Desktop app leaves orphaned child processes consuming 100% CPU

Resolved 💬 3 comments Opened Mar 29, 2026 by antonevteev1980-ux Closed Apr 2, 2026

Description

The Claude desktop app (v1.1.8629) does not properly terminate child claude processes when a session is closed. This results in orphaned processes running indefinitely at 100% CPU.

Reproduction

  1. Use Claude desktop app to start a Claude Code session (local agent mode)
  2. Close/leave the session
  3. The child claude process (Claude Code binary) continues running in the background at 100% CPU

Observed behavior

  • Orphaned process: claude (v2.1.78) with --resume flag, launched via desktop app
  • CPU usage: 100% constant
  • The process accumulated 1746 minutes (~29 hours) of CPU time over 3 days before being manually killed
  • kill <pid> (SIGTERM) was ignored — required kill -9 (SIGKILL) to terminate
  • Mac CPU temperature reached 90°C, dropped to 52°C after killing the process

Expected behavior

Child processes should be terminated when the parent session is closed. At minimum, the process should respond to SIGTERM gracefully.

Environment

  • macOS Darwin 25.3.0 (Apple Silicon)
  • Claude desktop app v1.1.8629
  • Claude Code v2.1.78

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