Killed: 9 (SIGKILL / OOM killer) — page 3
The kernel terminated Claude Code outright, usually for memory pressure.
339 issues · 109 open · 230 resolved (68%) · first seen Feb 25, 2025
First response · local
What to do now
Most likely: The local Claude Code process crashed while parsing or executing.
- Record the Claude Code version and the first stack frame before restarting.
- Try a fresh session with the same minimal input to distinguish corrupted state from a repeatable crash.
- Preserve logs and compare reports from the same version before downgrading.
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 still growing. 150 new reports in the last 90 days vs 106 in the 90 before — +42%. The open backlog peaked at 109 in 2026-08 and sits at 109 today.
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
229 of these reports name the Claude Code build they were running, spanning 112 releases. Heaviest reporters:
- Claude Code v2.1.220
- Claude Code v2.1.233
- Claude Code v2.1.205
- Claude Code v2.1.231
- Claude Code v2.1.226
- Claude Code v2.1.170
- Claude Code v2.1.160
- Claude Code v2.1.119
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 25 days across 230 closures. Of the 230 closures with a recorded reason, 17% were closed as completed and 190 as not-planned or duplicate. The most recent completed fix landed in 2026-08.
Workarounds reported by the community
167 of these issues post a workaround someone says worked. The highest-engagement ones:
- Claude.ai MCP servers auto-injected into Claude Code without opt-in — causes OOM crashes on resource-constrained systems
- …r's Claude.ai account and load them into every CLI session. Workaround Manually editing to set: However, this is a cached flag and may be overwritten on next update/startup. Expected Behavior 1. This should be opt-in, no…
Found in the description of #20412 · resolved - [BUG] Critical memory regression in 2.1.27 - OOM crash on simple input
- …toring during 2.1.27 session 2.1.25 after rollback (stable) Workaround Roll back to 2.1.25: Environment Info - Platform: Linux (Ubuntu 24.04, kernel 6.8.0-90-generic) - Architecture: x86 64 (QEMU/KVM VM) - RAM: 8GB + 4GB…
Found in the description of #22042 · resolved - Claude Code Memory Leak - Process Grows to 120+ GB RAM and Gets OOM Killed
- …d data structures (conversation history, file caches, etc.) Workaround Currently, the only workaround is to periodically restart Claude Code before memory exhaustion occurs, which is highly disruptive to workflow. --- Pr…
Found in the description of #4953 · still open - Critical Memory Leak: Claude Code Consumed 129GB RAM and Caused System Freeze
- …there's unbounded caching 5. Review event listener cleanup Workaround Currently monitoring with: Plan to restart Claude Code when memory usage exceeds safe threshold.
Found in the description of #11315 · still open - [BUG] claude starts and 3 seconds later exits.
- The linked duplicate bug has a workaround that worked for me! Wipe out all your claude stuff in .local and .claude, then: This fixed it for me.
Found in the thread of #11864 · still open
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 339 matches; the statistics above cover all 339.
- [BUG] Co-work VM causes daily system-wide memory exhaustion - crashes all Electron apps
- [BUG] Cowork VM heartbeat failures cause repeated SIGKILL — 4GB VM insufficient for MCP servers + plugins
- [BUG] VSCode Remote SSH: Extremely slow tool execution / UI unresponsive (regression in 2.1.20+)
- Claude Code hangs with high CPU after parallel Bash tool calls (unresponsive to SIGINT/SIGTERM)
- Orphaned child processes (vitest) persist after Bash tool execution and session end
- MCP servers report failure on /exit due to SIGKILL without graceful shutdown
- Hang: spurious /dev/tty reader
- [BUG] Resume session after killing - "No conversation found with session ID"
- Critical: Claude Code freezes with high CPU usage when typing long responses in interactive prompts (Intl.Segmenter infinite loop)
- [Bug] Critical Memory Leak in v2.0.0 Causing 26GB Process Allocation
- [BUG] Terminal crashes with EPERM error when killing long-running sudo processes with timeout
- Desktop app SIGKILLs its own Claude Code workers on a healthy Mac, then blames endpoint security (gates on raw free pages, not memory pressure)
- [BUG] ~/.claude.json.tmp.<pid>.<hash> atomic-write leftovers are never reclaimed by the retention sweep
- Bundled ugrep shadowing `grep` can exhaust system memory — froze a 16 GB machine twice
- [BUG] claude ignores SIGINT despite a registered handler — Ctrl+C dead during startup hang, only SIGKILL works (Bun runtime)
- [BUG] Runaway memory growth in Claude Code child process causes full system freeze (Ubuntu 24.04, requires hard reboot)
- Hook timeout does not reclaim a hook blocked in a read syscall — SIGTERM ignored, process survives indefinitely
