[BUG] Claude CLI 1.0.96 randomly/predictably freezes on Windows - affects all commands, persists across sessions

Found 3 possible duplicate issues:

1. https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/6705
2. https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/6757
3. https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/6796

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🤖 Generated with Claude Code

My agent is outing me as a summary to my investigation. Don't give me the eye rolls for my conversation sizes. They have worked for me so far ;)

Follow-up: Confirmed Reproduction with Additional Details

I can confirm this exact issue on Windows with Claude Code 1.0.96. After investigating what I initially thought was a conversation size problem, I've isolated this to be a 100% reproducible bug with specific commands.

Environment Details

• Claude CLI version: 1.0.96 (npm installation via @anthropic-ai/claude-code)
• Operating System: Windows 11
• Terminal: PowerShell (both built-in and external)
• Installation method: npm global install
• nvvm used and powershell runs npm via npm.ps1

Reproduction Steps - 100% Reliable

Method 1: claude doctor (Always hangs)

``` powershell
claude doctor

Output: "Checking installation status..."

--> Immediate hang, no further output

--> Completely unresponsive to Ctrl+C, Ctrl+Break (vs code terminal, pwsh Ctrl+Break goes to powershell debug and I can 'exit')

--> Requires taskkill /f /im node.exe

### Method 2: claude --resume (Always hangs after conversation cleanup)
```powershell
claude --resume
# --> Hangs during conversation loading/processing
# --> No output, completely frozen
# --> Same behavior: unresponsive to interrupt signals

Key Observations

1. Not conversation-size related: Initially suspected large conversation files (I had some 11MB+ transcripts), but after archiving ALL conversations to leave only fresh/small ones, the hang persists identically.
2. Process behavior: When hung, the node.exe process shows:

• High CPU usage (sustained)
• Memory consumption continues to grow
• No response to standard interrupt signals
• Only recoverable via force kill

1. Session state corruption: After a hang occurs, subsequent claude --resume attempts hang immediately, suggesting persistent state corruption as reported in the original issue.
2. Clean claude works: Fresh interactive sessions (claude with no flags) work normally, confirming the issue is specific to diagnostic/resume code paths.

Additional Context

This appears to be an infinite loop in the diagnostic/health check systems rather than a network or configuration issue. The fact that both claude doctor and claude --resume trigger the same hang suggests they share common code paths for system validation or conversation processing.
The Windows-specific nature aligns with the original report - this seems to be a regression in recent versions affecting Windows process/file handling during these specific operations.

Workaround (not really)

So far, using claude (fresh sessions only) and avoiding --resume and doctor commands entirely. Suspect this would be short lived.
This confirms the critical nature of this regression - these are core diagnostic and workflow features that are completely broken on Windows 11 in 1.0.96.

I would add that it is both claude -r and -c (I guess -c is a subset of -r, but just being padantic)

I would add that it is both claude -r and -c (I guess -c is a subset of -r, but just being padantic)

I'm not entirely sure how it all works (I should probably read the source code at some point). It definitely has to do with a scan of the current conversations, and something that --resume does automatically (maybe to build a summary to present to the user in the resume function?). It's why I cleaned out the conversation history as a first step. I thought something in them was causing the failure until I tried to resume a previous conversation after doing some fixes and testing.

(I should probably read the source code at some point)

I didn't think the source code for claude code was available. Have I been sleeping on this?

claude doctor has been resolved as of 1.0.98

For continue / resume - can you confirm your %UserProfile%\.claude.json is well-formed? Do you see any relevant-looking errors when running with flag --debug or env var ANTHROPIC_LOG=debug?

Testing .98, seems better so far.... claude doctor working now. Will report back if it seems resolved in the less predictable situations.

@ant-kurt Unfortunately I can get it to hang still using claude -c. Nothing in --debug stands out. A failing MCP server is only issue but unrelated, far as I can tell. %UserProfile%\.claude.json is verified well-formed JSON.

Version: 1.0.98

Anything else I can do to help debug?

@ant-kurt Following up, seems pressing ENTER does cause it to become interactive again as per a mention by UsernameZero from earlier (which I strangely don't see anymore, but is in my email).

I deleted my earlier comment because I initially thought it wasn’t relevant, but it turns out it does provide a usable workaround. Reposting for clarity:

When you run claude -r, you need to press ENTER afterwards for the session picker to become responsive.

I’m not sure if the same applies to other commands, but this behavior seems specific to Windows PowerShell/Terminal.

I encountered this on MacOS, too. It looks like I got stuck on version 1.0.96. I upgraded to latest (1.0.109) via:

curl -fsSL https://claude.ai/install.sh | bash

and the issue was resolved

Getting this on my Windows 11 desktop, but not on a very similarly configured Windows 11 laptop. claude -c will often hang without any way of getting out of it. claude alone always works fine. claude -r seems to work when I enter return, but I think it wasn't yesterday, not sure anymore.

I installed it both with node and with bun, and I think it was worse and harder to get out of with bun. So staying with node for now. I looked with procmon, and it was doing things, trying to create files, etc. while it was hung.

Also when it is hung the mouse cursor disappers when you hit a key, and then comes back after awhile, so some key processing is going on, but the keys pressed never appear and you can't actually do anything.

Using 1.0.109 today which has it. It started when I upgraded 1.0.72 to 1.0.9x - can't remember exactly.

Happens on Windows Terminal, but I also tried it using the old Windows Console Host, and there was no difference.

Also tried deleting all my settings, conversations, etc. Didn't help.

I deleted my earlier comment because I initially thought it wasn’t relevant, but it turns out it does provide a usable workaround. Reposting for clarity: When you run claude -r, you need to press ENTER afterwards for the session picker to become responsive. I’m not sure if the same applies to other commands, but this behavior seems specific to Windows PowerShell/Terminal.

This also fixed it for me with claude -c

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