EISDIR: illegal operation on a directory — page 3

A directory path was handed to a call that expects a file.

495 issues · 9 open · 486 resolved (98%) · first seen Apr 24, 2025

First response · local

What to do now

Most likely: The operating system rejected a file or directory operation.

  1. Read the first path in the error and verify that it exists and belongs to the expected user.
  2. Check disk space, permissions, symlinks and whether another process holds the target.
  3. Reproduce with the smallest affected path before changing project-wide permissions.

These are conservative triage steps, not an official Anthropic fix. Use the issue and workaround evidence below before making a destructive configuration change.

Is this getting better or worse?

This class of problem is converging. 6 new reports in the last 90 days vs 181 in the 90 before — -97%. The open backlog peaked at 80 in 2025-12 and sits at 9 today.

0 20 40 60 80 2025-042025-092026-032026-08
2025-04 — First reports2025-12 — Peak backlog (80 open)2026-04 — Most new reports (104)

Derived by counting each matching issue from its creation date until it closed. First-party computation over the anthropics/claude-code tracker — the trend is not published anywhere upstream.

Which builds report this

304 of these reports name the Claude Code build they were running, spanning 95 releases. Heaviest reporters:

Report volume, not a defect count: an issue can mention a build without that build having caused the failure. Versions come from the version string in the bug-report template, matched against real published tags.

Do these get fixed?

Median time to close is 4 days across 486 closures. Of the 486 closures with a recorded reason, 13% were closed as completed and 422 as not-planned or duplicate. The most recent completed fix landed in 2026-08.

Workarounds reported by the community

18 of these issues post a workaround someone says worked. The highest-engagement ones:

[Bug] Anthropic API Error: Internal Server Error (500)
This error appears to occur with Sonnet. I was able to work around it by using Haiku or Opus with the /model command.
Found in the thread of #11827 · resolved
[Bug] Multiple Claude Code instances freeze on macOS due to file locking conflict
…lock warning) if useful for the team's investigation. Local workaround: Smart launcher that detects concurrent sessions and uses with a minimal MCP config for secondary sessions, reducing startup surface.
Found in the thread of #13287 · still open
[Bug] Weekly usage reset time displayed incorrectly for Pro plan users
…gent: While our Support team is unable to manually reset or work around usage limits, you can learn about best practices here ( If you’ve hit a message limit, you’ll need to wait until the reset time, or you can consider…
Found in the thread of #51222 · resolved
Bug: /resume command shows incomplete session list
…ct directory 4. Many sessions will be missing from the list Workaround: Resume by direct session ID: claude --resume <session-id Suggested fix: Either rebuild the index from .jsonl files when /resume is called, or remove…
Found in the description of #23302 · resolved
[Bug] Status line disappears during "accept edits?" prompt
…{ "type": "command", "command": "~/.claude/statusline.sh" } Workaround: None available - CLI controls when statusline command is invoked Impact: User loses visibility into context usage, cost, and session stats during in…
Found in the description of #20002 · resolved

Excerpts are quoted from the linked issue so you can judge relevance before opening it. Threads that only ask for a workaround, or report that there is none, are excluded. These are community suggestions, not official guidance from Anthropic — read the full thread before applying one.

Matching issues 201–300

Ranked by community engagement (reactions weighted over comments). Listing the top 300 of 495 matches; the statistics above cover all 495.

Related aggregations

  1. ENOENT: no such file or directory

    1,200 issues
  2. EACCES / EPERM: permission denied

    415 issues
  3. ENOTEMPTY: directory not empty

    88 issues
  4. EEXIST: file already exists

    138 issues
  5. EBUSY: resource busy or locked

    127 issues
  6. EXDEV: cross-device link not permitted

    91 issues