- Remote Control: supervisor exits 5s after last client detaches, so it can't be left available overnight
- telegram channel plugin: orphaned server.ts processes accumulate unbounded, CPU-busy, immune to SIGTERM
- Background daemon (v2.1.220) leaks to ~11GB RSS, repeated OOM-kills cascade into full WSL2 session teardown
- Injected grep wrapper (bundled ugrep) consumes 20+ GB RAM on bounded-repeat regex, hard-freezes machine
- grep shim (embedded ugrep 7.5.0) allocates unbounded memory on double-bounded-repeat BRE patterns — can OOM-kill the host
- Headless -p session leaks to 10-15GB RSS while idle on long-running background Bash tasks (v2.1.205, Linux)
- macOS: intermittent 2-minute git hangs with core.fsmonitor enabled (multi-worktree/concurrent sessions); timeout SIGTERM orphans index.lock and wedges the session
- [BUG] macOS: attaching to a previous-day background job via claude agents kills the worker — "SIGKILL (137) before init" / resume-guard respawn loop
- Background session crash-loop on attach + ambiguous kill behavior on worker pool
- [BUG] Fable 5 = "Self-caged" : the model's own output (`fork`/`kill`/`orphan`/`reap`) trips its own classifier midstream — input rewording can't fix it
- Background-agent daemon self-SIGKILLs its process group (kill(0, SIGKILL)) every ~50s, killing FleetView agents — 2.1.195 & 2.1.196
- Claude Code goes silent when using VS Code Remote SSH Extension and Claude Code on Digital Ocean droplet
- telegram plugin: bun server.ts leaks at 100% CPU on every MCP disconnect
- [Bug] --bg-pty-host processes spin to ~99% CPU per process while wrapped --bg-spare is idle (v2.1.162, macOS)
- [BUG] CLI self-aborts (SIGABRT) at ~6 GB RSS during long background Workflow runs — reproduced on 2.1.160 and 2.1.161 (WSL2)
- [DOCS] Background session docs omit SIGTERM-first teardown for shell subprocesses
- [BUG] Switching focus between local Code sessions kills the unfocused session's CLI process (SIGTERM, exit 143) instead of leaving it running in the background
- Remote Control: sessionTimeoutSeconds schema field is unwired (no CLI flag, no env var, no consumer)
- Bash tool omits `< /dev/null` when user command has any `<`/`<<` redirect, leaking parent stdin to children
- I need a bug report to generate a GitHub issue title. Please provide details about the problem you've encountered with Claude Code, including: - What were you trying to do? - What error or unexpected behavior occurred? - Any error messages or logs?
- Auto-update silently installs truncated native binary on darwin-arm64 when laptop sleeps mid-download (v2.1.138)
- [BUG] Claude Desktop 1.5354.0: stdio MCP servers double-spawn from independent CCD/LAM coordinator registries
- [BUG] shutdown_approved pane-close handler is non-deterministic — same setup produces orphan in some runs
- [BUG] TeamDelete returns success on a team with shutdown-pending teammate, orphaning a tmux pane
- Foreground Bash/TaskStop don't kill subprocesses; harness tracks ghost shells
- Feature: detect and clean stale-PID worktree lock files at session startup
- [BUG] Claude Code lost a bet to an alien — OOM debugging saga
- Bug: Claude Code Cursor extension host leaks to 37GB RAM, causes OOM cascade (v2.1.94)
- [BUG] Claude Code VS Code extension causes kernel panics (watchdogd timeout/Jetsam OOM) on MacBook Pro M3 Pro with 18 GB RAM
- Telegram plugin crashes with 409 error due to orphaned polling processes on session restart
- Background task reports exit code 0 when process is killed
- [BUG] SSH remote: ccd-cli v2.1.78 crashes with `invalid opcode` on QEMU virtual CPUs (regression from v2.1.72)
- Bash tool: rejected/cancelled commands still execute (process already started)
- [BUG] WSL2: Sandbox creates empty files/directories in working directory via bwrap mount point leak
- --resume should offer recently-modified sessions after unexpected shutdown
- Background tasks report 'failed' with exit code 137 after manual KillShell termination
- Infinite rendering loop causing high CPU and memory growth
- oom-killer invoked after an unreasonable amount of bash shells spawned
- Headless (desktop-app agent-mode) runs complete their work but the claude process never exits — accumulates until OOM/swap exhaustion
- [BUG] Recurring Bun-runtime SIGABRT/SIGSEGV crashes across Claude Code 2.1.231-2.1.243 on Linux ARM64 (glibc 2.34) — clustered multi-process crashes, corrupted stack frame evidence
- Bundled ugrep runs away (4.7GB, 4h) on bounded-repeat pattern over long lines; complexity guard does not fire
- Bundled search helper allocates without bound on a BRE pattern with a literal | and -o (v2.1.233)
- [BUG] Crashed session can be resumed into multiple concurrent live processes sharing one transcript (session forking + ghost roster entries)
- [BUG] VS Code extension host spins at 100% CPU forever in forkSession after client disconnect
