Cowork device bridge (remote-devices) stuck in "failed" state even after reconnecting a folder

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Maintainer reply None cached
Activity 0 comments · opened Aug 24, 2026

Environment: Windows desktop app, Cowork session

Summary:
The cloud-session device bridge to the local computer ("remote-devices" MCP server) reported connection status "failed" / "not_connected" and stayed that way even after taking the documented workaround from #86647 (re-adding/reconnecting a folder via "Add folder" mid-session).

Steps to reproduce:

  1. Start a Cowork session with folders already connected via the project (e.g. two folders under a project in the desktop app).
  2. Ask Claude to list/read files in those folders.
  3. Session reports the remote-devices server connection state as "failed" (tool refresh shows not_connected, error: "server connection state is 'failed'").
  4. User adds/reconnects an additional folder from the desktop app mid-session (per the workaround described in #86647).
  5. Session still reports the remote-devices connection as "failed" — reconnecting the folder does not restore the underlying bridge connection.

Expected: Reconnecting a folder (or having a folder already connected in the project) should restore/establish a working device-bridge connection so file tools function.

Actual: The MCP server connection itself remains in a "failed" state; folder-level reconnection doesn't fix it. No user-facing error was shown in the app — the failure was only visible via internal tool diagnostics.

Related: #86647 (similar symptom — folder shown connected but session has no access — but that workaround didn't resolve this case)

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