Claude Desktop freezes periodically on macOS 26.4 (Tahoe)

Description

Claude Desktop becomes unresponsive periodically. The main Electron process spikes to 100% CPU and the UI freezes completely. Requires force-quit (killall -9 Claude) to recover, but the freeze recurs after relaunch.

Environment

• macOS: 26.4 (Build 25E246)
• Chip: Apple M4 Max
• RAM: 36 GB
• Claude Desktop version: 1.1.8629
• Install method: Homebrew cask

Steps to reproduce

1. Launch Claude Desktop
2. Use the app normally
3. After some time, the UI becomes unresponsive

What I've tried (none resolved the issue)

• Force-quit and relaunch
• Clearing vm_bundles, claude-code-vm, Cache, Code Cache directories
• Full reset of ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/
• Force reinstall via brew install --cask --force claude
• Launching with --disable-gpu
• Disabling hardware acceleration in Preferences
• Disabling scheduled background tasks in config

Diagnostics

• sample of the frozen process shows the main thread stuck in the Electron/V8 event loop processing a callback
• When frozen, ps aux shows the main Claude process at 100% CPU in R (running) state
• Memory usage stays low (~0.8%), so this is not a memory pressure issue
• Zombie processes from previous launches sometimes persist and interfere with new launches
• The freeze is intermittent — the app works for a short time before becoming unresponsive again

Sample stack trace (while frozen)

Thread_105033 DispatchQueue_223
  start (in dyld)
    ElectronMain (in Electron Framework)
      ...
        -[NSApplication run] (in AppKit)
          _CFRunLoopRunSpecificWithOptions (in CoreFoundation)
            __CFRunLoopDoSources0
              → stuck in V8 callback chain (JIT code, no symbols)