Fixing 404 Page Not Found Error on Non-Root Route Reload in React

When deploying a React app with client-side routing to a static hosting service like Netlify, you may encounter a 404 error when reloading pages other than the homepage. This error occurs because the hosting service cannot find the specified route on the server.

Creating the `_redirects` File

To resolve the 404 error when reloading pages other than the homepage on Netlify, you can configure a _redirects file to redirect all requests to your index.html file. Here's how you can do it:

Create a file named _redirects in your public folder (next to your index.html file). If the public folder doesn't have one, create a new file with that name.
Add the following line to the _redirects file:
```
 /*    /index.html   200
```
This tells Netlify to serve the index.html file for all requests, which allows React Router to handle the routing on the client side.

Including the `_redirects` File in Build Output

Make sure that the _redirects file is included in your build output (e.g., by configuring your build tool to copy it to the build folder). Here are a few steps you can take:

Update your package.json scripts to include a copy command for the _redirects file.
```
 "scripts": {
   "build": "react-scripts build && npm run copy-redirects"
   "copy-redirects": "cp _redirects build/"
 }
```
In this example, the copy-redirects script is executed after the vite build command in the build script.

With this setup, the copy-redirects script will be executed after the build process, ensuring that the _redirects file is copied to the build / dist directory (or whatever your build output directory is named). This approach keeps your build command cleaner and separates the copy operation into its own script for better maintainability.

Deploying Your App to Netlify

Deploy your application to Netlify. With this configuration, reloading any page on your site should work correctly, and you shouldn't see the 404 error any more.

Troubleshooting

If the error still exists check the deploy log on netlify. If you encounter the error message "A _redirects file is present in the repository but is missing in the publish directory 'dist'," it indicates that the _redirects file is present in your repository but is not being included in the publish directory (dist in this case) during the build process. To resolve this, you need to ensure that the _redirects file is copied to the dist directory during the build process.

Conclusion

By following these steps, you should be able to resolve the 404 error when reloading pages other than the homepage on Netlify. This configuration allows React Router to handle the routing correctly on the client side, ensuring that your app functions as expected.

Refrences

Netlify's "page not found" support guide