v2.1.89: scrollback history lost in terminal (Ghostty)
Resolved 💬 18 comments Opened Apr 1, 2026 by Porter-dm Closed Apr 17, 2026
💡 Likely answer: A maintainer (claude[bot], contributor)
responded on this thread — see the highlighted reply below.
Description
After upgrading to v2.1.89, terminal scrollback history is lost during a session. Responses from Claude disappear from the scrollable buffer before they can be fully read. In some cases, a response is already gone from the visible window before the user finishes reading it.
Downgrading to v2.1.87 resolves the issue — full scrollback is preserved as expected.
Environment
- Claude Code version (broken): 2.1.89
- Claude Code version (working): 2.1.87
- Terminal: Ghostty (default scrollback-limit of 10,000,000 lines)
- OS: macOS (Darwin 25.1.0)
- Shell: zsh
Steps to reproduce
- Install
@anthropic-ai/claude-code@2.1.89 - Start a session in Ghostty
- Have a multi-turn conversation
- Try scrolling up — earlier messages are missing from the scrollback buffer
Expected behavior
All session output should remain in the terminal's scrollback buffer, as it does in v2.1.87.
Workaround
Downgrade to v2.1.87:
npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code@2.1.87
18 Comments
Same issue here — confirming this is cross-platform, not limited to Ghostty/macOS.
Environment:
Impact:
Scrollback is completely gone. Earlier conversation output — code diffs, tool results, prior messages — disappears
from the buffer and can't be scrolled to. This is a significant workflow disruption for longer sessions where you
need to reference earlier output.
The suggested alternatives (Ctrl+O transcript viewer, Esc+Esc rewind) are functional but not equivalent to native
terminal scrolling. Scrollback is a fundamental terminal behavior that every other CLI tool preserves.
Confirmed: Downgrading to v2.1.87 restores normal scrollback behavior.
Would love to see this prioritized — it affects usability across platforms and terminals.
https://t.me/+t_ed3b95DqczNmU1
Same issue. Ghostty 1.3.0, macOS Darwin 25.3.0, Claude Code v2.1.89.
During a session with low context usage (~10-15%), earlier messages suddenly disappear from scrollback. Scrolling to top only shows the last few exchanges. Not triggered by auto-compaction or terminal resize.
Subscribing for updates. Will stay on v2.1.89 and wait for the fix rather than downgrading.
Same here, OSx 2.1.89
It's a mess, it really is. It's doesn't even recover the history on a restart of the session with a resume. Hopeless.
Same here 2.1.90
Same here. Ghostty + macOS (Darwin 25.3.0), Claude Code v2.1.90.
Scrollback disappears randomly mid-session — not just at the top of the buffer, but chunks in the middle too. Long agent outputs (e.g. from the Agent tool returning a wall of research) are sometimes completely unreadable because the content above a certain point just vanishes. It's not tied to compaction or context limits — happens at low context usage.
Definitely a regression from ~2.1.87 era.
Also experiencing this on iTerm2 (not just Ghostty).
The terminal scrollback is completely wiped — no way to scroll up and see previous messages in the conversation.
Same: Ghostty, CC 2.1.90, macOS 26.4
They're iterating too quickly, new versions too frequently, no sense of stability.
Can we please just have a stable version that works and a beta or something?
Been noticing this for the last two days in VS Code terminal. It's been annoying, but just now it was actually kind of funny. I had Claude spawn twenty-five sub-agents to work on a task in parallel, and after the agents got spawned, I watched the number of agents slowly crawl down one by one until none were left. All that's left in my chat right now is the spinner, a timer, and a token count, even though the agents are still running.
<img width="918" height="302" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/04e7fe91-3a79-4fcb-a6fe-082f43f3502f" />
Thankfully remote control works and I'm able to see the active session on the remote control webpage!
@claude fix this
This is a regression that breaks usability. Context compaction clears the terminal scrollback buffer entirely, making it impossible to reference earlier messages or tool outputs during a session. The
terminal.integrated.scrollbackVS Code setting has no effect — the buffer is wiped by terminal escape sequences during compaction, not by overflow.Impact: Multi-turn sessions with subagents, large CLAUDE.md, MCP servers, and skills trigger compaction frequently. Each compaction erases all visible history, forcing users to re-derive context or dig through JSONL logs.
Request: Fix the compaction render path to stop clearing the terminal scrollback buffer. This worked correctly in earlier versions — users should not have to pin to 2.1.87 to keep their scroll history.
CLAUDE_CODE_NO_FLICKER=0 does NOT work for me in version 2.1.90.
This must be properly fixed !
Is this fixed? I think it depends on environments..
@claude
This regression has made me seriously consider switching to other agentic CLIs. Since Anthropic bans use of their paid plans with 3rd party tooling, I can't even take my subscription with me :(
This is a duplicate of #41814, which was fixed as of version 2.1.101.
This is a duplicate of #41814, which was fixed as of version 2.1.101.
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