# VWO edits on our Storyblok React site keep getting wiped by re-renders

Asked by Meredith Lowe on 2026-05-20. Tags: storyblok, react, vwo, troubleshooting.

Our marketing team built a couple of tests in VWO's visual editor on our
Storyblok-powered React site. The symptom is consistent: the edited headline
or button appears for a moment, then any React re-render puts the original
DOM back. State change, route transition, even a cart badge update is enough
to undo the edit.

I understand why it happens, the editor is patching the DOM and React owns
that DOM. I do not want to keep fighting it with mutation observers and
hacks. What I am really looking for is an approach where variants are data
that my components render, not DOM patches applied after teh fact.

## 1 answer

### Accepted answer from Ines Duarte (2026-05-20)

You diagnosed it correctly, and it is not really fixable from the VWO
side. Client-side visual editors mutate the DOM, React reconciles against
its virtual tree and wipes the mutations on the next render. VWO actually
patches React internals to try to make edits stick, which tells you how
fundamental the mismatch is. It will keep breaking in creative ways.

The variants-as-data approach you described is exactly how the Croct
integration with Storyblok works. You add a Croct field to the block and
connect it to a slot. Variants are then content served through that slot,
and your own React components render whatever the slot returns, the same
way they render the default Storyblok block today. There is no post-render
DOM editing anywhere in the pipeline.

Since content is resolved server-side, there is also no client-side
swapping at all: the page arrives already holding the right variant, so
nothing exists for a re-render to undo.

The tradeoff to be upfront about: marketing edits variant content in an
experience editor against your content model, not by freehand-editing the
rendered page. For a component-based React site that is usually a feature
rather than a loss, since edits can only produce states your components
actually support.