How to prevent from auto reloading in html page?

I am making a chatting application using spring boot 3 and i use web socket to make connection. I’ve created a web page with 2 buttons “Start Chat” and “Close Chat”. When i click the “Start Chat” button it adds html codes into an html element(id=”chat”). This html code is from “https://spring.io/guides/gs/messaging-stomp-websocket”. And when i click the “Close Chat” button it removes the html codes from the element. My issue:

When i click the Start Chat button and Connect it works well. After closing, if i open the chat again and click Connect the page is reloaded. I don’t want this reloading when i try to connect chat again.
(Note: After clearing the chat elements from page i also call disconnect() function from webSocket.js )

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8">
    <title>Title</title>
    <script src="https://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.1.1.min.js"></script>
    <script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/@stomp/[email protected]/bundles/stomp.umd.min.js"></script>
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="/css/bootstrap.min.css">
    <script src="/js/bootstrap.bundle.min.js"></script>
    <script src="/js/app.js"></script>
</head>
<body>
<div th:insert="components/header :: header"></div>
<div class="container-fluid">
    <div class="col-md-3">
        <div class="row">
            <button onclick="openChat()" class="btn btn-primary m-3">Start Chatting</button>
            <button onclick="closeChat()" class="btn btn-primary m-3">Close Chat</button>
        </div>
    </div>
    <div class="col-md-9">
        <div class="row m-3" id="chat"></div>
    </div>
</div>

<script>
    function closeChat() {
        const chatElement = document.getElementById("main-content");
        chatElement.remove();
        disconnect();
        const scriptElement = document.getElementById("webSocketJs");
        if (scriptElement) {
            scriptElement.remove();
        }
    }

    function openChat() {
        event.preventDefault();
        const chatElement = document.getElementById("chat");
        const content =
            `<div id="main-content" className="container">
                <div className="row">
                    <div className="col-md-6">
                        <form className="form-inline">
                            <div className="form-group">
                                <label htmlFor="connect">WebSocket connection:</label>
                                <button id="connect" className="btn btn-default" type="submit" >Connect</button>
                                <button id="disconnect" className="btn btn-default" type="submit"
                                        disabled="disabled">Disconnect
                                </button>
                            </div>
                        </form>
                    </div>
                    <div className="col-md-6">
                        <form className="form-inline">
                            <div className="form-group">
                                <label htmlFor="name">What is your name?</label>
                                <input type="text" id="name" className="form-control" placeholder="Your name here..."/>
                            </div>
                            <button id="send" className="btn btn-default" type="submit">Send</button>
                        </form>
                    </div>
                </div>
                <div className="row">
                    <div className="col-md-12">
                        <table id="conversation" className="table table-striped">
                            <thead>
                            <tr>
                                <th>Greetings</th>
                            </tr>
                            </thead>
                            <tbody id="greetings">
                            </tbody>
                        </table>
                    </div>
                </div>
            </div>`;
        chatElement.innerHTML = content;

        const scriptElement = document.getElementById("webSocketJs");
        if (!scriptElement) {
            let webSocketScript = document.createElement('script');
            webSocketScript.setAttribute('src', '/js/webSocket.js');
            webSocketScript.setAttribute('id', 'webSocketJs');
            document.body.appendChild(webSocketScript);
        }
    }
</script>
</body>
</html>
const stompClient = new StompJs.Client({
    brokerURL: 'ws://localhost:8080/gs-guide-websocket'
});

stompClient.onConnect = (frame) => {
    setConnected(true);
    console.log('Connected: ' + frame);
    stompClient.subscribe('/topic/greetings', (greeting) => {
        showGreeting(JSON.parse(greeting.body).content);
    });
};

stompClient.onWebSocketError = (error) => {
    console.error('Error with websocket', error);
};

stompClient.onStompError = (frame) => {
    console.error('Broker reported error: ' + frame.headers['message']);
    console.error('Additional details: ' + frame.body);
};

function setConnected(connected) {
    $("#connect").prop("disabled", connected);
    $("#disconnect").prop("disabled", !connected);
    if (connected) {
        $("#conversation").show();
    }
    else {
        $("#conversation").hide();
    }
    $("#greetings").html("");
}

function connect() {
    stompClient.activate();
}

function disconnect() {
    stompClient.deactivate();
    setConnected(false);
    console.log("Disconnected");
}

function sendName() {
    stompClient.publish({
        destination: "/app/hello",
        body: JSON.stringify({'name': $("#name").val()})
    });
}

function showGreeting(message) {
    $("#greetings").append("<tr><td>" + message + "</td></tr>");
}

$(function () {
    $("form").on('submit', (e) => e.preventDefault());
    $( "#connect" ).click(() => connect());
    $( "#disconnect" ).click(() => disconnect());
    $( "#send" ).click(() => sendName());
});

First one is my html page, and second one is webSocket.js file.