Cowork session freezes during processing, leads to app crash (beach ball + force quit)

Description

A Cowork session stalled during the processing phase (agent was actively working, no user input expected). The UI showed a blinking cursor with no response for an extended period, then the entire Claude Desktop app became unresponsive (spinning beach ball). Had to force quit the app.

Environment

• macOS (Apple Silicon)
• Claude Desktop (latest as of 2026-02-10)
• Cowork mode

Steps to Reproduce

1. Open a Cowork session with a project that has multiple MCP servers connected (3+)
2. Give the agent a task that requires reading several project files and making multiple MCP calls in sequence
3. Agent begins processing — reading files, calling MCP tools
4. During processing: UI shows blinking cursor, then stops responding entirely
5. Spinning beach ball appears
6. App must be force quit

Expected Behavior

Agent completes processing and returns a response, or gracefully shows an error if resources are exhausted.

Actual Behavior

• Processing stalls (blinking cursor, no output)
• App becomes completely unresponsive
• Spinning beach ball
• Force quit required
• No error message or crash report shown

Additional Context

• The session involved multiple MCP servers (local and extension-based) being called during the processing phase
• Multiple file reads were happening as part of the agent's boot/setup routine
• This may be related to #22715 (VM memory limits in Cowork)
• The session had been running for ~10-15 minutes before the stall