Autoconnect issue with wallets after page reload

[yasha-meursault]

Describe the bug
Some Solana wallet connectors (with readyState = loadable) trigger the wallet extension popup on page load after a cancelled connection attempt.

To Reproduce
If a user selects a wallet, cancels the extension’s connect popup, and then reloads the page, the wallet popup opens again automatically without any new user interaction. pick WalletConnect or Solflare

Desktop (please complete the following information):

• OS: macOS Tahoe 26.2
• Browser Chrome 143.0.7499.193 (Official Build) (arm64)

Screen.Recording.2026-01-20.at.18.56.44.mov

Additional context
its important to have autoconnect as true

import {  WalletProvider }  from "@solana/wallet-adapter-react";
function SolanaProvider({ children }: { children: ReactNode }) {
    const endpoint = useMemo(() => clusterApiUrl(SOLANA_NETWORK), [SOLANA_NETWORK]);

    return (
        <ConnectionProvider endpoint={endpoint}>
            <WalletProvider wallets={adapters} autoConnect={true}>
                {children}
            </WalletProvider>
        </ConnectionProvider>
    );
}

also the same issue with not proceeding connecting and showing the popup after the page load is present in the Wallet Adapter Example https://anza-xyz.github.io/wallet-adapter/example/

video
https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/8e4e4d7b-5cbd-441a-ac66-d29e4294f173

[AyushNigam-1]

I wasn’t able to fully replicate the original behavior shown in the video, mostly because I’m testing on a different machine/environment. It would really help to know the exact WalletConnect SDK version being used to reproduce this precisely.

That said, after digging into this for several hours, the issue I can consistently observe is slightly different but seems related:

If the WalletConnect popup is still open and the page is refreshed, the modal shows up again automatically. This appears to happen because walletName is already persisted in localStorage, even though no successful connection ever happened. In that state, there’s no signal that the user actually authenticated vs just opened (or abandoned) the popup.

I didn’t personally see the loop triggered specifically by closing the popup as shown in the original report, but the underlying cause still seems the same: localStorage is updated early, before a real connection is established.

I do understand why this might be intentional — many dapps redirect immediately after a successful connection, so persisting the selected wallet early helps preserve UI state across navigation. Delaying all persistence until adapter.on('connect') could theoretically miss that in some setups.

That said, the current behavior also means a cancelled or incomplete WalletConnect flow can get treated as an authenticated session on reload.

One possible middle ground could be separating:

“wallet was selected” (UI intent)

from “wallet was successfully connected” (auth truth)

For example, keeping a small wasConnected flag (or similar) that’s set only after adapter.on('connect'), and letting autoConnect run only if that flag is true. On disconnects or connection errors, both could be cleared. This would avoid auto-reopening WalletConnect on reload when the user never actually connected, while still preserving the early wallet selection behavior.

Happy to test further if I know the exact WalletConnect SDK version used in the original repro.