[Bug] Ctrl+O verbose/transcript view freezes — new messages and agent responses don't render until toggled off
Summary
In Claude Code v2.1.119 on macOS, after toggling verbose/transcript view with Ctrl+O, the view appears to freeze:
- New user prompts and agent responses are not rendered while the transcript view is active.
- The agent does receive and process new messages — they're just invisible until you toggle Ctrl+O off.
- Toggling Ctrl+O off immediately reveals all the "missing" output.
This makes the verbose/transcript view effectively unusable for ongoing conversations: it looks frozen, but work is silently happening underneath.
Environment
- Claude Code: 2.1.119
- Model tested:
claude-haiku-4-5-20251001(launched with--model haiku) - macOS: 26.3.1 (build 25D771280a)
- Node: v24.12.0
- Shell: zsh
- Terminal: reproduced inside tmux 3.6a (TERM=tmux-256color); originally observed in a regular macOS terminal as well
Reproduction steps
- Launch Claude Code:
claude --model haikuin any directory. - Send a message, e.g.
say hi in one word. Confirm you get a response (Hi). - Press Ctrl+O. The footer changes to:
Showing detailed transcript · ctrl+o to toggle · ↑↓ scroll · [ to print output · v to open in vi
Existing messages now show a timestamp + model annotation (e.g. 12:36 PM claude-haiku-4-5-20251001).
- Send a new message, e.g.
count slowly from 1 to 5, one number per line. - Wait for the agent to finish (Haiku responds in a few seconds).
- Observe the transcript view: neither the new prompt nor the agent's response appears.
- Press Ctrl+O again to exit transcript view.
- The previously missing prompt and response are now visible in normal history.
Expected behavior
While transcript / verbose view is active, new user prompts and agent responses (including streaming output) should render in real time, the same way they do in normal view — just with the additional verbose annotations (timestamps, model, etc.).
Actual behavior
The transcript view behaves like a static snapshot taken at the moment Ctrl+O was pressed. Anything that happens afterward is hidden until you toggle Ctrl+O off, at which point the new content suddenly appears.
Additional notes
- Confirmed the agent is actually running while the view appears frozen — the response is fully present in history once Ctrl+O is toggled off.
- The current input prompt also seems to swallow keystrokes for viewer navigation (
↑↓,[,v) while in transcript view, which compounds the perception that the UI is unresponsive. (This may be intentional, but combined with the missing-render bug it makes verbose mode look completely dead.) - Possibly related but distinct issues: #46261 (Ctrl+E transcript toggle state mismatch on macOS), #40984 (Ctrl+O hides Claude questions), #48083 (Write tool diffs missing in verbose mode), #25980 (thinking blocks not shown in verbose).
Workaround
Toggle Ctrl+O off whenever you want to see new output, then optionally toggle back on to inspect it with verbose annotations.
This issue has 3 comments on GitHub. Read the full discussion on GitHub ↗