Telegram Channel plugin unstable: freezing, plugin disappearing, messages arriving intermittently

Description

The Telegram channel plugin (telegram@claude-plugins-official v0.0.4) is unstable in long-running --channels sessions. Three recurring issues:

1. Plugin freezes silently

The plugin:telegram:telegram MCP shows "connected" in /mcp, but stops processing inbound messages. No error output, no crash — just silent freeze. Requires full restart to recover.

2. Plugin disappears from MCP list

After running for some time, the Telegram plugin vanishes from the active MCP server list entirely. The claude --channels process is still running, but the plugin is no longer registered. Messages stop arriving completely.

3. Messages arrive intermittently

Even when the plugin appears connected, messages from Telegram are delivered inconsistently — some arrive immediately, some arrive late, some never arrive at all.

Environment

• OS: Windows 11 Home 10.0.26100
• Claude Code: Latest (CLI mode)
• Plugin: telegram@claude-plugins-official v0.0.4 (Bun + grammY)
• Launch method: claude --channels "plugin:telegram@claude-plugins-official" via PowerShell 7.6.0 script with auto-retry loop
• Session type: Long-running (auto-starts at login, retries on exit)

Additional context

We've built a robust auto-restart script (start-channels.ps1) that kills zombie bun.exe processes between retries, prevents system sleep, and detects duplicate instances. Despite this, the underlying plugin stability issues persist.

Known workarounds we've already applied:

• Never manually editing installed_plugins.json (must use claude plugins install/uninstall)
• Killing bun.exe between retries to prevent 409 Conflict errors
• Using PS7 instead of PS5.1 (UTF-8 encoding issues)
• No stderr redirect (kills TTY detection)

These workarounds help with startup reliability but don't fix the runtime instability (freezing, disappearing, intermittent messages).

Expected behavior

The Telegram channel plugin should maintain a stable connection for hours/days without freezing, disappearing, or dropping messages.

Actual behavior

Plugin degrades over time — freezes silently, disappears from MCP list, or delivers messages intermittently. Requires manual or scripted restart to recover.