React component Twitch embed initialization - avoiding recreation on re-renders

Other Questions Twitch
1

I have a React component that displays a Twitch stream embed. The issue I’m facing is that every time my component re-renders, it creates a new Twitch embed instance instead of reusing the existing one.

Here’s the basic setup I’m working with:

<div id="stream-container"></div>

const streamPlayer = new Twitch.Embed("stream-container", {
  width: 720,
  height: 405,
  channel: "ninja",
  parent: ["mysite.com", "localhost"]
});

What’s the proper way to initialize the Twitch embed once and prevent it from being recreated every time the component renders? I want to maintain the same embed instance across renders.

2

Had this exact issue building a multi-stream viewer. You need to combine useRef with useEffect the right way. Make one ref for the embed instance and another for the container element. In useEffect, check if the embed exists before making a new one. Don’t forget cleanup - call embedInstance.destroy() if it’s there. Here’s the tricky part: Twitch embeds don’t always clean up their DOM properly. You might need to manually clear the container innerHTML before creating a new instance. This setup works across different React versions and handles weird edge cases like components unmounting during API calls.

3

Had this exact issue building our streaming dashboard. UseRef works, but I found something cleaner with automation.

Skipped the manual React embed management and used Latenode for the whole Twitch integration. It watches components mount/unmount and handles embed creation/destruction automatically.

The workflow catches state changes, checks if an embed exists for that container, and only spins up new instances when necessary. No duplicate embeds or memory leaks.

Tossed in automatic channel switching and viewer count tracking too. Now the frontend just makes simple API calls instead of fighting Twitch’s embed lifecycle.

Best part? You can extend it for multiple streams, auto-refresh on connection drops, or switch between platforms based on what’s available.

Check out Latenode: https://latenode.com

4

useRef is a great solution! Just set up a ref to keep your embed instance and check if it’s already created before instantiating a new one. For example, const embedRef = useRef(null) — that way, you only create it if !embedRef.current. Works like a charm with Twitch embeds.