view.forceReloaded permanently set to true after frame navigation with data-turbo-action="advance", preventing scroll reset on subsequent Visits

[Xeross99]

Environment

• @hotwired/turbo: 8.0.23 (via turbo-rails 2.0.23)
• Browser: Chrome, Safari (all tested)

Description

When a <turbo-frame> with data-turbo-action="advance" navigates and the server responds with a frame-only layout (not a full HTML page), view.forceReloaded is permanently set to true and never reset. This causes performScroll() to skip scrollToTop() on all subsequent Visits for the lifetime of the page.

Steps to reproduce

1. Create a <turbo-frame id="main" data-turbo-action="advance"> in your layout
2. Use a frame-only layout for Turbo-Frame: main requests (standard optimization to reduce response size)
3. Click a link with data-turbo-frame="main" to navigate the frame (URL advances)
4. Now click any link with data-turbo-frame="_top" that should trigger a full Visit
5. Expected: page scrolls to top
6. Actual: scroll position is preserved (stuck at previous position)

Root cause

In renderPage():

renderPage(e, t = false, s = true, r) {
  const i = new RendererClass(this.snapshot, e, t, s);
  return i.shouldRender ? r?.changeHistory() : this.forceReloaded = true, this.render(i);
}

When the frame response is not a full HTML page, shouldRender returns false, so forceReloaded is set to true.

Then in performScroll():

performScroll() {
  this.scrolled || this.view.forceReloaded || this.view.shouldPreserveScrollPosition(this) || (
    "restore" == this.action
      ? this.scrollToRestoredPosition() || this.scrollToAnchor() || this.view.scrollToTop()
      : this.scrollToAnchor() || this.view.scrollToTop(),
    this.scrolled = true
  )
}

forceReloaded is true, so the entire scroll logic is skipped. Since forceReloaded is never reset to false, every subsequent Visit skips scroll reset.

Expected behavior

forceReloaded should be reset to false before each new Visit, e.g. at the start of Visit.start() or when a new Visit is constructed.

Current workaround

document.addEventListener("turbo:before-visit", () => {
  Turbo.navigator.view.forceReloaded = false
})

[exterm]

Thank you, we've encountered the same problem. Also it seems to be the same problem as reported in #1344.

The workaround works for us.

[Xeross99]

Thanks for confirming! I hadn't seen #1344. Looks like the same root cause indeed.

[exterm]

@packagethief this problem has been reported by a bunch of people over the last 1.5 years. Would you be willing to merge a fix inspired by @Xeross99's analysis in this issue?

[knorrli]

Hi,

I hit the same bug in my app and I think we can fix this by just applying the workaround at the correct place, and reset the flag on real renders. I attached #1545 , feel free to take a look and request changes.