Remote Control: iOS app drops connection on background/foreground, no auto-reconnect, no session cleanup

Resolved 💬 6 comments Opened Mar 1, 2026 by MikeBarta Closed Apr 18, 2026

Remote Control sessions between Claude Code CLI (Linux) and the Claude iOS app are unreliable when the phone app is backgrounded.

Behavior

  • Connection works fine while the Claude iOS app is in the foreground — messages flow both ways
  • Switching to another iOS app and returning to Claude kills the connection
  • The app still shows the session as "active" but responses stop flowing
  • Requires /remote-control disconnect + reconnect from the CLI to restore the session
  • After /clear in the terminal, the phone shows a zombie session — appears active but won't connect at all

Feature requests

  1. Auto-reconnect on foreground resume — when the iOS app returns from background, it should automatically restore the WebSocket connection without requiring CLI-side intervention
  2. Delete archived sessions — old/dead remote sessions accumulate in the iOS app's archive with no way to remove them
  3. Graceful /clear handling — clearing conversation in CLI should either update the remote view or cleanly disconnect it, not leave it in a zombie state

Environment

  • Claude Code CLI on Ubuntu Linux 6.17
  • Claude iOS app (latest) on iPhone
  • Same local WiFi network
  • Connection is local (not routed through external services)

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