From 69b4d3686c7144b35814931cdac7f86dfd98cf38 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Lifei Zhou <lifei@squareup.com>
Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2026 07:28:24 +1000
Subject: [PATCH] fix: remove hard-coded React alias that points to the wrong
 location and break the dev render (#9842)

---
 CONTRIBUTING.md                     | 11 +++++++++++
 ui/desktop/vite.renderer.config.mts |  9 ---------
 2 files changed, 11 insertions(+), 9 deletions(-)

diff --git a/CONTRIBUTING.md b/CONTRIBUTING.md
index e916759515..68c30776d0 100644
--- a/CONTRIBUTING.md
+++ b/CONTRIBUTING.md
@@ -173,6 +173,17 @@ The app opens a window and displays first-time setup. After completing setup, go
 
 Make GUI changes in `ui/desktop`.
 
+#### Troubleshooting: blank screen on `just run-ui`
+
+If the app opens to a blank window (logs show `Cannot read properties of null (reading 'useRef')`), your `node_modules` is out of date and is loading two copies of React. Delete it and reinstall:
+
+```
+rm -rf ui/desktop/node_modules
+cd ui && pnpm install
+```
+
+See #8757.
+
 ### Regenerating the OpenAPI schema
 
 The file `ui/desktop/openapi.json` is automatically generated during the build.
diff --git a/ui/desktop/vite.renderer.config.mts b/ui/desktop/vite.renderer.config.mts
index 12645e64b5..0228982d86 100644
--- a/ui/desktop/vite.renderer.config.mts
+++ b/ui/desktop/vite.renderer.config.mts
@@ -1,6 +1,5 @@
 import { defineConfig } from 'vite';
 import tailwindcss from '@tailwindcss/vite';
-import { resolve } from 'path';
 
 // https://vitejs.dev/config
 export default defineConfig({
@@ -10,14 +9,6 @@ export default defineConfig({
 
   plugins: [tailwindcss()],
 
-  resolve: {
-    dedupe: ['react', 'react-dom'],
-    alias: {
-      react: resolve(__dirname, 'node_modules/react'),
-      'react-dom': resolve(__dirname, 'node_modules/react-dom'),
-    },
-  },
-
   build: {
     target: 'esnext'
   },