[BUG] Claude Desktop app crashes immediately when clicking </> Code tab (v1.2773.0, macOS 26.3.1, M4)

Related to #47644 (same root cause, different trigger tab). Also related to #48261 (V8 OOM on macOS 26.3.1) and #40540 (Desktop App SDK flag incompatibility).

same problem here on Apple M4 Pro, 12 cores (8P + 4E), 24 GB RAM, ARM64

✅ Resolved — root cause identified

Root cause: Oversized transcript files in ~/.claude/projects/ causing the Code tab to crash on startup during the [CCD] /stats scanning phase.

In my case:

• ~/.claude/ was 3.1 GB total
• One transcript file alone was 1.9 GB (Planning-OPS project)
• Two others were 145 MB and 118 MB

The Code tab scans all transcript files at launch. When it hit these multi-GB files, the app crashed silently every time.

Fix (credit to @lakhanivivek in #48281):

# Check total size
du -sh ~/.claude/

# Find oversized transcripts
find ~/.claude -name "*.jsonl" -size +100M -exec du -sh {} \; | sort -rh

# Archive them (quit Claude Desktop first)
mkdir -p ~/Desktop/claude_transcripts_archive
mv ~/.claude/projects/<large-project-folder>/ ~/Desktop/claude_transcripts_archive/

After archiving, ~/.claude/ went from 3.1 GB to 869 MB. Relaunched the app → Code tab works normally.

Note: All the other troubleshooting I did earlier (Keychain reset, VM bundle re-download, plugin uninstall, Session Storage purge) was unnecessary — the transcript size was the only real issue.

Related: #48281, #47644, #48261

On Windows 11 Pro, Claude Desktop 1.3109.0 — crash is not triggered by ~/.claude/projects transcript count as hypothesized. Isolated the trigger to ~/.claude/file-history (569 files). Moving that directory aside resolves the crash; projects can remain populated with 277+ files. Log shows /stats scanning N/N completes before crash, suggesting the failure is in file-history loading, not transcript scanning.

same problem (macos 26.3.1 (a) (25D771280a) on Macbook Pro M5. Claude Version 1.3109.0 (35cbf6). Resolved with this root cause identified. (y)

I'm reproducing it on macOS 26.4.1, Apple Silicon, on MacBook Pro M5. Claude Version 1.3109.0 (35cbf6). 100% of the time when clicking the Code tab, clearing session storage is the only recovery.

Same issue on v1.3109.0, macOS. Logs attached

claude-bug.zip

Still reproduces after today's update.

• Claude Desktop version: [run: mdls -name kMDItemVersion /Applications/Claude.app]
• macOS: [Apple menu → About This Mac]
• Hardware: M4 MacBook Pro
• Repro: Open app → Chat works → Cowork works → click </> Code tab → app crashes silently within seconds
• CLI Claude Code in Terminal: works fine
• Started: after April 13 outage, persisted through full state wipe + reinstall + today's update

Still reproduces after the April 25, 2026 update.

Environment:

• Claude Desktop: 1.4758.0
• macOS: 26.4.1 (build 25E253)
• Hardware: MacBook Pro, Apple M4
• Claude Code CLI: 2.1.119 (matches bundled version, ruled out as version mismatch)

Behavior:

• Chat tab: works
• Cowork tab: works (50 historical sessions intact after a manual restore)
• </> Code tab: window closes silently within seconds of clicking; the main

Claude process appears to remain alive afterward

• No Crashpad dump generated (Crashpad/completed/ is empty)
• No DiagnosticReports entry
• log show --predicate 'process == "Claude"' captures normal pasteboard

and window activity with no Error-level entries around the crash event

• Suggests a renderer-process exit or unhandled JS error rather than a

process-level fault

• Claude Code CLI in Terminal: fully functional, unaffected

Persisted through:

• Full ~/Library/Application Support/Claude wipe and reinstall
• The April 23 update
• Today's update to 1.4758.0

claude-crash-log.txt

• Re-authentication

System log attached: claude-crash-log.txt

Same issue on macOS, Apple Silicon. Still reproduces after recent updates.

Environment:

• Claude Desktop: [FILL IN — Claude menu → About Claude]
• macOS: [FILL IN — Apple menu → About This Mac]
• Hardware: MacBook, Apple Silicon (darwin-arm64)
• Claude Code CLI: 2.1.119 (native install, matches bundled version)

Behavior:

• Chat tab: works
• Cowork tab: works
• </> Code tab: window closes silently within seconds of clicking
• Claude Code CLI in Terminal: fully functional, unaffected

What I tried (none of which fixed the crash):

• Full wipe of ~/Library/Application Support/Claude and ~/Library/Caches/Claude, then relaunch (app recreated them cleanly)
• Updated Claude Desktop to the latest available version
• Ran claude doctor — surfaced two parallel CLI installations:
• native at ~/.local/bin/claude (2.1.119)
• npm-global leftover at /usr/local/bin/claude
• Removed the npm-global leftover with sudo npm -g uninstall @anthropic-ai/claude-code
• Re-ran claude doctor: clean state, only native install remaining, no warnings (Multiple installations found and Leftover npm global installation both gone)
• Relaunched the Desktop app — </> Code tab still crashes silently

Possibly useful as a negative finding: a parallel npm-global / native CLI install is not the root cause. Removing the npm-global leftover and keeping only the native install (verified clean via claude doctor) does not resolve the crash on the Code tab. Worth ruling out for anyone else triaging this — the CLI install state appears to be independent of the renderer-side crash.

Same crash on macOS 26.2, Apple Silicon, Claude Desktop v[deine Version].
Stack trace from --disable-gpu attempt:

Error: GPU access not allowed
at Object.processEvent (/Applications/Claude.app/Contents/Resources/app.asar/.vite/build/index.pre.js:28:15080)
at Wg.Object.assign.id (.../index.pre.js:13:16416)
at mB (.../index.pre.js:27:886)

Code-Tab crashes ~1-2 seconds after Loading state completes, before any user input.
Reinstall did not help.

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