- Background Bash runner process (re-exec'd versioned binary) leaks memory after command completes — 100% CPU, OOM-killed at 10.8GB (v2.1.226 & v2.1.233, Linux)
- [Bug] Since ~v2.1.228, stdio MCP first connection attempt is SIGTERMed at ~3 s and silently retried - orphans Windows-side servers under WSL and breaks single-instance servers (CONNECTION_CLOSED)
- [BUG] In-session /resume picker collapses to ~0 rows inside a git worktree and never recovers (Ctrl+W restores; `claude -r` from the shell is unaffected)
- Memory regression after 2.1.227/desktop 1.28929.0: 3-6x footprint growth causes OOM SIGKILLs misreported as "Blocked by endpoint security"
- Headless/SDK session supervisor never reaps child `claude` processes — unbounded memory growth to cgroup OOM
- [Bug] macOS sleep inhibitor ignores power source: caffeinate re-asserts on battery until hard shutdown
- Claude desktop app hangs indefinitely on Exit/Restart — process never terminates after completing full quit-cleanup sequence
- Bash tool timeout does not kill the child: an orphaned grep reached 20 GB RSS and outlived both its timeout and its subagent
- Long-running background Bash tasks are SIGTERMed (exit 143) at unpredictable times during long interactive sessions
- Bundled ugrep allocates without bound on '.{0,80}X.{0,80}' — OOM'd a 16 GB machine from a 12-byte file
- Title: Background task reported exit 0 on OOM failure, Claude proceeded to push stale image to production ECR causing $250 of additional credit cost
- Remote-control session hangs forever mid-turn after connection drop (no stall detection on this path)
- Background tasks killed by bridge stopTask while session open in phone app (no user action)
- [BUG] Telegram channel plugin: starting a second session kills the running poller, leaving the channel permanently dead
- [BUG] Windows desktop app: unbounded memory growth with embedded sessions running parallel subagents — app hang / webview OOM at ~20 GB
- Orphaned wrapper shells accumulate and pin CPU (~1400%) after Bash calls containing shell loops with command substitution
- telegram plugin: leaks one 100%-CPU `bun server.ts` per session — SIGTERM, bot.pid eviction, and orphan watchdog are all defeated by a wedged event loop
- Image tool_results store base64 twice in the transcript and get re-measured every render frame: multi-MB lines hard-freeze sessions (100% CPU)
- Bundled ugrep exhausts all RAM+swap on a two-sided bounded-quantifier regex; injected `grep` shell function routes every grep into it
- Headless --resume/--fork-session reifies the entire session transcript in memory: 9-14x file size within seconds; 12.4 GB balloon OOM-killed a 16 GB host
- Idle TUI sessions burn 10–40% CPU when an animated element stays on screen
- Bundled ugrep (Bash `grep` shim) balloons to 14–16.6 GB RSS on bounded-repeat -o patterns that GNU grep handles in 3 MB — repeated OOM kills on a production box
- [BUG] 2.1.214 macOS: orchestrator session .jsonl deleted while <UUID>/subagents/ preserved — appears to reproduce #60368 (not retention)
- [BUG] CLI: claude --remote-control ... --resume <uuid> hangs indefinitely (no error, no exit) when local conversation exists but the Remote Control session has expired
- [BUG] Cowork VM hangs mounting Plan9 share during startup — deterministic, host-side, distinct from #76094
- [BUG] Interactive CLI silently exits after successful Bash tool result; session resumes normally
- Title: Mobile app: no response for ~7h overnight despite daemon staying alive
- [Bug] Workflow tool description misleads models under 'claude -p'; runtime SIGKILL leaves no terminal journal record
- [BUG] Idle VSCode sessions leave native-binary/claude child spinning at 100% CPU for days
- SIGKILL from macOS 24h disk-write budget mislabeled as "blocked by endpoint security" on unmanaged personal Mac (~2.1 GB launch write burst, Cowork VM pre-warm)
- [BUG] Agent ran an unsafe large recursive write to an ntfs3-mounted volume, triggering NTFS corruption and leaving the disk unmountable
- Extension host memory leak in Remote-WSL leads to renderer OOM crash
- Fullscreen renderer auto-disables itself on machines running many concurrent sessions (false boot-canary strikes)
- [BUG] Claude Code Crashing
- [BUG] Backgrounded Bash command killed by its timeout reports "completed (exit code 0)"
- [BUG] Background worker dispatcher spawns into critically low memory — low-memory guard is advisory and never gates user-initiated spawns
- Background Bash task (run_in_background) SIGTERM'd by harness stop path with no user action, correlated with macOS memory-pressure warning
- `claude -p` deadlocks at startup under launchd on 2.1.243 (2.1.241/2.1.240 fine) — stalls at `[STARTUP] Loading commands and agents`, 0% CPU, SIGTERM-immune; `SHELL=/bin/sh` (#78903) does not help
- [BUG] install.sh ignores the version argument for the binary it downloads, making rollback impossible when the latest build crashes