Remote Control fails with "/login" — embedded claude.ai webview stuck logged out, IndexedDB corruption, cookie wipe does not recover

Resolved 💬 3 comments Opened May 19, 2026 by PokemasterDG Closed May 19, 2026

Summary

/remote-control (and the new-chat Remote Control toggle) in Claude Desktop
fails with the toast "Remote Control failed to connect: /login". The
embedded claude.ai webview is parked at https://claude.ai/login?from=logout
and never re-authenticates, while Desktop's API OAuth token is valid and normal
chat works fine. Sign-out/in via Settings → Account and a manual storage wipe
both fail to recover.

Environment

  • macOS: 26.5 (build 25F71)
  • Hardware: MacBook Pro Mac14,6 / Apple M2 Max / 32 GB
  • Claude Desktop: 1.8089.0
  • Claude Code CLI: 2.1.143 (~/.local/bin/claude)
  • Mode: Running inside Claude Desktop local-agent / Cowork session
  • Env: ANTHROPIC_API_KEY unset; Desktop OAuth token cached and working

Repro

  1. In Claude Desktop, type /remote-control in chat (or use the Remote Control toggle on a new session).
  2. Error toast appears: "Remote Control failed to connect: /login".

Log evidence

~/Library/Logs/Claude/main.log:

[remote-control] bridge_state: failed — /login
Failed to toggle remote control for local_<uuid>: /login

~/Library/Logs/Claude/claude.ai-web.log:

topFrameUrl: 'https://claude.ai/login?from=logout'
[error] Eager bootstrap returned no data (logged out)
[error] ["account_profile"] data is undefined            (repeating)
[error] Uncaught (in promise) UnknownError: Internal error opening backing store for indexedDB.open.
[error] login_link_already_used — POST /api/auth/exchange_nonce_for_code  (400)

So the embedded claude.ai webview is logged out and IndexedDB is corrupt, even though the Desktop's API OAuth token is fine.

Remediation already tried (none recovered)

  1. Settings → Account → Sign Out, ⌘Q full quit, relaunch, sign back in.
  2. Quit Desktop and manually moved aside Cookies, Cookies-journal, Session Storage, Partitions from ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/ (backed up), relaunched.
  3. Confirmed ANTHROPIC_API_KEY is unset.

Notes

  • The localization file /Applications/Claude.app/Contents/Resources/en-US.json contains strings "Reset Application Data" / "Reset App Data…" (id eYYooZJ2Bs / ytEQo80lWc) with confirmation copy "This will delete all application data including settings, cache, and login information. The application will restart after the reset." — but this command is not present in the Settings UI on build 1.8089.0. Either it's Developer-Mode gated or regressed.
  • Related but not exact duplicates: #57715 (stale bridge), #48238 (/remote-control init failure on v2.1.108), #22685 (login loop), #30093 (bridge poll 401).

Asks

  1. How should a user recover the embedded claude.ai webview session when it gets into this state, without manually deleting storage?
  2. Where is Reset App Data… supposed to be exposed in 1.8089.0? Is it Developer-Mode-only?
  3. Is there a way to surface a sign-in prompt for the webview specifically (separate from the Desktop account)?

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