Implementing retry mechanisms with suspense in React

16 Oct 2023

suspense

In a typical web application, it is common to encounter scenarios where data fetching can fail due to various reasons such as network issues, server errors, or temporary unavailability of the requested resource. To handle such situations elegantly, it is important to implement retry mechanisms in order to give users a better experience and improve the overall reliability of the application.

In React, the Suspense component along with the useEffect hook can be used to create a retry mechanism for data fetching. Let’s see how we can achieve this.

Setting up Suspense and ErrorBoundary

To begin with, we need to set up the Suspense component and an ErrorBoundary component to catch any errors that occur during the data fetching process.

import { Suspense, useState } from 'react';

function ErrorBoundary({ error, retry }) {
  return (
    <div>
      <h1>Oops! Something went wrong.</h1>
      <p>{error.message}</p>
      <button onClick={retry}>Retry</button>
    </div>
  );
}

function App() {
  const [error, setError] = useState(null);

  const retry = () => {
    setError(null);
    // Implement your retry logic here
  };

  return (
    <ErrorBoundary error={error} retry={retry}>
      <Suspense fallback={<div>Loading...</div>}>
        {/* Put your data fetching component here */}
      </Suspense>
    </ErrorBoundary>
  );
}

In this example, we have created an ErrorBoundary component that displays an error message and a retry button. The App component wraps our data fetching component in the Suspense component, providing a fallback UI while the data is being fetched.

Implementing Retry Logic

Within the retry function, you can implement the necessary logic to retry the data fetching process. This could involve making an API call again, resetting any state related to the failed fetch, or any other actions required to retry the request.

Depending on your specific use case, you may want to add some counter or limit to the number of retries to prevent infinite retry loops. It is important to handle errors appropriately and provide clear feedback to the user.

By calling the retry function, we reset the error state to null, triggering a re-render and allowing the Suspense component to reattempt the data fetching process.

Conclusion

With the help of Suspense and an ErrorBoundary, we can easily implement retry mechanisms for data fetching in React. By providing a fallback UI and handling errors gracefully, we can improve the user experience and ensure that our application recovers from failed requests.

Remember to test your retry logic thoroughly and consider any potential edge cases that may arise. By implementing retry mechanisms, we can create more robust and resilient applications that provide a better user experience.

Setting up Suspense and ErrorBoundary

Implementing Retry Logic

Conclusion

References