👀 Views: 826 💬 Answers: 1 📅 Created: 2025-07-27

react hooks memory-leak performance JavaScript

I'm following best practices but I've been banging my head against this for hours... I've searched everywhere and can't find a clear answer. I'm trying to configure I'm experiencing a memory leak issue in my React application when using a custom hook to manage an event listener. The hook is supposed to listen for a specific event on a DOM element and update the state accordingly. However, even after the component unmounts, I'm noticing that the listener is still active, leading to unexpected behavior and performance issues. Below is the code for my custom hook: ```javascript import { useEffect } from 'react'; const useEventListener = (eventName, handler, element = window) => { useEffect(() => { const eventListener = event => { handler(event); }; element.addEventListener(eventName, eventListener); return () => { element.removeEventListener(eventName, eventListener); }; }, [eventName, handler, element]); }; ``` I'm using this hook in a component like this: ```javascript import React, { useState } from 'react'; import useEventListener from './useEventListener'; const MyComponent = () => { const [count, setCount] = useState(0); const handleClick = () => { setCount(prevCount => prevCount + 1); }; useEventListener('click', handleClick); return <div>Count: {count}</div>; }; ``` When I navigate away from `MyComponent`, I expect `handleClick` to stop listening for click events, but I'm seeing that the `count` state keeps updating and the event listener remains active. I've tried adding console logs in the cleanup function to confirm it's being called, but it seems like the listener persists. I'm also using React version 17.0.2. Is this a known issue with event listeners and custom hooks, or am I missing something critical in my implementation? Any insights on how to properly manage this situation would be greatly appreciated! I'm on Linux using the latest version of Javascript. What would be the recommended way to handle this? Any feedback is welcome! Any suggestions would be helpful. I'm working in a Windows 11 environment. I'm open to any suggestions. I'm coming from a different tech stack and learning Javascript.