Desktop v1.8555.2 (macOS) crashes ~30s after launch during CCD `/stats` transcript scan on large session JSONL corpus

Summary

After updating the Claude desktop app to v1.8555.2 on macOS, the app launches successfully but crashes consistently ~30 seconds later. Logs show the crash occurs during a background [CCD] /stats scan of local Claude Code transcript files. With ~1095 .jsonl files totaling ~9.8 GB on disk (largest single file ~5.5 GB), the scanner appears to OOM rather than completing the scan.

The app is otherwise unusable for me. I'm a heavy Claude Code user (VS Code extension) and rely on the desktop app for non-coding chat / project-management textual work. I've fallen back to the web app meanwhile.

Environment

• App version: 1.8555.2 (auto-updated; previous version worked fine)
• macOS: Darwin 25.5.0 (Apple Silicon, arm64)
• Local transcript corpus under ~/.claude/projects/:
• 1095 .jsonl files / 9.8 GB total
• 1 × ~5.5 GB (current active VS Code extension session)
• 1 × ~2.8 GB (older session)
• 1 × ~313 MB
• 7 × ~80–100 MB (subagent transcripts)
• Remainder: small
• Claude Code surfaces in use: VS Code extension (heavy), desktop app (non-coding chat). I do not use Claude Code features inside the desktop app itself.

Steps to reproduce

1. Accumulate a multi-GB Claude Code transcript corpus under ~/.claude/projects/ (any heavy CLI / VS Code extension user will get there fast — single sessions can grow to multi-GB with large tool outputs persisted verbatim).
2. Update Claude desktop to v1.8555.2.
3. Launch the app.
4. Wait ~30s.

Result: app crashes. Reproducible across multiple launch attempts.

Diagnostic data

Last informative log line in ~/Library/Logs/Claude/main.log before the crash:

[CCD] /stats scanning 793/1095 transcript files since 2026-03-01

(Crash followed within a few seconds; progress counter never advances past this point in subsequent attempts either.)

A native crash dump was written to:

~/Library/Application Support/Claude/Crashpad/completed/<uuid>.dmp  (~1.9 MB)

I have not attached the dump because it may contain conversation content. Happy to share through a private channel if useful.

A Sentry event also fired during startup (before the scan; possibly unrelated):

[error] Sentry caught: { eventId: 'c3700b9e442d401c938aead4d2aa5c41',
                          type: 'Unknown', value: 'No message', stack: undefined }

Flagging in case it provides a correlation handle.

Hypothesis

The /stats CCD scanner appears to hold too much transcript data in memory while iterating files. Heavy Claude Code sessions legitimately reach multi-GB JSONL sizes (large tool outputs persist verbatim). A scanner that materializes file contents into the JS heap rather than streaming bounded summaries will OOM Electron's renderer or main process around the point we see in the log.

Suggested fixes (any one would unblock)

• Stream parsing with bounded memory for per-file summary stats; never materialize a whole file.
• Size-skip threshold: for files above some size (e.g., 500 MB), record a one-line \"transcript too large to summarize\" entry in the stats UI rather than scanning.
• User-facing opt-out to disable the /stats scan entirely for users who don't use Claude Code integration inside the desktop app (my use case).

Workaround

None applied. I have deliberately not moved/archived any transcript files because the active 5.5 GB JSONL is the current VS Code extension session and preserving its on-disk persistence is more important to me than the desktop app working. Using web app for desktop-app workflows in the meantime.

Severity

Desktop app is unusable for me on this machine. Workaround (web app) is available, so personal impact is medium. If many users with large session corpora hit this, broader impact could be higher.