Next.js Error: Text content does not match server-rendered HTML

Matthew C.

—March 15, 2024

The Problem

You have a Next.js application where the pre-rendered HTML from the server in your Next.js component does not match the HTML of the component in the client browser. If the HTML after this first render in the browser does not match the pre-rendered HTML, you’ll get an error message:

Warning: Text content did not match. Server: ..." Client: ...

A common cause for this warning is using browser APIs in your rendering logic:

"use client";

export default function ClientComponent() {
  return (
    <div>
      {typeof window !== "undefined" ? "window defined" : "window undefined"}
    </div>
  );
}

During the first render in the browser, React hydrates the component. This is a process where React makes the component interactive by attaching event listeners to elements. Other common causes for this hydration warning include:

• Incorrect nesting of HTML tags.
• Browser extensions that modify HTML.
• Incorrectly configured CSS-in-JS libraries.
• Incorrectly configured Edge or CDN that modifies the HTML response from the server.

The Solution

To fix the issue you can use the useEffect hook to render different content on the client, disable server-side rendering, or suppress the hydration warning if appropriate.

Use useEffect

Use the useEffect hook to render different HTML on the client and ensure that the HTML after the first render on the client matches the pre-rendered HTML sent from the server. The effects run after hydration.

We can use useEffect to fix the hydration warning in the code example above:

"use client";

import { useState, useEffect } from "react";

export default function ClientComponent() {
  const [isClient, setIsClient] = useState(false);

  useEffect(() => {
    setIsClient(true);
  }, []);

  return <div>{isClient ? "window defined" : "window undefined"}</div>;
}

The isClient state variable ensures that the text “window defined” is only rendered after the component is mounted, after the first render on the client (hydration).

Lazy Load Your Component and Disable Server-side Rendering

If you are using a client-only library, or you only want to load a client component after a specific action happens on the client, such as a user clicking a button, then you can lazy load your client component and disable pre-rendering on the server. This will mean that your client component is only rendered on the client. Note that this may increase the time taken for the page to initially load.

Suppress the Hydration Warning

The warning may be due to content that will differ between the client and server, such as rendering a timestamp, as in the example code below:

const currentTime = new Date().toLocaleTimeString();
return <div>The current time is: {currentTime}</div>;

In this case, you can suppress the hydration warning by adding the suppressHydrationWarning attribute to the element:

const currentTime = new Date().toLocaleTimeString();
return <div suppressHydrationWarning>The current time is: {currentTime}</div>;