[BUG] Intermittent terminal rendering corruption in VS Code (text selection forces a partial re-render)

Found 3 possible duplicate issues:

1. https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/59553
2. https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/59546
3. https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/59401

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🤖 Generated with Claude Code

Maybe related. I posted repro steps in #59163: switching macOS Spaces
and coming back to the terminal. Same VSCode integrated terminal,
claude 2.1.143.

One extra data point for the selection/repaint behavior you describe:
I am a Korean user, so my buffer has mix of English and Hangul. After
the bug hits, dragging to force repaint recovers English text mostly,
but Korean only partially. Looks like CJK / wide chars get worse cache
corruption than ASCII. Fullscreen mode doesn't avoid the bug either.

Environment

• OS: Windows 11 Pro
• VS Code: version 1.120.0
• Claude Code

Symptoms
Claude Code output in the VS Code integrated terminal intermittently becomes garbled. Latin characters are replaced with fallback glyphs, but layout, colours, and Claude Code UI elements (boxes, status indicators, the accept edits on … footer, the recap header) all render correctly. Consistent with a glyph cache / texture atlas issue rather than malformed output from Claude Code.

Key diagnostic — matches OP
Clicking and dragging to select the garbled region forces a partial repaint and the text becomes readable again. This reproduces reliably on the corrupted output, so the underlying byte stream from Claude Code is correct — only the rendered glyph cache is bad.

Trigger observations on my side

• Intermittent, no deterministic trigger I can pinpoint
• also during short sessions

Workaround that does help

• Selecting the garbled text (as noted above)

Screenshot attached.

<img width="1602" height="387" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/c1589205-8cb6-4307-96ee-591b312004b7" />

+1 face the same issue frequently!

+1 face same issue

+1 !

VS Code, Win 11, Claude Code v2.1.145 - impossible to work

+1
Mac, VS Code, 2.1.146 (Claude Code)
Started occurring after installing the superpowers plugin, although it's most probably not related.

+1

VS Code, macOS Tahoe 26.5, 2.1.146 (Claude Code)

I am also affected:

<img width="674" height="158" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/1b446fe4-2031-40a6-99b4-ac8b6d921f44" />

VS Code v1.121.0, macOS Tahoe 26.5, Claude Code v2.1.146, zsh 5.9 (arm64-apple-darwin25.0)

This was originally reported in #59163, but was closed as it could be resolved by switching to another monitor (GPU issue, not Claude Code) - however I'm back in the issues tab as I am still seeing this problem with Claude Code 2.1.148 and it is not always solvable by moving to another monitor (which does work in most cases)

Confirming on the latest release, 2.1.150 — reports here stop around 2.1.146–2.1.148, so a newer data point: still not fixed. Version is visible in-frame via claude --version in screenshot 1.

Screenshot 2 confirms the select-to-repaint behavior this issue is about: same frame, text selected → redraws clean, with a few lines left unselected at the top still corrupted. The buffer is intact; it's the glyph-atlas mis-render described above.

<!-- DRAG SCREENSHOT 1 HERE -->
<img width="1076" height="1918" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/99cd4dfa-32b4-4d62-82ee-94c6c245155b" />
<!-- DRAG SCREENSHOT 2 HERE -->
<img width="1084" height="1919" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/40cfee1d-f0af-4d55-a8ad-99ff0a85cf50" />

Why this is a Claude Code regression, not purely upstream (re: the reasoning that closed #59163):

• Clean on 2.1.140, first appears on 2.1.141, still broken on 2.1.150. Downgrading Claude Code to 2.1.140 fixes it with no VS Code change — a purely upstream xterm.js/WebGL bug wouldn't respond to a Claude Code downgrade.
• 2.1.141 is when the amber spinner warm-up landed (the spinner warms to amber after ~10s of thinking — rapid per-cell color churn). The corrupted glyphs themselves render in that amber/yellow tone, consistent with the spinner's color churn poisoning the color-keyed glyph-atlas slots.
• Already half-acknowledged: the 2.1.144 changelog — "Reduced terminal rendering glitches in VS Code by reducing spinner animation color count" — names spinner color count as a driver. The reduction wasn't enough.

So even if the mis-render lives in xterm.js, Claude Code triggers it and can mitigate it further, as 2.1.144 began to. Please keep this tracked on the Claude Code side rather than deferring it entirely upstream.

Workaround

Downgrade to the last clean version, 2.1.140:

claude install 2.1.140 --force

Then pin it so the auto-updater doesn't bump you back, in ~/.claude/settings.json:

{
  "env": {
    "DISABLE_UPDATES": "1",
    "DISABLE_AUTOUPDATER": "1"
  }
}

2.1.150 · Windows 11 · VS Code integrated terminal (ConPTY) · PowerShell 7.6.1

Aside from reverting to 2.1.140, another workaround that people have reported success with is to disable GPU acceleration for VS Code's terminal, by setting terminal.integrated.gpuAcceleration to off (see linked issues).

I assume doing this will likely have some impact on performance and battery life.

edit: 2 weeks later, I can confirm that making this change has prevented the issue from recurring for me; I have not seen garbled text again since disabling GPU acceleration. This is still a workaround, I certainly wouldn't call it a fix.

Workaround:

1. Resize the terminal width then it rerenders.
2. Sometimes that that doesn't work and then: Command Palette > Developer: Reload Window

+1

+1

1+

vscode://settings/terminal.integrated.gpuAcceleration
Disabling terminal gpu Acceleration fixed it for me

<img width="738" height="358" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/bfa9235c-1a5d-4548-91a6-1cc001df148d" />