[BUG] Installation failed Failed to fetch version from stable: AxiosError: timeout of 30000ms exceeded

This error also occurs when installing from npm on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

$ npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code
npm error code ETIMEDOUT
npm error syscall connect
npm error errno ETIMEDOUT
npm error network request to https://registry.npmjs.org/@anthropic-ai%2fclaude-code failed, reason: connect ETIMEDOUT 2606:4700::6810:322:443
npm error network This is a problem related to network connectivity.
npm error network In most cases you are behind a proxy or have bad network settings.
npm error network
npm error network If you are behind a proxy, please make sure that the
npm error network 'proxy' config is set properly.  See: 'npm help config'
npm error A complete log of this run can be found in: /home/user/.npm/_logs/2025-12-22T13_50_32_477Z-debug-0.log

for my case the npm version worked immediately on Ubuntu 22 LTS, confirming it was not a network problem

for my case the npm version worked immediately on Ubuntu 22 LTS, confirming it was not a network problem

Same here.

I was having a similar issue, seems to be an IPv6 problem.

Try this to force IPv4

curl -4 -fsSL https://claude.ai/install.sh | bash

for me, it was when it was running the downloaded ~/.claude/downloads/claude-2.1.9-linux-x64 for the final part of the install, and Cisco CSA VPN was interfering.

Likely due to IPv6 not being available on your side and missing IPv4 fallback in the script

dev@machine:~$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID:	Ubuntu
Description:	Ubuntu 22.04.1 LTS
Release:	22.04
Codename:	jammy


dev@machine:~$ curl -fsSL https://claude.ai/install.sh | bash
Setting up Claude Code...

✘ Installation failed                        

Failed to fetch version from https://storage.googleapis.com/claude-code-dist-86c565f3-f756-42ad-8dfa-d59b1c096819/claude-code-releases/latest: timeout of 30000ms exceeded

I was able to fix it for me (thanks Claude code for helping me fixing the Claude code installer):

# disable IPv6
sudo sysctl -w net.ipv6.conf.all.disable_ipv6=1
sudo sysctl -w net.ipv6.conf.default.disable_ipv6=1

After this the script worked and I could enabled the config again:

sudo sysctl -w net.ipv6.conf.all.disable_ipv6=0
sudo sysctl -w net.ipv6.conf.default.disable_ipv6=0

Btw this was the feedback Claude suggested:

For a CLI installer designed for broad usage, network robustness should be a priority. An --ipv4 flag or an internal fallback would not be a huge effort and would save many users the trouble of debugging. It's fair to communicate that — factually, but clearly.

@timkalkus nice! Claude is both polite and sensible about Claude's recommendation for how to fix the Claude installer. We should have asked Claude sooner.

For anyone still hitting this: a cleaner fix than disabling IPv6 entirely is to tell the system resolver to prefer IPv4 when both are available:

echo 'precedence ::ffff:0:0/96 100' | sudo tee -a /etc/gai.conf

This is a permanent, one-line fix. No need to toggle IPv6 on and off.

Why this works: The root cause (as several commenters identified) is that Bun/Node resolves storage.googleapis.com to an IPv6 address, but the IPv6 path is broken — the connection either times out or gets refused, depending on the network setup. Meanwhile curl works fine because it often tries IPv4 first by default.

The gai.conf line sets a higher precedence for IPv4-mapped addresses (::ffff:0:0/96), so getaddrinfo() returns IPv4 (A records) before IPv6 (AAAA records). This fixes the installer, claude update, and any other Bun-based HTTP requests to GCS, without disabling IPv6 system-wide.

nice to see it work on linux. now, i guess fixing the install script as pointed out by @seanGSISG should be the way to go because we're seeing this on macos, too, using the mise package manager:

> mise use -g claude-code@latest
claude-code@2.1.74     install                                                              ◜
mise ERROR Failed to install aqua:anthropics/claude-code@latest: Http backend requires 'url' option
mise ERROR Run with --verbose or MISE_VERBOSE=1 for more information

Neither @timkalkus solution of disabling IP6 nor @yuxi-liu-wired solution of setting precedence worked for me. Running Ubuntu 24.04.4 LTS via WSL.
I still get

✘ Installation failed

Failed to fetch version from
https://storage.googleapis.com/claude-code-dist-86c565f3-f756-42ad-8dfa-d59b1c096819/claude-code-releases/latest:
timeout of 30000ms exceeded

even though a direct curl download works