TanStack / TanStack/virtual

useWindowVirtualizer with measureElement breaks scroll restoration

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#997 4 comments 2 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

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Dominant language
TypeScript
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Description

Describe the bug

When using
"@tanstack/react-virtual": "3.13.8"
and
"@tanstack/react-router": "1.112.12"

If the page contains a virtualized list like this:

  const virtualizer = useWindowVirtualizer({
    gap: 16,
    overscan: 4,
    count: data.items.length,
    estimateSize: constant(188),
    scrollMargin: listRef.current?.offsetTop ?? 0,
  });

And the items use:

              ref={virtualizer.measureElement}
              data-index={index}

But the actual element sizes differ from estimateSize, triggering re-measurement on mount — in that case, scrollRestoration breaks.

This might be an issue on the @tanstack/react-router side; I’ll duplicate this issue there as well.

Current workaround: add this option to the virtualizer:

scrollToFn: () => null,

Your minimal, reproducible example

https://codesandbox.io/p/sandbox/2lryyk

Steps to reproduce

1 Open the Home page
2 Scroll down a bit
3 Navigate to the List page
4 You'll notice that the page is not scrolled to the top

In the code, there's a commented line:

in code there are commented string with
scrollToFn: () => null

Uncommenting this line.
After doing that, navigation with scroll restoration works perfectly.

Expected behavior

Virtualizer does not break scroll restoration.

How often does this bug happen?

Every time

Screenshots or Videos

No response

Platform

maxOS

tanstack-virtual version

3.13.8

TypeScript version

5.7.3

Additional context

No response

Terms & Code of Conduct
  • I agree to follow this project's Code of Conduct
  • I understand that if my bug cannot be reliable reproduced in a debuggable environment, it will probably not be fixed and this issue may even be closed.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Run the CodeSandbox reproduction and compare navigation with and without the commented scrollToFn option. Trace the interaction between useWindowVirtualizer, measureElement, re-measurement, and scroll restoration during the listed navigation steps; done means the list returns to the top without requiring the workaround.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
react, typescript
Domain
frontend, performance
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
45/100

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