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Unexpected behavior with useCallback in React 18 while optimizing re-renders

👀 Views: 48 💬 Answers: 1 📅 Created: 2025-06-04
react hooks performance javascript

I'm trying to figure out I'm facing an issue with the `useCallback` hook in React 18 when trying to optimize my component's re-renders. I have a parent component that creates and passes a callback function to a child component, but I'm noticing that the child re-renders even when its props haven't changed. Here's a simplified version of what I have: ```javascript import React, { useCallback, useState } from 'react'; const Child = React.memo(({ onClick }) => { console.log('Child rendered'); return <button onClick={onClick}>Click me</button>; }); const Parent = () => { const [count, setCount] = useState(0); const handleClick = useCallback(() => { alert(`Count is ${count}`); }, [count]); return ( <div> <Child onClick={handleClick} /> <button onClick={() => setCount(count + 1)}>Increment</button> </div> ); }; export default Parent; ``` The intention here is that the `Child` component should not re-render unless the `onClick` function changes. However, it seems like every time I increment the `count`, the `Child` component is re-rendered, which I confirmed by the console log. I’ve tried wrapping the `Child` component with `React.memo`, and I’ve ensured that `handleClick` is properly memoized with `useCallback`. I also verified that I’m not accidentally causing state updates in the child, and there are no other props causing it to update unexpectedly. The behavior is quite puzzling because the function itself should only change when `count` changes, but the re-renders happen with every state update. Is there a reason why this might happen, or is there a common pitfall when using `useCallback` in combination with `React.memo`? Any insights would be greatly appreciated! This is part of a larger CLI tool I'm building. Any ideas what could be causing this? My team is using Javascript for this web app.