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Fixing the "cannot GET /URL" error on refresh with React Router (or how client side routers work)

Tyler McGinnis on February 05, 2018

A very common error developers run into when building (and specifically refreshing) an app with React Router is 'Cannot GET /url'. In this post we'...
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Leo Wong •

Hey I just wanted to say thank you so much for this post, it fixed a bug that nobody on my bootcamp course could fix - by adding a catch-all, I was getting an error after returning from Stripe checkout,

Cannot GET /success

, but after adding the Express catch-all as you suggested:

app.get('/*', (req, res) => {
  res.sendFile(path.join(__dirname, '../client/build/index.html'), (err) => err && res.status(500).send(err));
});
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…it worked

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sushant0808 •

Can you please share how exactly did you solve this error. I put this in my node application but still didn't work for me. Should I make changes to my frontend react app in the router or any other changes that you made that worked for you. Please help me with this one

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Leo Wong •

Only the backend... What's your repo?

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Jonathan Cass •

Nice post, thanks. Can you expand on why the HashRouter is to be avoided?