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Why can I call api port from React app using ip address, but not when I use “localhost”

Posted on February 28, 2020

I can call curl -s localhost:3030 from command line and get a good reply. But when I call using axios or fetch within my React app, I get net::ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED.

For example, this works:

axios.post("http://159.89.183.155:3030/authentication", {

This does not work (net::ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED):

axios.post("http://localhost:3030/authentication", {


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Hi there @cyclops,

What I could suggest is checking what port your application has is binded to first. To do that SSH to your Droplet and then run:

  1. netstat -plant | grep 3000

Also another thing you could check is if your localhost resolves correctly to the 127.0.0.1 IP address:

  1. ping localhost

Another thing that you need to keep in mind is that you need to run the axios script from the Droplet itself in order for it to work.

Feel free to share the output of the commands here so I could try to further advise you.

Hope that this helps! Regards, Bobby

Hi @bobbyiliev ,

I’m facing same issue.

  • ping localhost successful
  • netstat -plant | grep 3000 shows
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:3000          0.0.0.0:* 
  • telnet localhost 3000
Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to localhost.
Escape character is '^]'.

But still getting this error http://mydomain.com:3000/login net::ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED

I’m using axios in react to make calls to node js. In my react app that’s my API_URL for login.

const API_URL = "http://localhost:3000";

Ah! localhost resolved to 127.0.0.1

netstat showed 3000 binding to 0 0.0.0.0:3000 Not sure why, but it gives me an avenue to explore

Much appreciated!

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