[BUG] **Bug: Claude Desktop blank/white window on Windows — likely WinSock root cause**

Preflight Checklist

• [x] I have searched existing issues and this hasn't been reported yet
• [x] This is a single bug report (please file separate reports for different bugs)
• [x] I am using the latest version of Claude Code

What's Wrong?

Bug: Claude Desktop blank/white window on Windows — likely WinSock root cause

Frequency: Multiple times per day
OS: Windows 11
Recovery: Kill all Claude processes via Task Manager, relaunch

Description:
Claude Desktop (and Cowork) repeatedly shows a blank/white window, requiring a full process kill to recover. This happens after minimize, focus switch, or any period where the window is not in the foreground.

Suspected root cause: WinSock handle exhaustion / unresponsive state

Electron uses Chromium's network stack which sits on top of WinSock. WinSock handles can enter a broken state where they neither deliver data nor close cleanly — the renderer then waits indefinitely for a response that never arrives, resulting in the blank window.

This would explain why:

• The issue appears almost exclusively on Windows (Linux/macOS use POSIX sockets — epoll/kqueue — which don't have this problem)
• The process is still alive and consuming CPU/RAM (Claude is working in the background)
• A full process kill + relaunch fixes it (resets the socket state)
• Simply refocusing or resizing does not fix it

Suggested fix:
Use I/O Completion Ports (IOCP) consistently for Chromium's network layer on Windows, or implement socket health checks with automatic reconnection instead of waiting indefinitely.

netsh winsock reset + reboot also clears the condition, further supporting WinSock as root cause.

Related issues: #25929, #21803, #3592, #2230

What Should Happen?

Bug: Claude Desktop blank/white window on Windows — likely WinSock root cause

Frequency: Multiple times per day
OS: Windows 11
Recovery: Kill all Claude processes via Task Manager, relaunch

Description:
Claude Desktop (and Cowork) repeatedly shows a blank/white window, requiring a full process kill to recover. This happens after minimize, focus switch, or any period where the window is not in the foreground.

Suspected root cause: WinSock handle exhaustion / unresponsive state

Electron uses Chromium's network stack which sits on top of WinSock. WinSock handles can enter a broken state where they neither deliver data nor close cleanly — the renderer then waits indefinitely for a response that never arrives, resulting in the blank window.

This would explain why:

• The issue appears almost exclusively on Windows (Linux/macOS use POSIX sockets — epoll/kqueue — which don't have this problem)
• The process is still alive and consuming CPU/RAM (Claude is working in the background)
• A full process kill + relaunch fixes it (resets the socket state)
• Simply refocusing or resizing does not fix it

Suggested fix:
Use I/O Completion Ports (IOCP) consistently for Chromium's network layer on Windows, or implement socket health checks with automatic reconnection instead of waiting indefinitely.

netsh winsock reset + reboot also clears the condition, further supporting WinSock as root cause.

Related issues: #25929, #21803, #3592, #2230

Error Messages/Logs

Steps to Reproduce

Using clode intensivly, and than do nothing for 2-3 hours. when coming back--> blank screen

Claude Model

None

Is this a regression?

No, this never worked

Last Working Version

_No response_

Claude Code Version

2.1.78

Platform

Anthropic API

Operating System

Windows

Terminal/Shell

Terminal.app (macOS)

Additional Information

_No response_