach, because even the native HTML5 History API doesn't support correct redirection on page refresh (as far as I know).

Note: The selected answer has already addressed this, but I'm trying to be more specific.

Express Route

Answer 48

Assume you have the following Home route definition:

<Route exact path="/" render={routeProps => (
   <Home routeProps={routeProps}/>
)}/>

{/* Optional catch-all router */}
<Route render={routeProps => (
       <div><h4>404 not found</h4></div>
)}/>

At your Home component, you can intercept the request at ComponentWillMount event,

const searchPath = this.props.routeProps.location.search;

if (searchPath){
    this.props.routeProps.history.push("/" + searchPath.replace("?",""));
}
else{
    /*.... originally Home event */
}

Now, instead of calling /joblist at the URL, you can request /?joblist, and the <Home> Component will auto redirect the request to /joblist (take note the extra question mark in the path).

Answer 49

Here is a frontend workaround I discovered that does not require modifying anything on the server.

Let's say your site is mysite.com and you have a React Route to mysite.com/about. In index.js, where you mount your top-level component, you can put another Router like:

ReactDOM.render(
<Router>
    <div>
        <Route exact path="/" component={Home} />
        <Route exact path="/about"
            render={(props) => <Home {...props} refreshRout={"/about"}/>}
        />
    </div>
</Router>,

I'm assuming you have the original Router located somewhere below the top-level component in the virtual DOM. You also have to catch the url in your .urls if you are using Django like:

urlpatterns = [
       path('about/', views.index),
]

This will depend on what backend you're using, however. Requesting mysite/about will get you into index.js (where you mount the top-level component) where you can use the render prop of the Route, rather than the component prop, and pass '/about' as a prop to, in this example, the Home component.

Within Home, in either componentDidMount() or the useEffect() hook, do:

useEffect() {
   //check that this.props.refreshRoute actually exists before executing the
   //following line
   this.props.history.replace(this.props.refreshRoute);
}

I've assumed your Home component is rendering something like:

<Router>
   <Route exact path="/" component={SomeComponent} />
   <Route path="/about" component={AboutComponent} />
</Router>

Credit to (Pass props to a component rendered by React Router) for how to pass props to components in Routes.

Answer 50

I am using .NET Core 3.1 and just added the extension MapFallbackToController:

File Startup.cs

    app.UseEndpoints(endpoints =>
    {
        endpoints.MapControllerRoute(
            name: "default",
            pattern: "{controller=Home}/{action=Index}/{id?}");

        endpoints.MapFallbackToController("Index", "Home");
    });

Answer 51

The other way of requesting data, even though you are directing to URLs immediately, is to make every component have a method that calls to that last parameters, like /about/test.

Then to your State Provider, you have the function that connects to the component you want to request data with.

Answer 52

The previous answers don't solve the problem where you want to use your browser router with proxy pass, and where you can't use root.

For me the solution is pretty simple.

Say you have a URL that's pointing to some port.

location / {
  proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:30002/;
  proxy_set_header    Host            $host;
  port_in_redirect    off;
}

And now because of the browser router, sub paths are broken. However, you know what the sub paths are.

What is the solution to this? For sub path /contact

# Just copy paste.
location /contact/ {
  proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:30002/;
  proxy_set_header    Host            $host;
}

Nothing else I've tried works, but this simple fix works.

Answer 53

Use useEffect to read the URL and apply the changes you want.

---

For example - a page has a button that opens a slider. When the button is clicked, a query param for the slider is added to the URL and the slider is opened.

Problem - on refreshing the page with the slider opened, the loaded page does not show the opened slider, even if the query param is present.

Solution: add a useEffect that reads the "slider" query param, and runs the button handler. Add a state variable for the slider query param, and also include it in the useEffect's dependency array.

You don't need to worry about backend request, assuming there is one in the slider component.

Answer 54

In case your URLs work OK locally, but you get a blank page with the error Not found when deploying your React App in Render Cloud, it is possible that you did not set up client side routing

Answer 55

Just add this server.js in the root directory.

const express = require('express');
const path = require('path');

const app = express();

app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'build')));

app.get('/*', function(req, res) {
  res.sendFile(path.join(__dirname, 'build', 'index.html'));
});

app.listen(3000);
console.log('Server started on port 3000');

and change package.json

    "start": "node server.js",

Answer 56

You can use Vercel's hosting for your React app and with the same old way of routing in your React application with using BrowserRouting.

You need to add a vercel.json file at the root of your project and add this code to it:

{
  "rewrites": [
    {
      "source": "/((?!api/.*).*)",
      "destination": "/index.html"
    }
  ]
}

This works perfectly fine.

Answer 57

It’s pretty simple when you got cannot get a 403 error after refreshing a DOM component.

Just add this one line in your Webpack configuration, 'historyApiFallback: true '. This saved my whole day.

Answer 58

HashRouter will be an easy implementation,

import {HashRouter as Router,Switch,Route,Link} from 'react-router-dom';


  function App() {
  return (
    <Router>
        <Switch>
          <Route path="/" exact component={InitialComponent} />
          <Route path="/some" exact component={SomeOtherComponent} />
        </Switch>
      </Router>
  );
}

It will be something like this in the browser - http:localhost:3000/#/ , http:localhost:3000/#/some

Answer 59

Solution for react-router-dom: 6

Replace BrowserRouter with HashRouter

Using HashRouter will add /# in URLs but this will solve most of the problems of refresh/reload.