Why `Failed to execute 'pushState' on 'History'` when using `Link` from react-router-dom?

Question

I've seen similar posts but couldn't find an answer and in my case, I'm trying to pass an action from <App /> :

  addExpense = (expense) => {
    console.log('Hello From AddExpenseForm');
  }

to /create route where I'm rendering <AddExpenseForm /> component

<Link to={{
  pathname: '/create',
  state: { addExpense: this.addExpense }
}}> Create Expense</Link>

The link is rendered but when I click on it I get an error in console:

Uncaught DOMException: Failed to execute 'pushState' on 'History': function (expense) {
      console.log('Hello From addExpense');
    } could not be cloned

Why is that and what's the workaround here?

My updated code:

Routes in Index.js:

const Routes = () => {
  return (
      <BrowserRouter>
        <Switch>
          <Route path="/" exact component={App} />
          <Route path="/create" exact component={AddExpenseForm}/>
          <Route path="/expense/:expenseId" name="routename" component={ExpenseDetails} />
          <Route component={NotFound} />
        </Switch>
      </BrowserRouter>
  )
}

App.js:

  addExpense = (expense = {}) => {
    console.log('Hello From AddExpenseForm');
  }

  goToNextPage = (addExpense) => {
    this.props.history.push({
      pathname: '/create',
      state: { addExpense: this.addExpense }
    });
  }

  render() {
    return (
      <div>
        <Header
        />
        <button onClick={this.goToNextPage}>Create</button>
        ...

Answer 1

Firstly , add some default value to your addExpense function:

  addExpense = (expense = DEFAULT) => {
    console.log('Hello From addExpense');
  }

Then Use Link :

<Link to={`/ideas/${this.addExpense}`}>Create Expense​</Link>         

OR Try this ( Better Approach ):

  goToNextPage = (addExpense) => {
    this.props.history.push({
      pathname: '/create',
      state: { addExpense: addExpense }
    });
  }

In next ( create ) component use the passed on values like this:

this.props.location.state.addExpense();

Answer 2

You are using BrowserRouter which uses HTML5 history API( window.history ), unlike Router and HashRouter .

Mapping of BrowserRouter's history.push method to HTML5 history is below:

this.props.history.push({
  pathname: '/create',
  state: { addExpense: this.addExpense }
});

pathname('/create') > window.history.push('create')

state({ addExpense: this.addExpense }) > window.history.pushState({ addExpense: this.addExpense })

The actual issue is with window.history.pushState as it stores the state as a string and has size limit of 640k characters .

Source : https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/History/pushState

Answer 3

In my case, I was using BrowserRouter and found out that I either needed to run a local server or switch to HashRouter since BrowserRouter does not work with a file:// path due to security reasons.

https://github.com/ReactTraining/react-router/issues/6533#issuecomment-451969973

Answer 4

I was getting the same issue but when I changes all my backward slashes to forward slashes like below , error got resolved :-

 <li><NavLink to="/">Home</NavLink></li>
               <li><NavLink to="/About">About</NavLink></li>
               <li><NavLink to="/Contact">Contact</NavLink></li>

Answer 5

In my case, it was caused by trying to route to a path with two "/" characters. I wrote this:

history.push(`${location.pathname}/somePath`);

... but if location.pathname is "/" that will try to go to "//somePath" , causing the error,