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I am currently building my first web application using the Next.js App Router. Unfortunately, I’ve hit a roadblock in trying to display the user’s info (like a username) in the page’s header. When the status of the user’s session changes, the header does not update to reflect the new status. For instance, if a user signs in, they are redirected to their dashboard, but the header still shows the placeholder "Sign In" instead of a username:

Dashboard page shown immediately after sign-in. Header says 'sign in.'

When I reload the page, however, the header updates to reflect the new information:

Dashboard page upon refreshing. Header says 'Cloud Strife', the user's name.

This leads me to believe that there is an issue with the header not re-rendering upon navigation.

Currently, I have placed the header in the root template.tsx file:

import Header from "@/components/Header/Header";
import { PropsWithChildren } from "react";

export default function RootTemplate({ children }: PropsWithChildren) {
    return (
        <>
            <Header />
            <main>
                {children}
            </main>
        </>
    )
}

(The Header component logic is not included here because I have ensured that it properly fetches the account information at render time. I don’t believe that the Header component is the issue here.)

According to the Next.js documentation, template.tsx files differ from layout.tsx files in that their children do not persist upon navigation (at least, from what I understand):

Templates are similar to layouts in that they wrap a child layout or page. Unlike layouts that persist across routes and maintain state, templates create a new instance for each of their children on navigation. This means that when a user navigates between routes that share a template, a new instance of the child is mounted, DOM elements are recreated, state is not preserved in Client Components, and effects are re-synchronized.

Thus, when I placed my Header component in template.tsx, I thought it would be re-rendered on the server with updated information and sent to the client upon navigation. However, that doesn’t appear to be happening (maybe because it’s a Server Component)?

To get around this, I tried to convert the Header component into a Client Component that retrieves the user’s name upon rendering with a Server Action, but there was a noticeable delay in the header updating due to the latency of fetching account and session information from the database. Is there a way to make the Header component re-render to show consistently updated user information without a delay?

2

Answers


  1. First of all, as I see there is no logic that requires template functionality, so in your case it is better to use layout.tsxtemplate vs layout.

    Thus, when I placed my Header component in template.tsx, I thought it would be re-rendered on the server with updated information and sent to the client upon navigation.

    Next.js Server Components render on the server only on the initial request. After that, non-static logic hydrates and works like regular React, which compares changes in the Virtual DOM and performs reconciliation.

    So maybe Next doesn’t see changes of username in your Header, try to use useState. But all neccessary logic to find your problem is inside Header component, so it is better for you to provide Header source code.

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  2. You might probably be using a server component for your header.

    and your header component is not able to rerender when the data has been updated/
    please share a snippet of your Header component If possible
    Try using a client component with useState to update your UI after login as state change triggers the UI to re-render

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